Competition between older female orcas and their adult daughters when they can breed simultaneously may cause the matriarch to enter menopause. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Researchers think Mars may have experienced a series of climate cycles, which etched the planet’s surface with river valleys and lake basins. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hair follicles appear to be key in reprogramming other cells in the wound, restoring the original skin architecture, instead of simply scarring. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By optimizing the imperfections in concrete, manufacturers could make the material tougher and stronger—allowing builders to use less of it. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Zika virus infection during pregnancy appears to cause a range of birth defects, such as joint, eye and ear abnormalities, in addition to microcephaly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What you ate in the past can shape the diversity of your gut flora, and affect how well your gut microbes respond to new foods. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If a weak piglet positions itself next to a strong sibling while feeding, it may get some extra nutrition from inadvertently stimulated mammary glands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Areas of the country that have experienced record low temperatures since 2005 happen to be home to many global warming deniers. And researchers theorize there may be a connection. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In areas where the white-nose syndrome fungus has been around for awhile, little brown bats seem to have found a way to limit the disease damage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The microbial ecosystems inhabiting corpses could help forensic scientists determine a person’s time of death, even after almost two months. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Areas of the brain related to social cognition shrink in first-time mothers—a structural change that could boost maternal attachment. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In an anonymous online survey, about 4 percent of surveyed pilots admitted to having suicidal thoughts within the last few weeks. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Night-flying migratory birds over water turn back to lakeshores at daybreak—meaning crowded shores along the water. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Infants carrying genes that put them at increased risk for asthma had a 27 percent decrease in developing respiratory symptoms while being breast-fed. Erika Beras reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sixty-two percent of survey respondents said self-driving cars would not make them more productive. Another 36 percent said they’d be too concerned to do anything but watch the road. Erika Beras reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The substance prevents mosquitoes taking a blood meal from producing waste—causing them to swell up, and sometimes even explode. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Flu forecasts within large metro areas like New York City might be improved by adding in data about the flow of commuters. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Understanding the physics of how a liquid splashes when it hits a surface is allowing researchers to design new surfaces that limit splashing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A dog’s sniff pulls a plume of fresh scents toward them, which fluid dynamicists say is a technique that could make for better bomb detectors. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A 2010 study claimed that striking certain poses could alter hormone levels and risk-taking behavior. But subsequent studies can’t replicate that finding. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
India's Project Wild Seve allows people who have suffered crop or livestock loss from wild animals to streamline the compensation process, thus helping both farmers and wildlife. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
David Biello's new book is The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A low-fiber diet causes fiber-eating microbes to dwindle, opening up real estate for mucus munchers that make the intestine more vulnerable to infection. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The loss of forests worldwide appears to interact synergistically to produce unpredictable effects on the global climate. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The DNA in seawater can reveal the diversity and abundance of fish species living in ocean waters. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A study of seven jurisdictions found that when cops wear body cameras, complaints against them by civilians fall precipitously. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins talks about the future of the NIH in light of the election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A strain that emerged during the latest epidemic is able to enter human cells more easily—which means it’s more infectious, too. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
An orangutan matched researchers' predictions about which mixed beverage he would choose based on his relative fondness for the separate ingredients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Using taxidermy data, biologists determined that gun-killed birds have smaller brains than birds that died in other ways. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
