Are Parasites to Thank for Sex? A study in the journal The American Naturalist implies that parasites helped drive the development of sex, because the shuffling of genes gives sex-produced progeny an advantage over asexual genetic clones. Cynthia Gr...
Really Mass Media In London last week at the World Conference of Science Journalists, Philip Hilts, the director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at M.I.T., reviewed the worldwide state of Internet and cell phone use, two of the major ways p...
Future of Science Coverage At the World Conference of Science Journalists in London last week, outgoing Scientific American Editor in Chief John Rennie talked to writers about the future of what they do, remarks that also pertain to this podcast. St...
We might think perfect pitch is an innate talent. Well, a study in the American Journal of Human Genetics is providing some evidence for that. Perfect pitch, aka absolute pitch, is the rare ability to name or recreate musical notes like A or middle...
Rain Zone Moving North An article in Nature Geoscience predicts that the rainiest area on Earth, the intertropical convergence zone, is moving steadily north. Christie Nicholson reports [The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.] If youv...
Why Didn't Earth Freeze Completely? Research published in the July 2 issue of Nature reveals one reason our planet didn't succumb to an enveloping ice sheet during glacial ages. Christie Nicholson reports. [The following is an exact transcript of th...
Women Better Than Men with a Hammer Research presented at the Experimental Biology annual meeting reveals that women may be more accurate than men at using a hammer in certain conditions. Christie Nicholson reports [The following is an exact transcr...
Genetic Protection against Sleep Deprivation A study in The Journal of Neuroscience finds that people with a particular version of a gene called Period 3 are better able to handle sleep deprivation because more of their brains get involved in counte...
Last month, President Obama pledged nearly half a billion dollars toward the development of solar and geothermal energies. But what about wind? A team of scientists estimates that wind turbines in the continental U.S. could produce 16 times more ele...
A team of archeologists working in Jordan has made a discovery that represents a new chapter in the story of our ancestors' move from foraging to farming. The researchers unearthed an ancient granary. The round, mud hut dates back more than 11,000 y...
