Podcasts – A Moment of Science

Steam is water that's heated to two hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit.  Believe it or not, steam is invisible; you can see right through it.

In the Western Pacific around New Guinea, there's a watery hill almost 250 feet high.  This isn't a hill on the ocean floor, it's a hill in the ocean's surface itself.

A "heiligenshein," is German for halo.  This is a glowing light around the head and shoulders of your shadow. It's likely to be seen by early morning golfers on dewy grass. 

In most showdowns between spiders and flies, the odds weigh heavily in the spider's favor.  Today, however, we'll look at a few species of fly that manage to turn the tables on their eight legged foes.

As sunlight enters our atmosphere, it bends slightly.  This is due to refraction, the same thing that makes a pencil look slightly askew when you stick it half way into a glass of water.

Information about when to germinate is imprinted by the mother plant in the seeds’ genes—essentially turning certain genes off that regulate germination.

Copper, gold and silver can’t just be found anywhere buried under the soil. It takes very specific conditions to produce deposits of mineral ores that can be mined.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that ancient Romans did not see a reduction in intestinal parasites like whipworm, roundworm and tapeworm, compared to people who lived during earlier ages with less sophisticated sanitation systems.

This year, 2019, the periodic table turns 150. It organizes the elements into rows and columns. The seven rows are based on the number of an element’s electron shells.

Monkeys use grooming to reinforce male-female mate bonds as well as same sex friendship bonds.

The sugar added to sweetened condensed milk kills bacteria that would otherwise digest the milk and spoil it.  The sugar kills not by poisoning the bacteria, but by a more direct physical process.

Scientists think there are a number of reasons why young animals leave home. By doing so, they avoid competing with their relatives for resources and avoid competing with each other for mates.

Megachile pluto is the world’s largest bee, and perhaps its most elusive. It is commonly called “Wallace’s giant bee,” after naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who first collected the bee in 1858.

Pingos are like small mountains that form in the permafrost. They are circular or elliptical formations that grow up to 230 feet in height and 2,000 feet in diameter.

Entomologists from North Carolina State University ran a study that found we share our houses with more than 500 kinds of arthropods.