Science Quickly

The ease with which certain sounds are produced in different climes plays a role in the development of spoken languages. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Susan Desmond-Hellmann talks about some of what needs to be done to make a reality of the foundation's aspiration to cut maternal mortality by two thirds by 2030       Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The cone snail's venom contains not only neurotoxins, but insulin, too—which stuns the fish it preys on. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the World Economic Forum, Carnegie Mellon president Subra Suresh talks about dealing with the unintended consequences of ever more sophisticated intelligent devices   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The absorbent material in disposable diapers can expand tissue samples, making more structure visible under light microscopes. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his State of the Union address, the president talked about the need for frameworks to be in place to stop future pandemics and rising worldwide temperatures    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers were able to track the keystrokes of a nearby computer via fluctuations in its electromagnetic radiation output. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jimmy Carter's efforts against the horribly painful guinea worm parasitic disease have helped lower the number of cases from 3.5 million in 1986 to just 126 last year. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The drugs disrupt mosquitoes' gut bacteria, which appears to make the insects more effective malaria vectors. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Households that got weekly messages about the lower pollution they generated via efficiency cut energy use much more than did residents who were told how much money they were saving. Cynthia Graber reports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

High UV radiation during solar maxima may have degraded expectant mothers' stores of folate, a vitamin essential to development. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By selecting for bacteria that can survive only if they make a particular product of interest over multiple iterations, researchers vastly improved yields and decreased production times. Cynthia Graber reports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Under certain conditions people can catch a glimpse of usually invisible infrared light. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Looking for movement could complement chemical searches for extraterrestrial life. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Populations of big carnivores such as brown bears, Eurasian lynx, grey wolves and wolverines are stable or increasing in a substantial part of Europe. Cynthia Graber reports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mice infected with Lyme and the Babesia parasite are more likely to pass on babesiosis than mice infected with babesiosis alone. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Magnetic anomalies in rocks indicate that lightning may be a major player in weathering mountains. Julia Rosen reports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congress took advantage of the pressure to pass a budget bill by adding riders that change rules concerning the environment and energy. Josh Fischman reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The urine of a vast army of tiny fish, jellies and shrimpy things may play an important role in the ocean's nitrogen cycle. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Penicillin and its relatives have been in wide use since the 1940s, but researchers have only now discovered another way that it thwarts bacteria. Karen Hopkin reports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mice that ate their entire food for the day in an eight-to-12-hour window had better markers for health than did mice free to eat whenever they wanted. Steve Mirsky reports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The way fruit reflects and absorbs laser light may be a good measure of its progression toward peak ripeness. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a massive first-of-its-kind whole-genome analysis involving 48 bird species, researchers have created a new avian evolutionary tree. Steve Mirsky reports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By using tiny carbon nanotubes tuned electronically to particular gases, researchers turned smartphones into toxin sensors. Cynthia Graber reports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Based on trawling samples and visual observations of plastic debris, computer models calculate that some 5.25 trillion particles of plastic—about 269,000 tons—may litter the world's oceans. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices