Science Quickly

Each year more than half a million people undergo bariatric surgery, a procedure geared toward weight loss. But research shows that stigma around weight can continue to affect people’s lives even during recovery from the procedure.  Larissa McGarrity is a clinical associate professor at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah and lead psychologist at the school’s comprehensive Weight Management Program. She and her colleagues assessed 148 people who received bariatric surgery before their procedure and one and a half and three years after to learn more about their physical, mental and emotional health over the recovery period.  Recommended reading: The New Science of Diet, Weight and Health [https://www.scientificamerican.com/report/the-new-science-of-diet-weight-and-health/]  The Impact of Weight Stigma on Health  [https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/is-weight-really-the-problem/] E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com [sciencequickly@sciam.com] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe [https://www.scientificamerican.com/getsciam/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_subscribetext&utm_term=LP_subscribe_v1_s1_podcast] to Scientific American and sign up [https://www.scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_signuptext&utm_term=LP_signup_v1_s1_podcast] for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.  Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Last year Science Quickly looked across disciplines to piece apart the science of singing. To understand why humans sing, musicologists collaborated on an international study of folk music. To understand how we sing, neuroscientists differentiated how our brain processes speech and singing. Music enthusiast and associate mind and brain editor Allison Parshall takes us through some hallmark 2024 studies that, taken together, piece together the evolutionary origins of singing. Recommended reading: Hidden Patterns in Folk Songs Reveal How Music Evolved https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hidden-patterns-in-folk-songs-reveal-how-music-evolved/ [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hidden-patterns-in-folk-songs-reveal-how-music-evolved/]  Why You Can’t Get That Song Out of Your Head https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/why-do-songs-get-stuck-in-your-head/ [https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/why-do-songs-get-stuck-in-your-head/]  E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com [sciencequickly@sciam.com] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe [https://www.scientificamerican.com/getsciam/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_subscribetext&utm_term=LP_subscribe_v1_s1_podcast] to Scientific American and sign up [https://www.scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_signuptext&utm_term=LP_signup_v1_s1_podcast] for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.  Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest associate mind and brain editor Allison Parshall. Our show is fact-checked by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Sick coral reefs are visually striking—bleached and lifeless, far from the vibrancy we’ve come to expect. But what does an unhealthy coral system sound like? In this rerun, conservation bioacoustics researcher Isla Keesje Davidson tells Science Quickly all about the changing soundscape of the seas.  Recommended reading: 84 Percent of Corals Impacted in Mass Bleaching Event https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worst-coral-mass-bleaching-on-record-caused-by-warming-oceans/ [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worst-coral-mass-bleaching-on-record-caused-by-warming-oceans/] How Corals Fight Back against Warming Seas https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-corals-fight-back-against-warming-seas/ [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-corals-fight-back-against-warming-seas/]  E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com [sciencequickly@sciam.com] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe [https://www.scientificamerican.com/getsciam/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_subscribetext&utm_term=LP_subscribe_v1_s1_podcast] to Scientific American and sign up [https://www.scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_signuptext&utm_term=LP_signup_v1_s1_podcast] for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.  Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is fact-checked by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Ten months ago Science Quickly made space history by conducting the first-ever live interview from the cupola of the International Space Station (ISS). Astronaut Matthew Dominick spoke with Rachel Feltman about his work on the ISS and the stunning space photography that first caught our attention. Watch a video of the interview [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTPnvNGNmnY] See more stunning space photographs from Matthew Dominick [https://x.com/dominickmatthew?lang=en] E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com [sciencequickly@sciam.com] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe [https://www.scientificamerican.com/getsciam/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_subscribetext&utm_term=LP_subscribe_v1_s1_podcast] to Scientific American and sign up [https://www.scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_signuptext&utm_term=LP_signup_v1_s1_podcast] for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.  Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Jeff DelViscio with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Drone shows are replacing fireworks for summer celebrations. They’re safer and more environmentally friendly but complicated to program and run. A recent preprint paper proposes an algorithmic solution that can take some technical challenges out of drone operators’ hands and give engineers more creative control. Host Rachel Feltman speaks with researchers Mac Schwager, an associate professor at the aeronautics and astronautics department at Stanford University, and Eduardo Montijano, an associate professor at the department of computer science and systems engineering at the University of Zaragoza in Spain, about their work and what it would take to move the algorithm from theory to the skies. Recommended reading: Read the research team’s paper, which was presented at a 2024 workshop: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-91813-1_6 [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-91813-1_6] And released as a preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15899 [https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15899] How Do Fireworks Actually Work? Here’s the Explosive Science https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/the-science-of-fireworks/ E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com [sciencequickly@sciam.com] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe [https://www.scientificamerican.com/getsciam/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_subscribetext&utm_term=LP_subscribe_v1_s1_podcast] to Scientific American and sign up [https://www.scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences/?utm_source=promotion&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may24-marketing2024_signuptext&utm_term=LP_signup_v1_s1_podcast] for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]