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As part of Doug Emlen’s biology lab at the University of Montana in Missoula, Jillian del Sol was no stranger to bug battles. Year after year, study after study, species after species, students in Emlen’s lab have revealed the dramatic effects of sexual selection on male biological weaponry. So when she travel to East Asia to witness the tree trunk battles of the rhino beetles as part of her Ph.D. research, she came prepared to document the ecological conditions that influence chitinous combat. To her surprise, the successful male beetles didn’t just claim their prize after ousting their foes. Instead, they began to sing- or rather chirp and chitter at the females. This acoustic courtship continued even as they mated. Clearly, there was more to this mating system than just an escalating arms race between males. Now equipped with 150 beetles from field sites from Japan, del Sol aims to record these acoustic mating rituals in detail to hopefully discover why this bruiser bug suddenly turns from fighter to lover.

Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Jeramiah Jones, Audio Network, and Pond5
Additional Footage and Stills Provided by Jillian Delsol
Pond5, Louis Hollis (CC BY 2.0), Carol Burch-Brown (CC BY 2.0),
Flora Lichtman, Glacier National Park, (CC BY 2.0), Ian A. Nelson (CC BY 2.0)
Special Thanks to Annie Nero

Why do your fingers get pruney after a swim? Only a handful of researchers, including Einar Wilder-Smith, Mark Changizi, and Tom Smulders, have looked into the phenomenon. Publishing in Biology Letters, Smulders lends a hand to the hypothesis, set forth by Changizi and colleagues, that finger wrinkles improve our grip of wet objects.

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It's a grim job, but someone has to do it. Every day, the Smithsonian Institution's Feather Identification Lab receives dozens of envelopes filled with the remains of birds scraped off the sides of airplanes. Using this scant evidence and the Smithsonian's enormous collection of preserved specimens, scientists at the lab must identify the victims in the hopes of preventing future aviation accidents.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Video by Smithsonian Institution, Feather Identification Lab, Element Materials Technology, Bryan Heitman, Leonard Brown(http://www.youtube.com/LeonardBrownArtbyLeonard ) , YouTube User CaptainFULLHD (C.C. BY 2.0), Robert South, Micah Maziar (C.C. BY 3.0), Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (C.C. BY 3.0)

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Climbing Kilamanjaro, blasting asteroids, and stopping time to destroy robots are just some of the amazing activities people can experience at VR World NYC. VR World’s Head of Content Tommy Goodkin explains how advances in VR technology have allowed them to transcend an arcade-like atmosphere and redefine what a theme park experience can be.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network.com
Video Game Captures by VRWorld NYC
Featuring Icaros, Google Tilt Brush, The Climb by Crytek GmbH,
Arizona Sunshine by Intel, Raw Data by Survios,
Job Simulator by Owlchemy Labs, and Richie’s Plank Experience
Special Thanks to Jessica Gray, Alexa Lim, Johanna Mayer, Xochitl Garcia, and Rachel Bouton

Meet a set of giant pumpkins--find out how to grow them and go to a weigh off to see growers compete for the heftiest pumpkin title.

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For more about this work head to Dr. Lydia Bourouiba's Webstie : http://lbourouiba.mit.edu
Although we all know that sneezes and coughs transmit infections, little research had been done to model how they work. To address this knowledge gap, Dr. Lydia Bourouiba and Dr. John Bush of MIT's Applied Mathematics Lab used high speed cameras and fluid mechanics to reveal why we've grossly underestimated the role of gas clouds in these violent expirations.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Video and Stills by
Lydia Bourouiba
John Bush
Shutterstock
Prelinger Archives

High school science teacher Sam Terfa wanted to demonstrate a fundamental physics principle: resonant frequency. To do so, he found the best singer at Minnehaha Academy and had him serenade a wine glass. It did not turn out well for the glass.

Footage courtesy of Sam Terfa/Minnehaha Academy, Martin Simon/UCLA. Produced by Flora Lichtman

Originally appeared on ScienceFriday.com May. 22, 2009

Creating the scintillating scents and sensations of a perfume presents a lesson in molecular chemistry and craftwork. With the help of the Institute of Art and Olfaction, we'll take you on tour of how perfumes are made and how they can be creatively scattered for artistic means.

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Within sight of the famous New York skyline, you might see something unexpected—whales. Vast schools of menhaden baitfish swirl in the New York Bight, just a few short miles from downtown Manhattan, luring numerous whale species to feed.. Although breathtaking sights like these were unheard of just a decade ago in the waters off New York City, scientists say they signal a wildlife resurgence underway. Howard Rosenbaum, senior scientist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, explains why the whales have returned and how researchers are tracking the phenomenon in real time.
NOTE: The minke whale photo featured in this video is the dwarf minke whale, a subspecies not found in New York waters.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network.com
Additional Footage and Stills Provided by
Timothy Del Grosso, The Wildlife Conservation Society,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,
NOAA, Christan Khan, Pond5, Shutterstock,
Certain whale video collected under NMFS MMPA/ESA Permit No. 14809
Right Whale Footage courtesy of NOAA Fisheries and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
under NMFS ESA/MMPA Research/Enhancement Permit #0932-1489-9

Ask a child with an imaginary companion if their pretend friend is real, and often they'll tell you, "I just made them up!" Of course, moments later they'll regale you with stories of the latest adventures with their companion with the utmost conviction. In the second episode of The Real Guide to Imaginary Companions, a trip into the lab of developmental psychologist Jaqueline Woolley reveals how children can become so enamored of their pretend friends that they blur the lines between reality and fantasy. Woolley also investigates whether a child's orientation toward fantasy play has ties to real-world creativity.
Produced by Science Friday with generous support from the John Templeton Foundation
Produced, directed, and narrated by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Katie Graham, Luke Groskin and Patrick Pelham
Editor by Erika Sutter
Animations by Gabe Darling and Candice Aquino
Music by Audio Network
"Fairy Godmother" voiced by Annie Nero
Additional footage provided by
Pond5.com, A Lost World (1925), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,
Special Thanks to Danielle Dana, Jennifer Fenwick, Becky Geer, Tracy Gleason, Elizabeth Delucia Landon, Alex Riviello, Jenny Shalant, Christian Skotte, Marjorie Taylor, and Jacqueline Woolley.

