Are Sharks Ingesting Bales of Cocaine and Other Pollutants?In 2023, there was a warning that sharks off the coast of Florida could be chowing down on bales of cocaine deposited by traffickers. Then, a high-profile experiment showcased during Shark Week tested out this warning.
‘I’ve Lost My Identity’: On the Mysteries of Foreign Accent SyndromeWhat is it that makes individuals suffering from FAS sound like foreign speakers of their native language?
Meet the scientists behind the ice sanctuary — a memory vault for dying glaciersThe vision “When you lose it, you’ve lost a record of climate on Earth that can never be recovered. There’s a lot of scientists who realize this, and have realized it for decades, who are making heroic efforts to recover this ice before it disappears forever.
Your brain wants you to be curious, not anxiousIn a letter Albert Einstein wrote to his biographer in 1952, the brilliant scientist claimed to possess no special talents other than being “passionately curious.
How San Antonio Became a National Water Conservation ModelThanks to a blind salamander, San Antonio became a national leader in water conservation. The eyeless, five-inch-long mass of virtually unpigmented flesh lives in the watery caverns of the Edwards Aquifer.
Memory for music doesn’t diminish with ageThe ability to remember and recognize a musical theme does not seem to be affected by age, unlike many other forms of memory.
To Find Alien Life, We Might Have to Kill ItWhen is it OK to kill an alien life-form? In the movies, the answer is usually pretty simple: It’s OK in self-defense, especially if it inspires a rousing speech about human exceptionalism. But in the real world, the choice is neither straightforward nor abstract.
What Secrets 385 Meteorites Tell Us About The Interior Of MarsOf the more than 74,000 known meteorites – rocks that fall to Earth from asteroids or planets colliding together – only 385 or so stones came from the planet Mars. It’s not that hard for scientists to work out that these meteorites come from Mars.
There Are No Good Options Left With Bird FluThe threat to humans is low. But the status quo is still pretty troubling. Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.
How do placebos ease pain? Mouse brain study offers cluesWhen people take a sugar pill they believe is a painkiller, it can lessen their experience of pain. Researchers have long known about this phenomenon, called the placebo effect. But the biological mechanisms behind it have remained a mystery.
Monumental Proof Settles Geometric Langlands ConjectureIn work that has been 30 years in the making, mathematicians have proved a major part of a profound mathematical vision called the Langlands program.
Inside the Three-Way Race to Create the Most Widely Used LaserThe semiconductor laser, invented more than 60 years ago, is the foundation of many of today’s technologies including barcode scanners, fiber-optic communications, medical imaging, and remote controls. The tiny, versatile device is now an IEEE Milestone.
CHARMed collaboration creates a potent therapy candidate for fatal prion diseasesDrug development is typically slow: The pipeline from basic research discoveries that provide the basis for a new drug to clinical trials and then production of a widely available medicine can take decades. But decades can feel impossibly far off to someone who currently has a fatal disease.
What causes migraines? Study of ‘brain blackout’ offers cluesFor a billion people worldwide, the symptoms can be debilitating: throbbing head pain, nausea, blurred vision and fatigue that can last for days. But how brain activity triggers these severest of headaches — migraines — has long puzzled scientists.
Elephants Are Doing Something Deeply HumanThey’re part of a growing list of animals that use namelike calls. Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.