Science, Quickly

These marine mammals are very hard to observe, but in the past two decades the roughly 20 or so people in the world who study sperm whales have found some compelling evidence of culture among them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we’re going to look at how measles—a disease that was practically eliminated in the U.S.—has resurged in recent months, because people basically forgot how bad it was and got complacent about vaccines.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a professional astronomer—with a passion for amateur astrophotography—and she's here to offer tips and tricks for want to get into capturing the night sky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The feeling of a total solar eclipse is intense, and the sights, sensations and emotions can overwhelm you even if you think you know what's coming. And we sat down with Kate Russo, a psychologist, author and Eclipse Chaser, who's seen 13 total solar eclipses over the last 25 years, to talk about what to expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the discovery of new elements to the testing of novel theories of gravity, solar eclipses have helped spark scientific progress for centuries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eclipses can affect animals, and biologists are preparing to see what happens during totality on April 8. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI-generated art is creating new ethical issues—and competition—for digital artists. Nightshade and Glaze are two tools helping creators fight back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mucus is a miracle of evolution, and some researchers are trying to re-create what nature makes naturally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The slimy substance is so powerful that doctors once made hog stomach mucus milkshakes to treat ulcers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you take a journey into the depths of the slime all around us, you find yourself starting to understand that mucus is a miracle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Machine-learning algorithms allow composers to create all-new instruments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A quick nap can boost your memory, your mood and even your creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our space and physics editors go head-to-head over a classic mind-bending question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scientists have long wondered how baleen whales make their songs, and a new study has finally uncovered the anatomical workings behind their melodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, long dismissed by doctors, causes immune system dysfunction and other problems. But treatments are lacking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Epigenetics research reveals how famines can cause health problems later in life — and how these changes might be passed down to later generations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the African savanna, a single invasive ant species has upset the delicate balance between predator and prey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nose-plus-throat could increase test accuracy—but could create problems too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A newly-examined munch mark on a tibia has become a real pleistocene whodunit. By Natalia Raegan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent GWAS investigation on risk-taking and bisexuality made some assumptions that some experts don’t agree with. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A grassroots online movement has helped shift the way scientists think about asexuality. But much is still unknown. This is part four of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers once faced death threats for asking women what gives them pleasure. Now they’re helping individuals and couples figure it out themselves. Part three of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Research shows rough sex is becoming more common. Dominatrices are helping the general public catch up. Hosted by Meghan McDonough, this is part two of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part one of a four-part series on the science of pleasure, hosted by Meghan McDonough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Individual interventions for burnout don’t work. Researchers explain why. Hosted by Shayla Love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 8, we’re in for a treat. A total solar eclipse will be visible across a broad swath of North America, giving us a view of the edges of the sun as the moon passes in front of its face.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Portugal is one of the most vulnerable countries in Europe to climate change. Straddling the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic regions, it’s part of a climate change hot spot. Some of the biggest fuels are shrubs. One study found that shrubland covers 1.6 million hectares in Portugal—about 18 percent of the nation’s land area. And those shrubs are gaining ground. That’s because, for decades, people have been moving out of rural communities such as the one Tommy Ferreira lives in. Most leave to pursue better-paying jobs in the cities or in wealthier European Union countries. Portugal has lost 30 percent of its rural population since 1960. The same trend is occurring across the Mediterranean region. Abandoning these farmlands is increasing wildfire risk, according to an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report released last spring. When people who work the land leave it, grazing pastures and farm fields become thick with fuels. But these ancient Maronesa cattle can help solve both of these modern-day problems. It was a solution hiding in plain sight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the last decade, reports of UFO sightings have filled headlines and news broadcasts, and some of these have from a surprising place—the Pentagon. Former defense officials have made a number of claims about, and released videos of, strange sightings made by military pilots. These days, the objects are officially called “UAPs”—unidentified anomalous phenomena. But regardless of the new branding, Congress has demanded answers on them, especially after one former official this summer claimed that he believed that the U.S. possessed “nonhuman” spacecraft and possibly their “dead pilots.” We talk to the former intelligence official and physicist, Sean Kirkpatrick, who until December headed the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon office that Congress told to find some answers to all this. He recently published an op-ed in Scientific American called  "Here's What I Learned as the U.S. Government's UFO Hunter". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Experts are starting to plan for the moment when a quantum computer large enough to crack the backbone of the math that keeps things secret will be turned on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year, healthcare providers have tools to help prevent lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV for older adults.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s episode covers a topic that many parents-to-be have struggled with: fertility. In vitro fertilization offers a path to pregnancy for people fortunate enough to be able to access it. But predicting the success of an implanted embryo is hard. Now researchers are developing a test that could make it easier. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Papua New Guinea to the Andaman Islands, Indigenous languages are under threat. An Indian linguist helped preserve one language family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vaccination used against smallpox during the Civil War reveals the identity of the distantly related virus used to keep troops disease-free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Those that eat insects, migrate or usually live in the woods are most likely to fly into buildings that feature a lot of glass. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White-throated sparrows made a change to their familiar call that quickly spread across Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Silent Cities project is collecting sound from cities around the planet during the coronavirus pandemic to give researchers a database of natural sound in areas usually filled with human-generated noise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exposed to mildly warmer waters, some corals turn neon instead of bleaching white. The dramatic colors may help coax symbiotic algae back. Christopher Intagliata reports.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To entice female ring-tailed lemurs, males rub wrist secretions, which include compounds we use in perfumes, onto their tail and then wave it near the gals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They don’t stand on one leg around just anybody but often prefer certain members of the flock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bees infected with a virus cut back on interactions within their hive but find it easier to get past sentries at neighboring hives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here are a few brief reports about science and technology from around the planet, including one about what the eruption of Mount Vesuvius might have done to one ill-fated resident of Herculaneum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here are some “highlights” from the past 13.5 years of this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers studying yellow warbler responses to the parasitic cowbird realized that red-winged blackbirds were eavesdropping on the calls and reacting to them, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To make it in urban areas, birds tend to be either large-brained and able to produce few offspring or small-brained and extremely fertile. In natural habitats, most birds brains are of average size. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen in as I use two calculators to track the difference in numbers of infections over a short period of time, depending on how many people each infected individual infects on average. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The growth layers in a 70-million-year-old clam shell indicate that a year back then had more than 370 days, with each day being only about 23.5 hours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here are a few brief reports about science and technology from around the world, including one from off the California coast about the first heart rate measurement done on a blue whale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Increasing or decreasing the altitude of aircraft by a few thousand feet to avoid thin layers of humidity could make a major reduction to contrails’ contribution to climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hippos that escaped from drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s private zoo are reproducing in the wild. And with increasing numbers, they could threaten ecosystems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Art created by Australian Aboriginal people used organic carbon-free pigments, but wasp nests above or below the art can be used for radiocarbon dating that supplies boundaries for the age of artworks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new study in mice concludes stress can cause gray hair—and credits overactive nerves with the change in hue. Karen Hopkin reports.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A very fine grind can actually hamper espresso brewing, because particles may clump more than larger particles will. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most feral dogs that did not run away from humans were able to respond to hand cues about the location of food—even without training. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Neandertals ate clams and then modified the hard shells into tools for cutting and scraping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whiskeys claimed to be from the 19th century are revealed to be made with much more recently grown barley, thanks to the unique isotopic fingerprint of the nuclear-testing era.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well more than 100 distinct sign languages exist worldwide, with each having features that made it possible for researchers to create an evolutionary tree of their lineages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By listening to the sounds of the forest, biologists were able to identify an invasion of barred owls in spotted owl habitat. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mussels and crabs are two of the creatures most likely to invade Antarctica in the next 10 years, a panel of scientists say. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Soil bacteria may have taken residence in early algal species, gifting the algae with the ability to withstand drier conditions on land. Annie Sneed reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Murchison meteorite, which screamed to Earth 50 years ago, carried with it stardust that's seven billion years old. Christopher Intagliata reports.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scientists observed two Atlantic puffins using sticks to scratch themselves—the first known instance of seabirds using tools. Christopher Intagliata reports.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By comparing how DNA gets altered over the lifetimes of people and dogs, researchers came up with a new way to compare canine years with human years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tiger moth species that contain bad-tasting and toxic compounds are nonchalant in the presence of bats, while edible moth species evade their predators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In shallow waters off the coast of Israel, archaeologists have found entire villages—including one with a sunken seawall. Christopher Intagliata reports.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The fiber-optic cables that connect the global Internet could potentially be used as seismic sensors. Christopher Intagliata reports.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few brief reports about international science and technology from Mexico to Tanzania, including one about the need to quarantine bananas in Colombia that are potentially infected by a fungus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gerd Binnig shared The Kavli Prize in Nanoscience in 2016 for inventing the atomic force microscope. What transformative impact has this invention had on nanoscience? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researcher Matthew Austin has become a wildflower pollinator, sans the wings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A study makes the case for the new species based on its looks, genes and sounds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Human children: please take note of the behavior of prebirth zebra finches Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek made extraordinary observations of blood cells, sperm cells and bacteria with his microscopes. But it turns out the lens technology he used was quite ordinary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we bring you the fifth episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some dog population genetics show similarities to ours, such as in the ability to digest grains. But other lineages differ.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The wrinkle-faced bat covers its face with a flap of skin, seemingly as part of its courtship rituals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Horseflies misjudge landings on zebra patterns, compared with solid gray or black surfaces, which provides evidence for why evolution came up with the black-and-white pattern. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scientific American senior editor Mark Fischetti talks about how this election will affect environmental science and policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scientific American’s associate editor for sustainability Andrea Thompson talks about how climate science and policy will be affected by this election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Planners returned water to the dry bed of Arizona’s Santa Cruz River in 2019, and various species began showing up on the same day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers say three ancient leather balls, dug up from the tombs of horsemen in northwestern China, are the oldest such specimens from Europe or Asia. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers determined that Greenland is on track to lose more ice this century than during any of the previous 120 centuries. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here are some brief reports about science and technology from all over, including one from Israel about what DNA reveals about the Dead Sea Scrolls’ parchment.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hyraxes, which live in Africa and the Middle East, punctuate their songs with snorts. And the snorts appear to reflect the animals’ emotional state. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here are some brief reports about science and technology from all over, including one from Antarctica about how there’s something funny about penguin poop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Butterflies, fish and frogs sport rear-end eyespots that reduce predation. Painting eye markings on cows similarly seems to ward off predators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rather than undergoing active chameleonlike color changes, glass frogs’ translucency allows light to bounce from their background and go through them—making their apparent color close to their setting.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Art museums are filled with centuries-old paintings with details of plants that today give us clues about evolution and breeding practices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you “anxious,” “avoidant” or “disorganized?” So-called attachment styles have taken the Internet by storm. But it turns out there’s a lot more to unpack than people think.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Shayla Love dives into the true story behind the now infamous 36 questions that lead to love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Florida manatees are “talking” up a storm, and a team that has been recording those sounds for seven years is starting to understand the chatter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The small rodents are one of the few known monogamists in the wild—and their faithfulness was put to the test in a lab. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might not think that you can generate more body acceleration than a big-league baseball pitcher, but new research shows you can. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The painter described falling into the briefest of slumbers to refresh his mind. Now scientists have shown the method is effective at inducing creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New research uses night vision to see how nocturnal bees navigate the dark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new study used machine learning on 6 million Danish people to "autocomplete" their life trajectories –— and when they might kick the bucket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode, we want to talk about some of the current challenges with using home COVID tests. When you first have symptoms, a change in how your body reacts to the virus could lead to a test result showing you’re negative when you’re actually infected.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all have our tricks for sobering up after a night of drunken revelry: maybe a pot of black coffee or an ice-cold shower. But for mice in a certain lab in Texas, all it takes is a shot. No, not more alcohol—it’s an injection of a hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21, or FGF21.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine for a moment that you’re a very hungry bird soaring over 30-foot ocean swells in high winds, with no land for thousands of miles. How do you know where you’re going? If you’re a wandering albatross, you listen. But listen to what, exactly? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices