60-second Science

Rockfalls without an obvious cause (like an earthquake or expanding ice) may be due to hot daily air temperatures expanding small cracks in cliff faces.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers have uncovered the chemistry that makes the urine of bearcats smell like freshly cooked popcorn.  

Pancreatic type beta cells produced from stem cells can sense glucose, release insulin and treat a mouse model of diabetes. Christopher Intagliata reports.

Mundane notes about daily life on 16 ceramic shards written about 600 B.C. at an ancient military fortress in the Negev Desert reveal that literacy had to be common.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Brazilian torrent frog has the most sophisticated visual communications system yet documented for a frog species.  

A cancer center in the U.K. found that patients had significantly lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol after harmonizing for an hour. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Four billion years ago asteroids and comets could have melted the Martian cryosphere, and started up hydrothermal springs—a potential hotspot for ancient microbial life. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Understanding the regional vocal patterns of various canid species sheds light on animal communication and could help ranchers broadcast "keep away" messages to protect livestock.  

The Japanese great tit combines two calls in a specific order and does not respond to a recording of the calls combined in reverse order, apparently demonstrating compositional syntax.

Researchers have created what they call the first "programming language" for cells, which compiles code into a genetic circuit. Christopher Intagliata reports.

We could use laser light to mask our transits across the sun and thus hide Earth from any intelligent aliens looking for planets to invade   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A flash of light shortly after the detection of gravitational waves could mean that that historic event has an added wrinkle—the black holes that collided may have been born in the same collapsing massive star.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Birds that live in urban environments are brasher than rural birds, solve problems better and even have more robust immune systems. Christopher Intagliata reports.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quasars can shape the evolution of their galaxies, by blasting 135-million-mph winds. Christopher Intagliata reports.

The new movie Fastball dissects the pitch from the perspective of pitchers, hitters, umpires—and scientists, who talk about everything from the physics governing the trajectory of the ball to the neuroscience of the batter’s perception and reaction—including how the ball can appear to vanish.    

Some white storks have stopped migrating from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa in the winter, because of the availability of food in landfills.  

Researchers say their prototype is cheaper and easier to make than other smart glass, and since it's flexible and foldable, could be used for camouflage. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology researcher Eduardo Inigo-Elias, a veteran of efforts to work with Cuban researchers, talks about what improved relations between the U.S. and Cuba could mean for science and conservation.    

A decade of modest financial investment has revitalized Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, explains biologist Sean B. Carroll in his new book The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discovery How Life Works and Why It Matters.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Musicians are better at separating out one meaningful audio stream from a combination, a skill that could help decipher a single conversation in a crowd. Christopher Intagliata reports.