Science Quickly

Using a satellite-born sensor system that can penetrate through several feet of dry surface sediments, researchers found the dry remains of an ancient river system winding for hundreds of miles below the Saharan sands    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stimulating the "taste cortex" was enough to trick mice into thinking they'd tasted sweet or bitter substances, when in fact their tongues tasted nothing at all. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fruits growing wild in urban areas were found to be healthful and to contain lower levels of lead than what's considered safe in drinking water   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Careful recordings of mouse interactions find that females vocalize, overturning the long-held view that only males sing during courtship   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Slow, steady breathing lofts minute food particles into the nasal cavity, where they contribute to your perception of flavor. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The recently discovered small galaxy Leo P contains only about a hundred-thousandth as many stars as the Milky Way, but it's bucking the small galaxy trend by continuing to make new ones   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Among howler monkey species, loud calls come at the expense of testicle size and sperm production—or to put it another way, monkeys with the largest testes don't make as much noise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beeswax residues found on shards of stone age pottery in the Mediterranean region indicate that humans were keeping honeybees as early as 9,000 years ago   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Engineers at Caltech discovered that for sand dunes to produce sound they need a dry layer on top that amplifies internal frequencies during sand movement. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The human brain's neurons fire in sync to music, and trained musicians are better at it than are amateurs   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learning detailed navigation information causes the hippocampus to interact with other regions of the brain involved in location   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Arctic sea ice melts, an underwater recording project reveals that the submerged ecology is undergoing change, with humpbacks and killer whales staying north later in the year. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers developed a call that effectively mimics the citrus psyllid's mating song, which could be a weapon against a devastating crop scourge. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers report a spike in the number of methane plumes along the Northwest coast emanating from depths of about 500 meters, a possible indication that submerged frozen methane is becoming available   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People exposed to incongruent situations, such as Halloween-themed plates at a Labor Day picnic, performed better on cognitive-reasoning tests and were less likely to make impulse purchases or overeat   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whales fertilize ocean surface waters with key nutrients like phosphorus, which move through the food chain, and eventually, onto land. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers have found the first direct evidence that coho salmon near U.S. Northwest cities are being killed by chemical runoff from roads and parking lots that reach streams   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the “Innovation: An American Imperative” symposium October 20 on Capitol Hill, industry leaders and members of Congress talked about shoring up federal support for basic research and development   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

College students who watched episodes of the various Law & Order episodes had a better understanding of sexual consent issues than those who watched two other crime procedural franchises   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beet juice contains nitrates, which the body can convert to nitric oxide, a chemical that relaxes blood vessels and makes it easier to function in conditions of low oxygen. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers picked apart satellite imagery from two New England forest ecosystems to get a better handle on exactly what factors influence the timing of the color changes of the autumn leaves Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The company’s moves to have iPhones be less dependent on the cloud and to be more encrypted could mean more user privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers built a physical model of the tail of the late Jurassic dinosaur Apatosaurus and found that its tail tip could have moved at supersonic speed to produce a whip-crack sound   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Infants seemed to be able to differentiate between two different "D" sounds in Hindi—but only when their tongue movements weren't blocked by a teething device. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons Mission, explains that with Pluto in the rearview mirror, the spacecraft will continue on to a smaller Kuiper Belt body   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices