A Moment of Science

Can you imagine ants herding caterpillars?

You've heard of Venus flying traps, but have you heard of pitcher plants?

How to live and long and healthy life? Ask a worm!

Have you tried growing your way out of the shade?

Ever heard of a pseudoscorpion? These arachnids like to hitch a ride.

If you're feeling stressed now, just wait until you're older.

What's it like to have your brain uploaded to a computer? Ask a fruit fly.

Everything you ever wanted to know about water towers.

A mysterious increase in unexplained deaths of elephants in 2020 led scientists on a mission to answer why.

The best way to help the environment is what you don't put on your plate.

Common on islands and coastlines, these natural swimming holes vary in size from tiny openings to vast caves.

Why did these palm trees evolve to self-destruct?

What makes our pets such a positive influence on our mental health?

Hyenas are particular when it comes to choosing a partner.

What makes yawns so contagious?

Why are these giraffes missing their spots?

Most creatures run away when they detect a forest fire, but these beetles have other plans.

Has human activity changed our planet so much that it's now time to rename the current epoch? 

Why do pregnant moose prefer to give birth near highways?

What is granular convection and why does it force all the Brazil nuts to the top of the bag?

What impact does too much salt have on your body?

Who has the strongest beak of them all?

What's so dangerous about the algae that blooms during a Red Tide?

New developments in Alzheimer's research have led to the discovery of the brain's waste management system.

How do invasive plants seem to have such an easy time conquering native species?

T-Rex often had babies at a young age, but why? And how did we find out?

The Atlantic Herring has an interesting ability to make sound.

What makes humans so unique from other animals?

Without this gene, grains may not have survived as well as they have for tens of millions of years.

Birds engage in cooperative breeding, but not for the baby chick's benefit.

How long before you really need to toss out those leftovers?

In the span of just a few years, male crickets on Kauai have evolved from boisterous to silent.

What is a seed bank? Haven't people been storing seeds for centuries? Not like this.

Compulsive hoarding syndrome is a condition that affects 11 million Americans.

How is it that some people seem to be really good at learning languages?

In a field experiment, scientists compared two groups of insects with different diets and discovered a food-chain reaction.

The Imperial Crown's infamous odor may have evolved as a way to repel herbivores such as moles, gophers or deer.

An old legend goes that the eyes take a picture of the last thing you see before you die.

Why are humans the only species that seem to experience guilt?

While in many species, females die shortly after menopause, humans evolved because we needed Grandma's help.

You could say this particular fish is a bit dazzling.

When strawberry plants send "runners" to become new plants, they also create a network.

How do pigments in oil paintings fade over time?

Why is there always room for dessert? This hormone is to blame.

While animals have many territorial defenses, like making loud noises or fighting - the Jacky Dragon does pushups.

It's all in the eggs.

Did you know that your sunglasses are quantum mechanical? How do they cut glare?

We love a clean home, but no one really likes to do the cleaning. And it doesn’t help when you find out the composition of dust.

Is a coin toss always 50/50? What are the odds of getting heads twice, or even a hundred times in a row?

If you're a lizard, anyways.

Are you ready for a rotational paradox?

How it is possible to measure a building's height using only a barometer? It's a question that has plagued Physics students for years.

Rivers don't like to make sharp turns.

And what does this have to do with sea urchins?

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you. Right?

Can you imagine having taste buds on your legs?

What causes apples and other fruit to brown?

Scientists were wrong about something?!

What happens when a community of fish becomes trapped in total darkness for hundreds of thousands of years?

Are vampires real? Meet the vampire bat!

Do you have an abnormally low heart rate? You might have this common treatable condition.

Bees love honey, but did you know that some bees crave flesh?

Did "cavemen" truly make homes out of caves? It turns out, our ancestors were constantly on the move.

Cows, like people, have preferences, and those preferences impact behavior, especially when it comes to grazing.

We all assume that we remember things that have happened to us with great accuracy--after all, we were there!

There are a few camouflage survival strategies, but there's no perfect solution to blend into the background.

In 2020 amateur fossil hunter Justin Reynolds and his eleven year old daughter Ruby were walking along a beach near their home in Somerset, England when Ruby spotted something interesting.

Learn about confirmation bias with a simple experiment

Octopuses have three hearts, each one crucial to maintaining the robust blood pressure that allows them to be active hunters and powerful swimmers.

Spiders have eight eyes, horseshoe crabs have ten, and, daddy longlegs only have two. Or do they?

Microwave ovens are wonderful, revolutionary cooking devices. But there are some things that you cannot, or should not, do with microwaves.

Egg whites are often touted as a health food, filled with more proteins than fat-rich yolks. Surprisingly, though, those proteins are also the secret to some of the most decadent creations like pillowy meringues, airy soufflés, and all manner of delicate cakes.

Hollywood's version of the snake in the movie "Anaconda" was pure fantasy--a 100 foot long giant with an appetite for B-movie actors

Does doing math make you anxious? A Moment of Science has more on why that might be.

There are stories and myths about dragons from everywhere--from Europe to China to Australia to the Americas. Couldn't there be some reality behind the myth?

If you want to get strong, you're supposed to eat spinach like Popeye. But how powerful is that leafy green really?

We know from ancient skeletal remains that around one million years ago, hyenas of the Chasmaporthetes genus prowled the US and Mexico. But they also stalked the tundra—a fact we’ve learned from just two fossilized molars.

Let's say that ninety percent of the people who take a certain drug report that it works like a charm, but you know one person who says it didn't work. Would you try that drug?

When traveling by plane what makes our ears pop, and what is it exactly that pops?

A team of scientists have created the Purple Tomato, featuring skin of deep amethyst, like a plum, and insides a vivid violet. But why would they want to?

In an ideal universe you could scarf carton-loads of super vanilla swirl ice cream every night after dinner without remorse. In the real world, however, there's a price to pay for such indulgence, and ice cream seems to be the worst offender in terms of calories.

What was your favorite field trip as a kid? The zoo? The modern art museum? For a group of New Zealand students, it’d be hard to beat one memorable excursion: their 2006 visit to a beach in Kawhia Harbor.

In shallow water off the Greek Island Zakynthos, you can see what appears to be the remains of an ancient city. But is it really?

Mammals, birds, and reptiles are so different from one another. How could they all evolve from a common ancestor?

Have you ever wondered whether your dog understands at least some of what you say to them? Scientists have too.

You find a perfect, yellow banana in the store, but the next day at home it has brown spots. What happened?

Here's an at-home experiment you can try: take a can of "classic" Coca-Cola and a can of Diet Coke, and without opening either one submerge them in water.

These polka-dotted predators are no laughing matter. Learn all about hyenas with A Moment of Science.

Everyone knows that white reflects heat and black absorbs it. Does that mean you shouldn't wear black though?

There's an urban legend that teeth dissolve in a glass of soda. How harmful is it really?

The great astronomer Carl Sagan used to say that if he were transported anywhere in the solar system he would know which planet he was on just by looking around.

The typical toddler averages about four ear aches per year. But when's the last time you had an ear infection?

Diamonds are only occasionally brought to the surface. But because carbon is plentiful, science fiction, such as Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age, has sometimes imagined a world where scientists find an easy way to make lots of diamond artificially.

People like to ride horses, so why not zebras?

Some nanotechnology theorists and science fiction aficiondos imagine a more ominous possibility. What if one of these tiny robots were given the ability to self-replicate?

It’s dinnertime in the North Sea, and you’re a hungry porpoise. Sadly, there’s no oceanic grocery store. What’s a famished sea creature to do?

Would you be surprised to learn that human beings aren't the only animals to behave superstitiously? The psychologist B.F. Skinner showed that you can even form a superstitious belief...in a pigeon.

One thing we at A Moment of Science love is having the opportunity to explain the science behind things you see every day in the world around you.

One infamous feature of COVID-19 is the phenomenon of “long COVID.” Researchers hadn’t previously looked for long persisting forms of colds or the flu.

Ants must have a variety of survival strategies. How do ground-nesting ants cope with rain?

Set aside the question about the chicken and the egg, what about the woodpecker and tree fungus?

It makes sense that if you live in a neighborhood where you can walk to places to do errands and such, that would be good for your health.

Everyone has a center of gravity. Every object has one, too. It’s the point in our body where all weight is evenly balanced.

Pigpen's condition might seem a bit farfetched, but scientists are finding that we might all be more like Pigpen than we imagine. Only, instead of dust, we carry our own cloud of bacteria.

Our lifelong food preferences are largely shaped by the foods we're exposed to early on in childhood.

Pareidolia is a term from psychology that refers to the tendency in people to perceive a meaningful pattern in a vague stimulus.

"Auto" means "self" and kinetic means "motion." When you see a tiny point of light moving, it's often because you are moving yourself--or, rather, your eye is.

What's brown, has eight legs and flies?

Ever notice when you're having a bad day it always seems to get that much worse?

If you see an object blowing down the street, you will infer that it is light. That will be your conclusion even if you can’t determine what the object is.

When you cry for emotional reasons, your eyes act differently. So what happens next?

Aging is a complex process involving accumulating damage to the cellular mechanisms of life. Anti-aging researchers want to understand and combat this process to give us healthier and longer lives.

A species of howler monkey isn't dying its fur, but they are changing color.

Cows and humans aren't the only ones who produce milk. There are also some insects and spiders that produce a milk-like substance to feed their young.

When water leaked into containers of dormant queen bumblebees, the scientists assumed they’d need to hold a state funeral. But amazingly, the regal insects lived, despite drowning!

Scientists are saying that as the climate warms and temperatures rise, we might lose more crops to insects.

Did you know that ancient bricks are magnetic?

These days, pandas have bamboo for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But that wasn't always the case.

Although we all get angry at times, for some people anger turns to aggression, while for others it doesn’t. The reasons for this have to do with how we regulate our emotions.

Human mothers secrete milk to feed their babies. So do other mammals. Biologists now know that many other kinds of animal mothers also secrete milk-like nutritious substances to feed their offspring.

Fruit flies might not have manners when they invade your home, but they do have culture.

Making their way through polluted water, fish become disoriented, as sights, smells, and sounds crowd the waters. Chemical and noise pollution, and reduced water clarity, interfere with the senses, as well as the fishes’ natural instincts.

These days, you can hear about self-driving cars when you turn on the news, or you can browse store shelves for high-tech gadgets. But in the mid-nineteenth century, there was one go-to place for the public to view scientific achievement: the Great Exhibition.

A simple exercise to do at home with A Moment of Science

Would you drink a mixture of acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate, acetone, acetic acid, and a few of the compounds known as hexenals, which give fresh-cut grass is characteristic odor?

Swimming in a school has a lot of benefits for fish, from social opportunities to avoiding predators to finding more food.

Researchers have heard orangutans make the noise after the danger has passed—a sign that they’re communicating about the past, and the first evidence that primates other than humans have that ability.

Craving dessert? Today’s episode considers some particularly sweet science: the importance of eggs for baking a cake.

It’s a tough world out there, so really, what’s a gull to do?

If the air temperature gets close to our body temperature, something more is needed to keep the skin cooler than the inner body. We sweat.

By human standards, some animals’ eating habits are strange, and even disgusting. One example is coprophagy—eating poop.

Water molecules attract each other. The molecules at the surface of a body of water make a film under tension. That film is strong enough to support a needle or a small insect like a water strider.

Researchers reported that they discovered a tiny spider in the Peruvian Amazon rain forest that has a behavior that’s surprisingly similar to the web-slinging superhero.

One mirror is not enough to see yourself as others see you. When you look at a bathroom mirror you see an image of yourself with left and right reversed.

If you look at a map of Scotland, you may notice a line cutting straight through the country. This line, called the Great Glen Fault, is the result of a long geological history that has in turn impacted the history of Scotland itself.

A cool, dry cotton fiber springs back after being bent. A warm, damp cotton fiber doesn't. Moisture and temperature make the difference.

Why a mix of red light and green light looks yellow, in this Moment of Science.

Evolutionary biologists thought it was a general rule among mammals that males are bigger, but that's not always the case.

