60-second Science

New Zealand’s erect-crested penguin lays two eggs but rejects the first one—the opposite of how most birds prioritize their offspring.

COVID, flu and RSV are surging. Here’s what you need to know to protect yourself.

Scientific American technology editor Sophie Bushwick explains how Iran is using surveillance tech against vulnerable citizens.

As recent advances improve the prospects of detecting and catching lung cancer early, a new challenge arises: how to ensure people worldwide, regardless of their socioeconomic circumstances, benefit from new clinical tools.

In a new episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we talk about the variants that are likely to be around this winter and how boosters help even if you’ve already had the disease.

New research shows that birds of prey attempting to grab a bat from a roiling mass of the flying mammals have developed a way to cope with the confusion.

Rats kept awake after exploring novel objects remembered the original items but not where they’d seen those objects, raising interesting questions about human sleep.

In this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we talk about why we’ve had years shaved off our average collective life since 2020. Also, we talk about “mabs” and why you might want to know what they are.

Early-stage lung cancers are not only difficult to diagnose—they’ve also proved difficult to curatively treat.

A surprising new gene discovery in coyotes may help conserve the critically endangered wolf.

On this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, Josh Fischman gets COVID, and President Joe Biden says the pandemic is over.

A study of orb-weaving spiders shows that the arachnids’ webs pick up a range of sounds—and that they are always “listening” for vibrations coming in over them.

Chomping on food takes so much energy that it shaped human evolution. Our ancestors spent many hours a day chewing, which may have shaped our teeth and jaws.

New research has discovered the first case of acoustic mimicry between a mammal and an insect—an acquired skill that could just save certain bats’ skin.

This is our second back-to-school special episode of COVID. Quickly. Today we talk about two big issues: the low vaccination rates among the littlest kids and how long you should quarantine after being sick (actually).

It turns out that making new views of the universe accessible to those with vision impairment has required some deep thought—and carefully chosen words.

It turns out that hoverflies may fly hundreds or even thousands of miles—all to help pollinate our flowers and vegetables.

Although recent spikes in temperature affect all of us, our urban critters have had to find their own ways to beat the heat. Sometimes they “sploot.”

This is our back-to-school special episode of COVID, Quickly. We’ll talk about why COVID testing is about to become a school problem—and about whether or not kids are at risk for long COVID.

Engineers at the company DeepMind built a machine-learning system based on research on how babies’ brain works, and it did better on certain tasks than its conventional counterparts.