Science Update Podcast - Daily Edition

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Weighing rain. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Rain gauges can tell us how much rain fell in one place, but how do we tell how much water fell from a storm like Hurricane Harvey over all of Houston? Well, scientists now have the ability to weigh it, using GPS satellites. NASA Jet Propulsion Lab geologist Chris Milliner says Earth’s bedrock is springy, like a bed.

MILLINER (Jet Propulsion Lab):

So you can think about the effects of Harvey’s stormwater on Earth’s surface as if you were to sit down on a mattress.

HIRSHON:

In the journal Science Advances, he and his colleagues describe using GPS stations drilled into the bedrock to measure precisely how far down the water pushed the rock.

MILLINER:

And so we can then back out and calculate “what was the weight of that water that caused the observed depression in Earth’s crust?”

HIRSHON:

The technology will allow scientists to track water movements during storms and forecast floods. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Skunk vs skunk. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

[Pepé LePew clip] The cartoon skunk Pepé LePew was oblivious to his own stink, and listener Arthur Magida wonders whether skunks in general are immune. We asked University of New Mexico skunk researcher Jerry Dragoo. He says that skunks and other members of the order Carnivora, including dogs, don’t seem to mind the smell. But they are still repelled because the spray is an irritant.

JERRY DRAGOO (University of New Mexico):

If one skunk gets sprayed by another one, and it hits him in the face, gets him in the eyes, they do go through a lot of the typical behaviors you could see a dog do, you know, rub their face in the dirt, put their paws up to their face and rub it a little bit, so they are definitely affected by it when another animal sprays them.

HIRSHON:

If you have a science question, give us a call at 1-800-WHY-ISIT. Or email us from our website, science update dot com. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Memory-boosting exercise. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

We’ve all heard that exercise can be good for the brain as well as the body. But for many older adults jogging and cycling may be difficult. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UC Irvine neurobiologist Michael Yassa and his colleagues report that even light exercise can help.

MICHAEL YASSA (University of California, Irvine):

And what we’ve found here is that even exercise sessions as short as ten minutes of exercise that is not very strenuous, equivalent to maybe a brisk walk, we can see effects on memory, positive effects on memory.

HIRSHON:

They also report finding a likely mechanism: improvements in neural connections to, from and within the brain’s hippocampus, an area known to affect memory. The work was based on single short bouts of exercise in young adults. The team is now investigating the effects of regular light exercise on older adults. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Altruistic toddlers. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Altruism is a cornerstone of cooperative human societies. Research has shown that empathetic people with highly altruistic tendencies tend to be especially attuned to images of others in distress. Now, researchers report in the journal PLOS Biology that these patterns may develop at a very early age. University of Virginia developmental neuroscientist Kathleen Krol says infants who paid more attention to fearful faces when they were seven months old were more likely to display helping behaviors once they became toddlers.

KATHLEEN KROL (University of Virginia):

Already in infancy humans are showing this tremendous capacity to help others, and more shockingly, they show a tremendous variability in this behavior.

HIRSHON:

Krol says says despite these differences, parents can help nurture empathy in their children by encouraging them to recognize when others are in distress. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Susanne Bard

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Debunking STEM gender myths. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Fewer women than men are employed in science, engineering, and math fields. But that’s not due to differences in academic achievement, according to a study in Nature Communications. University of New South Wales researcher Rose O’Dea and her team analyzed the academic performance of 1.6 million students worldwide and found that girls received slightly higher average grades in STEM than boys.

ROSE O’DEA (University of New South Wales):

Our study suggests that there are enough talented girls to feed into this STEM pipeline and shrink this gender gap in science and maths, but just that this talent pool is being underutilized.

HIRSHON:

O’Dea’s team also found that boys’ overall performance was more variable than girls, but more so in non-STEM fields like reading and writing.

O’DEA:

So rather than worrying about improving girls’ maths skills, maybe we should be worrying about improving boys language skills.