The 17th-century English physicist Robert Hooke was curious about the remarkable properties of cork -- its ability to float, its springy quality, its usefulness in sealing bottles. Hooke investigated the structure of cork with a new scientific instrument he was very enthusiastic about: the microscope.

One of the more mysterious pleasures of a warm summer evening is the spectacle of lightning from distant thunderstorms, flickering silently on the horizon while stars shine overhead. People usually call it heat lightning.

Learn about the role that ethylene plays in ripening fruit with today's A Moment of Science

Over the past 100,000 years, a snail species has done what it normally takes a species millions of years to do: give live birth.

The distant past is poorly known, and paleontologists find fossil evidence for new large animals all the time.

Jabuticaba is a fruit native to Brazil. It’s the size and color of a plum, with a white pulp and several seeds

Perhaps you’ve heard that the average person dreams four to six times each night. But did you know that most of us are unable to recall 90% of our dreams?

The carefree southern sea otters of central California’s coast have had a secret mission: working to fight the devastating loss of kelp forests due to anthropogenic climate change.

Researchers used statistical tools to forecast which characteristics the animals of the future will likely have.

Research suggests there's a link between parenting styles and health effects later in life

As any aficionado will tell you, water can be just as important as the tea leaves themselves when it comes to a good brew.

If the color of the bottles was significant enough to control how they’re recycled, then surely the color was more than cosmetic. So what's the reason why wine bottles are olive-green and beer bottles are amber?

Because of the isolation, New Zealand has evolved a unique set of animals dominated by abundant bird species found nowhere else.

Exposure to music, art, and architecture can have a formative impact on our sense of self.

Fingerprints might be unique to one person, but they aren't unique to one species.

Have you ever made rice that was perfectly fluffy and then the next day, taken it out of the fridge only to find it hard and crumbly?

Normally, when tissue gets injured, cells start replicating and make new tissue. But what about the heart?

In a letter written in 1761, Benjamin Franklin tells how he collected some little squares of broadcloth. Franklin wanted to demonstrate that these colors would absorb different amounts of light from the sun and convert the light to different amounts of heat.

Just like Goldilocks, humans have searched for a place that's "just right" to live in. That's not the same for all species, though.

We usually think of paint as a substance that adds color to things. But, from a physical point of view, paint works by taking colors away.

Tennis players are known for the loud grunts they make during a game. Why do they do it?

In 2019 a team of Swedish and British scientists published a study claiming that whether we chose to own a dog may be influenced by our genes.

Physicists are searching for new materials with better semiconductor properties so that computers can continue to improve.

We just covered why the sky is blue, but there are a few areas without color above us.

It can't be the atmosphere, or dust, or water droplets. So what makes the sky blue?

Water temperature is a major element of quality control in making coffee. Why exactly is temperature important?

Rattlesnakes modulate their rattling frequency to trick other animals into thinking the distance between them is shorter than it really is.

Proboscis monkeys from Borneo and cows do have something in common: they both chew their cuds.

The Atacama Desert in Northern Chile is the driest desert on Earth. The only life there is microbial, and researchers study it to get an idea of what we might find on Mars.

One study proposes that this “sort of a man” described as “shortish, and oldish, and brownish and mossy” could have been inspired by the patas monkey.

Paleontologists constantly search for new species of fossilized creatures from the distant past to expand our understanding of the history of life on Earth.

Mosquitoes always seem to find us, no matter how hard we try to get away. How do they do it?

The next time you're driving during a rain shower, glance back at the rear window. You'll notice that while raindrops batter the front windshield, they seem to avoid the back window as long as the car is moving. How is that possible?

Megachile pluto, commonly called “Wallace’s giant bee” is the world’s largest bee. And perhaps its most elusive.

Do you prefer the jolt of coffee or a more gentle start to your day with tea?

Situs inversus totalis means that all the organs, blood vessels, and nerves in the chest and abdomen are flipped to the opposite side.

Normally you’d just see waves coming in parallel to the shore. But what if there were also waves moving perpendicular to the shore?

A grave in Cyprus from 7500 BC shows a furry feline and human owner buried together. It’s the oldest known site of a tame cat.

How did dinosaurs keep themselves cool?

Did you know it’s possible to have a gene mutation that really does make bumping into furniture or even getting surgery totally painless?

What makes walking uphill so much harder?

Have you ever wondered why giraffes have such long necks?

Scientists think that as many as a billion people around the world could be newly exposed to the diseases spread by mosquitoes within the next fifty years as global temperatures rise.

This small species lives throughout southern China, from high eastern Tibetan mountains to low coastal mountains, preferring forests and shrubby habitats. And its most interesting feature is its tusks.

There’s a big gap between how we act in virtual reality and how we act in real life, as scientists who did an experiment focused on yawning found out.

We've heard a lot about how antioxidants can help prevent disease. Does that mean we should eat as many antioxidant-rich foods as possible?

Most moth species are active at night. It must be really dangerous to be a moth. Luckily, they've developed a few ways to protect themselves.

Scientists think that animals evolved the ability to detect bitter tastes in order to avoid things that are harmful or even poisonous. So why do we like coffee?

Where most of us are concerned, the question is not whether we would hurt a fly but whether we could.

In October, 2017 astronomers at Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii discovered something strange. It was an object, moving through the solar system too fast to have been captured by the sun’s gravitational pull.

Did you know that compared to creatures such as dogs and cats, humans can distinguish millions more shades of color?

There's evidence that the northern lowlands of Mars are the basin of a huge ocean that existed more than 3 billion years ago, and covered about a third of the planet's surface.

Root rot is a condition of indoor and outdoor plants. Root rot may be caused by poorly drained or overwatered soil, or soil-borne pathogens and nematodes.

Microbes are everywhere, from the deepest ocean to the highest mountaintop. They're also in the air all around, riding the breeze up, up, up into sky.

But a cheetah isn’t the fastest animal in the world, even though a lot of people think it is. The animal that can move the fastest is actually a lot smaller: the Dracula ant.

Background white noise can help some peoples’ sleep quality by minimizing the length of time it takes them to get to sleep. So, what exactly is white noise?

Mid-Atlantic states such as North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland have been hit particularly hard by rising sea levels

Do other species have healthcare?

Our attitudes might affect us more than our genes do.

Does your pet give you the evil eye when they get fed a few minutes late? Its like they know...but do they?

The Gulf Stream is a current of warm water in the North Atlantic Ocean that travels up the Eastern coast of North America. Media reports have raised concerns that it may collapse as the climate warms due to human activities like burning fossil fuels.

Like a science fiction time traveler, an arctic plant of the late Pleistocene age, over 31,000 years old, was resurrected after a long frozen sleep.

Figs have their thousands of individual flowers folded up inside them, so they can't rely on bees or wind to pollinate them with a male fig's pollen. That's where the fig wasp comes in.

Has your brain been feeling foggy lately? Or maybe, smoggy? If you live somewhere affected by air pollution, there might be a connection.

Scientists once thought that aging and death were the inevitable fate of all complex living things. But then, by accident, they discovered they were wrong.

On today's Moment of Science, we'll be sniffing our way through a controversial culinary conundrum: the great cilantro debate.

Grandmother elephants are important for the survival of baby calves.

English is full of phrases that connect appearance to taste. However, scientists have been discovering that the connection between the two runs deeper than simple metaphors.

Sometimes, when a frog eats a large insect, you can see it squirming in the frog’s belly, desperate to escape. Lack of air, acids, and digestive enzymes seal its inevitable doom.

Scientists looked at the nestbox choices of pied flycatchers after the birds observed the "success" of nesting great tits.

Is there a reason operating rooms are always so cold and drafty?

Colorful or plain, skinny or chubby, big or small, the nearly 2,000 species have it all.

Vaccine skeptics might see vaccines the way they do because they tend to overestimate the likelihood of rare negative events.

How do scientists figure out even basic facts such as whether an animal walked on land or swam in the sea?

Researchers classify an animal behavior as play when it doesn’t involve an external reward, such as food, seems to serve no purpose, occurs repeatedly, and happens when the animal is relaxed and not facing threats.

Scientists find clues to how the earth's climate is changing by looking to the past.

Demand for rare earth elements is soaring, and it will continue to grow in the future.

When the bismuth combines with the trace amounts of sulfur in your saliva and in your gastrointestinal tract, it reacts to form a black substance called bismuth sulfide.

King Tutankhamen of Egypt has fascinated people ever since archeologist Howard Carter discovered his splendid tomb in 1922.

Bitterness, like sweetness or saltiness, is one of the major taste sensations. And while it makes our food flavorful, detecting bitterness can sometimes be a warning that we’re eating something toxic.

What's your earliest memory?

It takes much less time for the sun to light up the sky at dawn than it does for all the light to disappear after the sun sets at dusk.

If you drink a glass of ice water on a hot day, what temperature is the ice?

There are some biological differences between the sexes, but do they extend to the brain?

Where does color come from?

In 2019 a team of Israeli scientists published evidence that the evening primrose plant can detect the specific sound vibration frequencies of the buzz of an insect’s wings.

Every student who has ever taken a course in neuroscience or psychology has heard of Patient HM.

We share a lot of genetic material in common with our chimpanzee relatives, and maybe some personal characteristics too.

One frosty morning you awake to a blanket of fresh snow. Adventure awaits! Do you go skiing? Skating? Building snowmen? Or you could do some physics!

French scientists tested dogs to see if they could recognize the faces of other dogs on a computer screen.

While not an ordinary part of the cuisine of the United States, insects are a common food source for millions of people around the world. It might be time Americans reconsidered their lack of bug-based eating.

In evolutionary theory, an inherited trait is favored by natural selection when it helps an individual to produce more offspring than its competitors.

Modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs. Specifically, paleontologists have shown that birds evolved from a group of two legged dinosaurs called theropods.

June 1969. Not one airliner but two, plus the pilot of an Air National Guard fighter plane, report being harassed by a team of UFOs.

Coffee and cacao beans are fermented. Similar to wine, the flavor of the beans is determined by the type of yeasts and microorganisms present.

From DIY oven cleaner to removing odor from rugs, baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, has long been known as an essential home cleaning agent.

A "niche" is an organism's special "slot" in an ecosystem that allows it to co-exist with other species.

When someone moves, fluid sloshes inside the ears’ semicircular canals. The fluid tugs at tiny strands of hair.

The Apollo astronauts were at risk of something many people don't know about. The Sun.

We all know someone who goes for a walk in the woods, and comes back with many ticks crawling on them.

Why do airplanes sometimes leave contrails behind, and what are they exactly?

At high levels, carbon dioxide can affect the brain to cause impaired thinking.

Scientists discovered a type of malaria in a twenty-million-year-old mosquito fossil from the Dominican Republic preserved in amber.

If you're eating toast, and you accidentally bump it to the floor, it seems more likely to land buttered side down.

We've been hearing a lot about the importance of gut bacteria. Now it seems that bacteria also have a say in how and when we eat.

The instant you decide to move your foot, the part of your brain's motor cortex responsible for sending commands to the foot goes into action. So what does this mean?

Have you ever prepared a meal that required lots of garlic and found that after all of that chopping your hands reek of garlic for the rest of the night?

You take a plate off the top of one stack. The other plates in the stack rise from below just far enough to present the next plate at the same height as the one you just took!

A few seeds from fruits such as watermelons or apples passing through your digestive tract won't hurt you. But they won't help you much either.

Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey. But what even is that?

It may surprise you to learn that vampire bats are one of the most well-known examples of sharing in the animal kingdom.

How fast are your reflexes? Test them out with a falling dollar.

Since elephants are so big, they have way more cells than most animals. Which means more opportunities for elephant cells to go crazy and become cancerous. So why don't they get cancer?

Major events often make people happy, but does this last very long?

When ants first leave their nest to begin their jobs as foragers, they first have to make sure they can find their way home.

From stories of giant monsters to little green Martians, we humans can imagine some pretty strange creatures. Life, however, offers plenty of surprises here on Earth.

Moths are a lot less attracted to artificial light than they used to be. Learn more about what that means with today's A Moment of Science!