Penicillin and its relatives have been in wide use since the 1940s, but researchers have only now discovered another way that it thwarts bacteria. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mice that ate their entire food for the day in an eight-to-12-hour window had better markers for health than did mice free to eat whenever they wanted. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The way fruit reflects and absorbs laser light may be a good measure of its progression toward peak ripeness. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In a massive first-of-its-kind whole-genome analysis involving 48 bird species, researchers have created a new avian evolutionary tree. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By using tiny carbon nanotubes tuned electronically to particular gases, researchers turned smartphones into toxin sensors. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Based on trawling samples and visual observations of plastic debris, computer models calculate that some 5.25 trillion particles of plastic—about 269,000 tons—may litter the world's oceans. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Researchers estimated alcohol consumption at a senior center by putting out recycling bins and counting the bottle contents. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A study following teens who had summer jobs found violent crime in that population almost cut in half, during and following the employment. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Working-class kids ask for help from teachers less often and less aggressively than do their middle-class counterparts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Researchers working in New York City found that hungry urban arthropods help dispose of tons of edible trash. Allie Wilkinson reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Wall Street Journal found in 2010 that an NFL game has just 11 minutes of actual action. Eight decades earlier, Scientific American found just about the same thing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson's first glimpse of Lucy came on November 24, 1974 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Importation of a frost-resistant barley from the Fertile Crescent to Tibet some 3,600 years ago is associated with the advent of settlements at 3,000 meters and more above sea level. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A new study suggests bed bugs can transmit Chagas disease to mice—but the same thing is unlikely to happen in humans. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Microbicides that kill HIV in the lab often fail in clinical trials. A study finds that semen may be the culprit. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Alcohol's supposed benefit to the heart may only be available to people with the right genes. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Some sounds from the Rosetta Mission team today after they succeeded in landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nonsterile lab reagents and DNA extraction kits add their own assortment of DNA to microbiome samples. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Because the chemical signature of water on Earth matches the signature of water in an ancient group of asteroids called eucrites, it means that Earth might have had water much earlier than previously thought. Julia Rosen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chimps choose an overnight camp site based on the likelihood of finding calorically rich food nearby. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mexican free-tailed bats make calls that interfere with fellow bats’ echolocation, causing them to miss their insect targets. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
November 5th marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Mariner 3, America’s first mission to Mars, which was lost in space. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thousands of small children swallow tiny batteries each year. A new battery coating could protect kids from internal burns and still allow the batteries to work. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mosquitoes that harbor a soil microbe called Chromobacterium Csp_P have a harder time catching dengue virus and the malarial parasite. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The ability to engage in extended hibernation might be what saved ancestral mammals from extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Christo Wilson, a computer scientist at Northeastern University, says prices online are "super subjective" and vary according to your past clicks and purchases or whether you are shopping on a mobile phone. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The bacterium Clostridium scindens, a member of the gut’s microbiome, appears to ward off the hospital-acquired infection C. difficile. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Topping out at about 20 kilograms, a coyote has to be able to hunt both smaller and bigger prey, and avoid being prey itself, a combination that selects for intelligence. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In areas with few herbivores acacia plants don't bother to churn out many of the off-putting thorns. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Primatologists spent almost 1,100 hours watching lemurs do their business on their designated tree and concluded that urine and glandular secretions serve as posted messages. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
