Scientific American’s editor in chief sets up this week’s series of podcasts about how this election could affect science, technology and medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Many of the statues not along the coast are in places that featured a resource vital to the communities that lived and worked there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More than 40 of the birds, in coalitions of three or four, may fight for days over oak trees in which to store their acorns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The volatile compounds released by microbial communities on cheese rinds shape and shift a cheese’s microbiome. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The mass-extinction asteroid happened to strike an area where the rock contained a lot of organic matter and sent soot into the stratosphere, where it could block sunlight for years. 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
From mammals to mollusks, animals living among humans lose their antipredator behaviors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The ancestors of today’s dogs already exhibited some playfulness, which became a key trait during domestication. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A stretch of Neandertal DNA has been associated with some cases of severe COVID-19, but it’s unclear how much of a risk it poses. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
New Nobel laureate in chemistry Jennifer Doudna talks about various applications of the gene-editing tool CRISPR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Blue whales off California’s coast sing at night—until it’s time to start migrating, and they switch to daytime song. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Charles Rice, who today shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus, talked about how rapidly research now occurs, compared with his early work. 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
The disappearance of their predators in a disturbed ecosystem has turned Atlantic forest sloths from night creatures to day adventurers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Researchers seeking evidence for cancer in dinosaurs found it in a collection of bones at a paleontology museum in Alberta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Fork-tailed flycatchers make a fluttering sound with their wings—but separate subspecies have different “dialects” of fluttering. 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
Scientists determined that temperatures were 11 degrees cooler during the last ice age—and that finding has implications for modern-day warming. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hummingbirds in the Peruvian Andes enter a state of torpor at night to conserve energy, dipping their body temperature to as low as 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Given an impossible task, a dog will ask a human for help, but a wolf will not seek help—and neither will a pet pig. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Pumping cheap iron-oxide-rich red bricks with specific vapors that form polymers enables the bricks to become electrical-charge-storage devices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Researchers found that leftovers are likely to end up in the trash, so they advise cooking smaller meals in the first place to avoid food waste. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The finding of a baby dinosaur fossil in the Arctic implies that some dinos nested in the region, which was milder than today but not toasty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Astronomers observed an odd triple-star system that offers clues about misaligned planetary orbits. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A study estimates that 200 million trees in the tropics are mowed down by lightning annually. 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
Every year, Alaska’s big salmon runs feature smaller salmon. Climate change and competition with hatchery-raised salmon may be to blame. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
That drought may have brought about societal shifts in the region 5,000 years ago. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
