60-second Science

A strain that emerged during the latest epidemic is able to enter human cells more easily—which means it’s more infectious, too. Christopher Intagliata reports. 

An orangutan matched researchers' predictions about which mixed beverage he would choose based on his relative fondness for the separate ingredients.  

Using taxidermy data, biologists determined that gun-killed birds have smaller brains than birds that died in other ways. Christopher Intagliata reports.

Facebook users in California had slightly better health outcomes than nonusers, even after controlling for other factors. Christopher Intagliata reports.

Just as with honest jobs, mobsters with a more advanced education made more money than their less educated counterparts. Erika Beras reports.

Alaskan river otters can gain valuable information about one another by sniffing around their latrines. Jason G. Goldman reports.

Birds of prey work where other traditional methods of bird abatement—like scarecrows, pyrotechnics and netting—fail. Emily Schwing reports.

Slightly altering one’s appearance—even with glasses—can indeed hinder facial recognition by others. Erika Beras reports.

Subjects suffering insomnia got more wrong answers in a face-matching task—but they were paradoxically more confident of their responses. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Theory has it yawning helps cool the brain—and it turns out animals with bigger brains do indeed tend to yawn longer. Christopher Intagliata reports.

With a shorter season of sea ice, polar bears have less access to marine mammals. But switching to a terrestrial diet deprives them of the fatty seal meals they need to thrive.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The parachute flower smells like alarm pheromones of a honeybee, to attract tiny flies that feed on bees under attack.

A technique called “biosparging” relies on pumping oxygen underground to help naturally occurring microorganisms multiply and consume oil spills.    

When rain fills the massive footprints left by elephants, communities of aquatic invertebrates quickly move in Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Future wet suits with surface textures like the thick fur of otters that trap insulating air layers could keep tomorrow's divers warmer in icy waters.  

Female applicants to postdoctoral positions in geosciences were nearly half as likely to receive excellent letters of recommendation, compared with their male counterparts. Christopher Intagliata reports

Jean-Pierre Sauvage, James Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa share the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.  

David J. Thouless, F. Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz split the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.  

Japan's Yoshinori Ohsumi wins the 2016 prize for discoveries related to autophagy, the process in cells whereby they degrade some of their internal structures and send the parts out for recycling.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reseachers have started to examine the genetic traces of the movement of some six million African-Americans from the south to the north and west between 1910 and 1970.