You have questions and A Moment of Science has answers. These two-minute audio podcasts provide the scientific story behind some of life's most perplexing mysteries. There's no need to be blinded by science. Explore it, have fun with it, but most of all learn from it. A Moment of Science is a production of WFIU Public Media from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
…
continue reading
You find a perfect, yellow banana in the store, but the next day at home it has brown spots. What happened?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Here's an at-home experiment you can try: take a can of "classic" Coca-Cola and a can of Diet Coke, and without opening either one submerge them in water.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Cue the laugh track: Why hyenas giggle and guffaw
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
These polka-dotted predators are no laughing matter. Learn all about hyenas with A Moment of Science.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Everyone knows that white reflects heat and black absorbs it. Does that mean you shouldn't wear black though?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
There's an urban legend that teeth dissolve in a glass of soda. How harmful is it really?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
The great astronomer Carl Sagan used to say that if he were transported anywhere in the solar system he would know which planet he was on just by looking around.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
The typical toddler averages about four ear aches per year. But when's the last time you had an ear infection?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Diamonds are only occasionally brought to the surface. But because carbon is plentiful, science fiction, such as Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age, has sometimes imagined a world where scientists find an easy way to make lots of diamond artificially.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
People like to ride horses, so why not zebras?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Some nanotechnology theorists and science fiction aficiondos imagine a more ominous possibility. What if one of these tiny robots were given the ability to self-replicate?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Hungry porpoises may find dinner at hole foods
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
It’s dinnertime in the North Sea, and you’re a hungry porpoise. Sadly, there’s no oceanic grocery store. What’s a famished sea creature to do?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Would you be surprised to learn that human beings aren't the only animals to behave superstitiously? The psychologist B.F. Skinner showed that you can even form a superstitious belief...in a pigeon.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
One thing we at A Moment of Science love is having the opportunity to explain the science behind things you see every day in the world around you.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
One infamous feature of COVID-19 is the phenomenon of “long COVID.” Researchers hadn’t previously looked for long persisting forms of colds or the flu.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Ants must have a variety of survival strategies. How do ground-nesting ants cope with rain?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Which came first: the woodpecker or the fungus?
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
Set aside the question about the chicken and the egg, what about the woodpecker and tree fungus?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
It makes sense that if you live in a neighborhood where you can walk to places to do errands and such, that would be good for your health.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Everyone has a center of gravity. Every object has one, too. It’s the point in our body where all weight is evenly balanced.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
You have a bacterial cloud following you around
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
Pigpen's condition might seem a bit farfetched, but scientists are finding that we might all be more like Pigpen than we imagine. Only, instead of dust, we carry our own cloud of bacteria.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Our lifelong food preferences are largely shaped by the foods we're exposed to early on in childhood.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Pareidolia is a term from psychology that refers to the tendency in people to perceive a meaningful pattern in a vague stimulus.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
"Auto" means "self" and kinetic means "motion." When you see a tiny point of light moving, it's often because you are moving yourself--or, rather, your eye is.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
What's brown, has eight legs and flies?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Ever notice when you're having a bad day it always seems to get that much worse?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
If you see an object blowing down the street, you will infer that it is light. That will be your conclusion even if you can’t determine what the object is.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
When you cry for emotional reasons, your eyes act differently. So what happens next?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Aging is a complex process involving accumulating damage to the cellular mechanisms of life. Anti-aging researchers want to understand and combat this process to give us healthier and longer lives.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
A species of howler monkey isn't dying its fur, but they are changing color.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Cows and humans aren't the only ones who produce milk. There are also some insects and spiders that produce a milk-like substance to feed their young.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Queen of the drowned: Bumblebees that can survive a week underwater
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
When water leaked into containers of dormant queen bumblebees, the scientists assumed they’d need to hold a state funeral. But amazingly, the regal insects lived, despite drowning!By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Climate change is making insects eat more crops
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
Scientists are saying that as the climate warms and temperatures rise, we might lose more crops to insects.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Did you know that ancient bricks are magnetic?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
These days, pandas have bamboo for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But that wasn't always the case.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Emotion differentiation makes you less angry
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
Although we all get angry at times, for some people anger turns to aggression, while for others it doesn’t. The reasons for this have to do with how we regulate our emotions.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
An amphibian mother feeds her offspring with 'milk'
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
Human mothers secrete milk to feed their babies. So do other mammals. Biologists now know that many other kinds of animal mothers also secrete milk-like nutritious substances to feed their offspring.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Fruit flies might not have manners when they invade your home, but they do have culture.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Making their way through polluted water, fish become disoriented, as sights, smells, and sounds crowd the waters. Chemical and noise pollution, and reduced water clarity, interfere with the senses, as well as the fishes’ natural instincts.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Putting science on display at the Great Exhibition of 1851
2:00
2:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:00
These days, you can hear about self-driving cars when you turn on the news, or you can browse store shelves for high-tech gadgets. But in the mid-nineteenth century, there was one go-to place for the public to view scientific achievement: the Great Exhibition.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
A simple exercise to do at home with A Moment of ScienceBy Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Would you drink a mixture of acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate, acetone, acetic acid, and a few of the compounds known as hexenals, which give fresh-cut grass is characteristic odor?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Swimming in a school has a lot of benefits for fish, from social opportunities to avoiding predators to finding more food.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Researchers have heard orangutans make the noise after the danger has passed—a sign that they’re communicating about the past, and the first evidence that primates other than humans have that ability.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Craving dessert? Today’s episode considers some particularly sweet science: the importance of eggs for baking a cake.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
It’s a tough world out there, so really, what’s a gull to do?By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
If the air temperature gets close to our body temperature, something more is needed to keep the skin cooler than the inner body. We sweat.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
By human standards, some animals’ eating habits are strange, and even disgusting. One example is coprophagy—eating poop.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Water molecules attract each other. The molecules at the surface of a body of water make a film under tension. That film is strong enough to support a needle or a small insect like a water strider.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
Researchers reported that they discovered a tiny spider in the Peruvian Amazon rain forest that has a behavior that’s surprisingly similar to the web-slinging superhero.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
One mirror is not enough to see yourself as others see you. When you look at a bathroom mirror you see an image of yourself with left and right reversed.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading
If you look at a map of Scotland, you may notice a line cutting straight through the country. This line, called the Great Glen Fault, is the result of a long geological history that has in turn impacted the history of Scotland itself.By Indiana Public Media
…
continue reading