Science, Spoken

Robots already have us beat in some ways: They’re stronger, more consistent, and they never demand a lunch break. But when it comes to the senses, machines still struggle mightily. They can’t smell particularly well, or taste (though researchers are making progress on robotic tongues), or feel with their robotic grips—and that’s a serious consideration if we don’t want them crushing our dishes or skulls. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Katherine Johnson blazed trails, not just as a black female mathematician during the Cold War, but by mapping literal paths through outer space. Her math continues to carve out new paths for spacecraft navigating our solar system, as NASA engineers use evolved versions of her equations that will execute missions to the moon and beyond. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

You’ve never seen amphibians in this light before. Like, literally, this specific azure light. Today in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers for the first time show that amphibians glow if you throw blue light on them. The tiger salamander suddenly pops with brilliant green spots. Cranwell's horned frog is striped in a nuclear glow. Even the marbled salamander’s tiny toe bones fluoresce brightly—oh, and as does its cloaca, perhaps as a kind of sexual display. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Frogs are reflecting and satellites are detecting, but first: a cartoon about self-driving without a license. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today’s News Amphibians glow. Humans just couldn't see it—until now New research in Scientific Reports reveals that amphibians actually glow, and always have—scientists just couldn't see it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Today in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers are publishing a series of articles as a kind of postmortem of the Australian bushfires. The series is both a diagnosis of what happened as flames swept across the continent, and a call to action for researchers the world over: Climate change is a crisis for people, the natural world at large—and for science itself. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Monday, Amazon CEO and world’s richest human Jeff Bezos announced he was pledging nearly 8 percent of his net worth to fight climate change. This money, known as the Bezos Earth Fund, will be used to support “any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world,” Bezos wrote in an Instagram post. There are plenty of problems with a billionaire single-handedly dictating how the world community will fight climate change. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When the Diamond Princess left the port of Yokohama in Japan on January 20, the 2,666 passengers on board were ready to unwind with a trip to China, Vietnam and Taiwan. But two weeks later they’d find themselves confined to their cabins, allowed out for only a few hours each day, while 542 of their fellow passengers and crew tested positive for Covid-19—the novel virus that has infected 75,000 people worldwide. Wired UK This story originally appeared on WIRED UK. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Your organs are a lot of things—a powerful computer (in the case of your brain), detoxers (your liver and kidneys), breathing devices (your lungs). But there’s one thing they’re decidedly not: transparent. That’s unless you’re Kevin Bacon in The Invisible Man, or if your organs end up in the lab of Ali Ertürk, director of Helmholtz Munich’s Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Smack dab between eastern Canada’s Misery Point and Greenland's Cape Desolation is a place where the thrashing of the Atlantic Ocean’s churn sounds about as friendly as the nearby place names. This stretch of water, the Labrador Sea, has long been considered a critical junction in the global circulatory system of the world's oceans. By pumping warm water north and cool water south, the system regulates the planet’s climate. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Confronted with a baby—or puppy—most adults can’t stop themselves from dissolving into baby talk: “WHO’S the cutest? It’s YOU! YES it IS!” We slow down, increase our pitch by nearly an octave, and milk each vowel for all it’s worth. And even if the baby can’t speak yet, we mimic the turn-taking of a conversation. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices