Science, Quickly

A new study used machine learning on 6 million Danish people to "autocomplete" their life trajectories –— and when they might kick the bucket....

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 r...

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...

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 alba...

The moon has guided our movements and cultures, and though we may think we know it well, it still guards some of its deepest secrets from us. A new book from Rebecca Boyle take us on a deep dive into ...

Nell Greenfieldboyce discusses her new book Transient and Strange, the intimacy of the essays and the science that inspired them....

Dogs are good for you, science says...

In 2013 a new user named Cleo took an online math forum by storm with unproved answers. Today she’s an urban legend. But who was she? 2023 editor's pick....

Advanced sensors and artificial intelligence could have us at the brink of interspecies communication...

The holidays are a time for indulgence, but there are ways to drink alcohol without suffering the painful effects....

We’re looking back at 2023 for our favorite podcast shows and one about the largest bird to ever fly the skies just flew to the top of the list....

The stories we tell about orcas might say more about us than about them...

The beloved fish that feed orcas and humans depend on kelp forests’ unique habitat....

The Arctic Permafrost Atlas, which took years to create, is both beautiful and sobering, given the pace of climate change....

Problems with the heart, kidneys and metabolic health are all connected...

Thanks to researchers, new AI tech is delving into feline feelings to see when cats could need medical help. ...

The research focused on figuring out what enables certain sperm to gain some competitive advantage over millions of others fighting for the same prize....

A long-term decline in unsupervised activity may be contributing to mental health declines in children and adolescents....

Three experts break down how misinformation and propaganda spread through conflict and how to debunk it yourself....

Fewer kids got their routine childhood vaccines since before the pandemic. Are lack of access and a loss of trust in science to blame?...

The choices we make in how we adapt to climate change can sometimes come back to bite us...

The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara peoples are learning more about the missiles siloed on their lands, and that knowledge has put the preservation of their culture and heritage in even starker relief....

What Would It Mean to 'Absorb' a Nuclear Attack?...

The Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota has had nuclear missile silos on its land for decades. Now the U.S. government wants to take the old weapons out and replace them with new ones, and it’s ...

Just One U.S. Reservation Hosts Nuclear Weapons. This Is The Story of How That Came to Be...

A member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation digs into a decades-long mystery: how 15 intercontinental ballistic missiles came to be siloed on her ancestral lands....

Daytime naps of about 30 minutes really improve your thinking and may spark creativity....

As interest and support for psychedelic research grows, scientists share their hopes for the future....

Psychedelic researchers are engaged in heated debate over whether the mind-altering effects of the drugs are necessary for realizing their therapeutic potential....

As companies join the hunt, can the field of mind-altering synthetic substances stay true to its original pioneering spirit of wonder, curiosity and connection?...

More than half of our diet consists of foods that have been industrially processed in some way, and they may be harmful to our health...

Under the right conditions, the spadefoot tadpole will transform into a voracious predator of its own species....

Lions, tigers, bears: this creature sends all of those beasts running for the hills....

Can something spring back to life if it last moved around when woolly mammoths roamed the earth? The answer appears to be yes....

In the rush to build and train ever larger AI models, developers have swept up much of the searchable Internet, quite possibly including some of your own public data—and potentially some of your priva...

If you’re a silphid beetle, a dead body is all your children really want, and it’s your job—no matter how difficult—to get one for them....

The dangerous virus is still here. Here’s how you can stay safe....

Sea ice is changing fast. Are forecasts created by artificial intelligence the best way to keep up with the pace of a warming climate in the far north?...

Researchers have been banned from working in Indonesia’s tropical rain forests after the government disagreed with their scientific conclusions....

A needlelike tower, hung with sensors, “sniffs” the air above the Arctic Circle for signs of catastrophic thaw in the sodden ground below....

In a tiny village north of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit of Tuktoyaktuk have taken climate science into their own hands. ...

What is a permafrost thaw slump? Just imagine a massive hole with an area the size of more than nine football fields—and growing—where ice-cold ground once stood....

The popular decongestant phenylephrine is not effective, an FDA panel found. Here’s what to use instead....

We present the latest updates on ChatGPT, Bard and other competitors in the artificial intelligence arms race....

An astronomy festival in Italy opted to make all of its events and workshops multisensory. The organizers wanted to see whether sound, touch and smell can, like sight, transmit the wonders of the cosm...

A blind astronomer “sonified” the universe’s most explosive events: gamma-ray bursts. By listening to, rather than looking at, the data, she made a critical discovery and changed the field of astronom...

Space is famously silent, but astronomers and musicians are increasingly turning astronomical data into sound as a way to make discoveries and inspire people who are blind or visually impaired....

One researcher has been hiring planes to strafe the sky over the Amazon rain forest to collect the air coming off the trees, and what she is finding is cause for alarm....

Consumers can now get easy tests for Alzheimer’s. But these tests may not really help patients that much—yet....

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón discusses her involvement in NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and the inspiration behind her poem, which will travel onboard the spacecraft....