Podcasts – A Moment of Science

Mosquitoes can smell carbon dioxide from up to 100 feet away, and when we exhale, we emit CO2. Once mosquitoes catch a whiff of it, their brains start scanning their surroundings for their next meal.

Cataracts are the result of the natural breakdown of proteins in the eye's lens as you age. When lens proteins lose their three dimensional structure they cause the lens to become cloudy.

In 2019, a team of Belgian researchers obtained new evidence correlating gut bacteria with depression in humans. They found a correlation between the patients' depression and the absence of two bacteria species.

Colonies of penguins that live in Antarctica create hotbeds of diversity by doing something that all animals do: pooping. Researchers found that when penguins poop, they enrich the soil in and around the colony, creating the perfect environment for mosses and lichens to grow.

Horses can help people learn to walk again through a form of physical rehabilitation called hippotherapy. The patient rides a horse, and as it walks or trots, the movement of your legs and pelvis reminds your body of what it feels like to walk.

In 2019 ethologists published evidence that a species of harvester ants will rescue their nest mates when they become trapped in a spider web.

While watching tennis, it's hard to miss the unmistakable grunts the players make when they hit the ball. The sound can get up to 100 decibels, which is basically as loud as a motorbike. There is still controversy in tennis about how grunting affects the game.

NASA recently launched the Deep Space Atomic Clock, or DSAC, on a test mission. DSAC should allow spacecraft to chart their own trajectories, essentially becoming self-driving spaceships.

Social niches are made up of the social aspects of a species' environmental relationship. In the case of humans, this means that your friends, family and coworkers influence you just as much as other environmental factors.

Like the fantastical abominable snowman, also known as a yeti, the yeti crab is white, and its long claws are covered in pale fur. And even though it's a mere six inches long, it's definitely strange.

Scientists have known for over half a century that most mosquito species are attracted to carbon dioxide, heat and moisture. Since that time researchers have been trying to figure out what specific odors in humans attract disease carrying species.

Scientists have found that when you're in love, your brain is flooded with different chemicals, including dopamine.  In the right amount, dopamine can make you behave recklessly and become manic and obsessive.

Scientists have found zombie ants in the Brazilian rainforests. The ants are infected by a fungus. In fact, scientists have just found four new species of the zombie‑creating fungus, Ophiocordyceps.

Researchers from the University of Zurich examined 28 goats that were fed different pelleted diets of grit and hay. The scientists performed CT scans of the goats’ stomachs at the beginning of the experiment and then again six months later.

Those who love anteaters and rhinoceroses might be out of luck if we want to see our favorite animals thrive in the next century, according to a group of researchers who used statistical tools to predict what kinds of animals will predominate over the next century.