60-second Science

A new review paper emphasizes the crucial role birds play in helping trees colonize new habitats—especially in the face of a changing climate. Christopher Intagliata reports.

Laboratory tests suggest that when the shellfish suck in tiny plastic particles, their reproductive success suffers. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At a Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health forum on diet and health, Walter Willett, chair of the school's nutrition department, talked about benefits and risks associated with antioxidant supplements.  

The newly discovered Himalayan forest thrush looks a great deal like the alpine thrush, but its far silkier song stylings gave it away as a potential new species.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The presence of a gun increases the likelihood that someone in the home will die a violent death, particularly by suicide.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A tiny primate, the marmoset, appears to process pitch perception the same way we do, implying that the ability evolved in a common ancestor at least 40 million years ago.  

Antibiotics work against bacterial infections but are often prescribed to people with viral infections, which don't respond to the drugs. But a new gene test could show if a patient's infection is viral or bacterial.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, the driving force for demoting Pluto, now claims evidence for a massive, distant replacement ninth planet in our solar system.  

Sharks that could smell headed straight back home when taken a few miles away whereas some that had their senses of smell blocked took slower, more erratic paths to their old haunts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers found a spike in mercury, which is produced by volcanoes, in ancient ocean sediments from southern France that span the time of the dinosaurs' mass extinction, lending support to the idea that massive eruptions played a role, in addition to the asteroid impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At a Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health forum on diet and health, Walter Willett, chair of the school's nutrition department, said that adoption of more healthful eating habits even late in life still has benefits.

Sophisticated computational techniques make it possible to analyze gene samples from all the bacteria in the gut at once to take a census of the species present.  

When food is plentiful and chimps are more chummy, they harbor an increased number of different bacterial species in their bellies.  

The remains of a clearly butchered woolly mammoth in Siberia date to 45,000 years ago, 10 millennia earlier than when humans were thought to have crossed north of the Arctic circle.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More members of an urban swan population that lets humans get near have a particular genetic variant than do a rural swan group that tends to take off when humans approach.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hippos eat meat more than had been thought, a practice that could explain their susceptibility to anthrax die-offs when they consume infected animals.  

Some set of numbers will definitely be drawn in the $1.3-billion Powerball Lottery, so all you have to do is make sure you hold every possible combination of numbers.  

Researchers were able to determine the genome of stomach bacteria that infected the famous Iceman at the time of his death, in the process giving us clues about ancient human migrations.  

Many non-African humans today have genes—which apparently made it into us via Neandertals—that ramp up resistance to pathogens, but bring on allergies, too. Christopher Intagliata reports.

More than a quarter century after the federal funding ban on needle exchange programs went into effect, it has quietly been almost completely lifted.