HIRSHON:

I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

Story by Susanne Bard

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Spacecraft hygiene. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The NASA Office of Planetary Protection is sort of a high-tech janitorial service cleaning and checking spacecraft for bacteria and their tough spores. Betsy Pugel is deputy to the Planetary Protection Officer.

BETSY PUGEL (NASA):

So that when something goes to Mars, or Enceladus, places that may have life, that we know what we’re taking along in terms of a biological load.

HIRSHON:

But she says no matter how carefully they scrub, some spores manage to survive.

PUGEL:

Nature always finds a way. You think you’ve cleaned something to the nth degree and somehow, somewhere there’s something that manages to persist.

HIRSHON:

In fact, the extreme efforts the group takes to disinfect the spacecraft have led to the discovery of new types of super-tough microorganisms that survive their efforts — clues to the very sorts of microbes that might live on other worlds. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Octopi on ecstasy. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

The octopus bimaculoides, despite having eight limbs, is not a touchy-feely kind of species. The animals avoid each other except when mating, and even then, the larger females often tear their mates limb from limb. But in the journal Current Biology, Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Gul Dolen reports that the drug MDMA, also called ecstasy, makes the animals seek out one another’s company. She says MDMA boosts levels of a brain chemical called serotonin that controls sociability in humans and other mammals. But what about our far more distant relatives?

GUL DOLEN (Johns Hopkins):

I thought this is a great opportunity to test whether or not serotonin had this function back before when vertebrates and invertebrates diverged from each other.

HIRSHON:

The work is helping her team understand the brain’s evolution. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Dead elephants ID their killers. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Using a detailed map of African elephant populations based on their DNA, scientists can now match the tusk of a poached elephant to the time and place where it was killed. In the journal Science Advances, University of Washington biologist Samuel Wasser and his colleagues describe how that information can help find the kingpins behind the poaching.

SAMUEL WASSER (University of Washington):

To our surprise, we found that over the last decade, virtually 100 percent of the ivory was coming from just two places. ­­The same cartel is pulling the ivory out of the same place over and over again, and he’s probably in fact funding the operations of the poachers on the ground.

HIRSHON:

By matching events on the ground with ivory seized at major ports, along with suspicious financial transactions and other clues, they can prosecute suspects who have eluded justice for years. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

A guppy-munching insect. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Giants among insects, praying mantises have been observed to gobble up frogs, rodents, and even small birds. Now, researchers report in the Journal of Orthoptera Research that fish can be added to that list. Italian entomologist Roberto Battiston of the Musei del Canal di Brenta has been working with the insects for 20 years.

ROBERTO BATTISTON (Musei del Canal di Brenta/Museums of the Canal of Brenta):

So I was quite surprised because it is the first time heard about mantis feeding on a fish.

HIRSHON:

He says colleagues in India first alerted him to the unusual behavior via social media. They documented the mantis climbing onto pond vegetation to grab the guppies at night.

BATTISTON:

They have very sharp mandibles, so they basically cut the fish like a Japanese chef.

HIRSHON:

Battiston says the insects have large brains and may actually learn to fish through repeated experience. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the science society.

Original source:

Battiston R, Puttaswamaiah R, Manjunath N (2018) The fishing mantid: predation on fish as a new adaptive strategy for praying mantids (Insecta: Mantodea). Journal of Orthoptera Research27(2): 155-158. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.27.28067

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BOB HIRSHON (host):

Behind our “gut feeling”. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Like our eyes and ears, our gut is a sense organ. In response to what we eat, it conveys information about nutrients, heat, and fullness to our brain. Now, researchers report in the journal Science that these signals travel via an electrical connection from the gut to the brain in mere milliseconds. Duke neuroscientist Maya Kaelberer says scientists used to think slow-acting hormones primarily transmitted this information.

MAYA KAELBERER (Duke University):

If we’ve ever eaten a really fast meal we feel full a lot faster than that. And this kind of led us to believe that there has to be a faster synaptic connection that’s actually relaying these messages to the brain.

HIRSHON:

In mice, her team found that a neurotransmitter called glutamate is responsible for actually relaying the signal. The discovery could help shed light on appetite disorders and obesity. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.

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