Science Quickly

As interest and support for psychedelic research grows, scientists share their hopes for the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Psychedelic researchers are engaged in heated debate over whether the mind-altering effects of the drugs are necessary for realizing their therapeutic potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As companies join the hunt, can the field of mind-altering synthetic substances stay true to its original pioneering spirit of wonder, curiosity and connection? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than half of our diet consists of foods that have been industrially processed in some way, and they may be harmful to our health Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Under the right conditions, the spadefoot tadpole will transform into a voracious predator of its own species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lions, tigers, bears: this creature sends all of those beasts running for the hills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can something spring back to life if it last moved around when woolly mammoths roamed the earth? The answer appears to be yes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the rush to build and train ever larger AI models, developers have swept up much of the searchable Internet, quite possibly including some of your own public data—and potentially some of your private data as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re a silphid beetle, a dead body is all your children really want, and it’s your job—no matter how difficult—to get one for them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The dangerous virus is still here. Here’s how you can stay safe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sea ice is changing fast. Are forecasts created by artificial intelligence the best way to keep up with the pace of a warming climate in the far north? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers have been banned from working in Indonesia’s tropical rain forests after the government disagreed with their scientific conclusions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A needlelike tower, hung with sensors, “sniffs” the air above the Arctic Circle for signs of catastrophic thaw in the sodden ground below. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a tiny village north of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit of Tuktoyaktuk have taken climate science into their own hands.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is a permafrost thaw slump? Just imagine a massive hole with an area the size of more than nine football fields—and growing—where ice-cold ground once stood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The popular decongestant phenylephrine is not effective, an FDA panel found. Here’s what to use instead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We present the latest updates on ChatGPT, Bard and other competitors in the artificial intelligence arms race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An astronomy festival in Italy opted to make all of its events and workshops multisensory. The organizers wanted to see whether sound, touch and smell can, like sight, transmit the wonders of the cosmos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A blind astronomer “sonified” the universe’s most explosive events: gamma-ray bursts. By listening to, rather than looking at, the data, she made a critical discovery and changed the field of astronomy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Space is famously silent, but astronomers and musicians are increasingly turning astronomical data into sound as a way to make discoveries and inspire people who are blind or visually impaired. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One researcher has been hiring planes to strafe the sky over the Amazon rain forest to collect the air coming off the trees, and what she is finding is cause for alarm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Consumers can now get easy tests for Alzheimer’s. But these tests may not really help patients that much—yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón discusses her involvement in NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and the inspiration behind her poem, which will travel onboard the spacecraft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Caterpillars can’t regulate their body temperatures, so they have to come up with a totally different strategy to make it through the coldest months of the year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A honeybee swarm has as much electric charge as a thundercloud, and the insects’ mass movements in the atmosphere might even have some influence on the weather. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices