Emily Kwong and Berly McCoy of NPR's Short Wave talk about why swearing might improve physical performance, how birds' bills changed during the pandemic and why scientists are sampling whale breath.

Cowbirds are special among songbirds for the "watery" timbre of their singing, which resembles the sound of falling droplets ...

In the iconic "Sound of Music" score, "My Favorite Things," a young Julie Andrews lists snowflakes as objects that bring her ...

The Nature of Sound is a musical science video from the Symphony of Science series. It explores how sound travels, how we perceive it, and how it's deeply connected to the structure of the physical ...

Thankfully, we can still turn to our bookshelves — and podcasts — to ground us. We tapped science doyenne Alie Ward, the host of the funny cult favorite “ Ologies” podcast, to share her picks for the ...

From a small island off the coast of Panama to the farthest reaches of space, the Smithsonian advanced our knowledge of the ...

“Second sound is the hallmark of superfluidity, but in ultracold gases so far you could only see it in this faint reflection of the density ripples that go along with it,” lead author Martin Zwierlein ...

From Agency Chaos to Dark Energy Shocks: How Politics, Health, Climate Policy and Space Science Defined 2025 A look back at 2025’s biggest science stories—from federal upheaval and public health ...