Bridging the Rift: Oculus' Answer to Virtual Reality-- With their clunky designs and nauseating displays, truly immersive virtual reality devices used to be the stuff of science fiction—think The Matrix or Tron. However, recent technological and design advances by Oculus VR allow for dynamic and enjoyable virtual reality experiences (in the real world). Oculus VR’s founder, Palmer Luckey, details some of the key innovations inside the company’s headset, the Rift, and explains why virtual reality is finally ready for a mass-market debut.
Produced by Christian Baker and Luke Groskin.
Music by Audio Network.
Game Footage by Elite: Dangerous provided by Frontier Developments
World of Diving provided by Vertigo Games
Lucky's Tale provided by Playful Corp
Additional footage by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory

From the Science Friday Archives!
With global threats like ocean warming and acidification, it's a tough time to be a coral. Marine scientists John Bruno and Elizabeth Selig, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, analyzed over 8000 coral surveys from all over the world to see if local management through Marine Protected Areas had any positive effect on coral.

The Rockaways, a Queens, N.Y. neighborhood, is still recovering from Sandy. Debris from fires lingers on the streets, and buildings torn apart by the storm are crumbling on the beach. But at least for those with restored heat and power (7,000 customers in the area are still without power), there is yet another worry: mold. Peter Corless, a community organizer in the Rockaways, gives us a tour of the neighborhood, while Joan Bennett, a mycologist whose house molded after Katrina flooding, describes the species of fungi she found in her own home after that hurricane and in New Jersey homes post-Sandy.

In 2011, comet Lovejoy traveled through the sun's corona and lived to tell the tale. But its tail was the most telling. Reporting in the journal Science, Cooper Downs, an astrophysicist at Predictive Science Inc. in San Diego, Calif., says that the wiggly path of the comet's tail helps explain the sun's magnetic field.

A new study in Science investigates the wisdom of crowds... well, schools. Andrew Berdahl, graduate student at Princeton University, explains that Golden shiner minnows prefer shady habitat. And he and his co-authors found that large groups of fish are better at tracking shady habitats than smaller groups or individuals--a demonstration of collective sensing.How do fish pool their senses? The researchers filmed fish and digitized their movement to try to answer the question.

Ever wondered how to milk a spider? In this archival video from 2007, Dr. Greta Binford, a researcher at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, extracts venom from a sleeping spider's fangs.
Video courtesy of Dr. Greta Binford and Vanessa Fawbush

Tucked in a shallow valley in northeastern Pennsylvania is a mysterious geologic feature: 16 acres of sandstone boulders. Science Friday took a trip to Hickory Run State Park's "boulder field" and spoke with Megan Taylor, environmental education specialist, about why the rocks collected there.

In 2004, pediatric audiologist Allyson Sisler-Dinwiddie plunged into a world of silence after a car accident damaged her hearing. Under the care of hearing researcher Rene Gifford, she became one of the first test subjects of a new technique to improve cochlear implants, devices that use electrodes to stimulate cells in the inner ear. Since then, Sisler-Dinwiddie and Gifford have worked together to restore other patients' hearing. Watch the pair and their team at Vanderbilt University as they develop a resounding remedy to help people hear again.
A film by Science Friday. Produced in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Produced by Emily V. Driscoll and Luke Groskin
Directed by Emily V. Driscoll
Filmed by Jeff Nash
Edited by Erika Sutter
Music by Audio Network
Photographs by Vanderbilt University, Rene Gifford, Allyson Sisler-Dinwiddie
Hearing and Cochlear Implant Animations provided by MED-EL Jack Noble, and Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center

Vanderbilt Team and Patients: Stephen Ball, Tim Davis, David Haynes, Kendall Hill, David Lewellen, Jack Noble Alejandro Rivas, and Morgan Stansberry

Project Advisors: Laura A. Helft, Laura Bonetta, Dennis W.C. Liu and Sean B. Carroll - Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Special Thanks to Rene Gifford, Allyson Sisler-Dinwiddie, Keli S. Lawrence, Kate Carney, Charles Johnson, Christian Skotte, Danielle Dana, Ariel Zych, and Jennfier Fenwick

Science Friday/HHMI © 2016

Reporting in Science, Gabriel Villar and colleagues say that tiny water droplets can be engineered to work together sort of like cells -- moving in concert, passing electrical signals. Villar built a machine that fabricates these pseudo-cellular networks while he was getting his Ph.D. in the departments of chemistry and physics at Oxford. He says that water droplet networks (with some major advancements) could be made into artificial tissues.

Study: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6128/48

More videos
Dive into the Physics of Splashing: http://www.sciencefriday.com/v....ideo/02/06/2009/dive
Lab-Raised Heart: http://www.sciencefriday.com/v....ideo/06/10/2011/lab-
March of the Immune Cells: http://www.sciencefriday.com/v....ideo/10/15/2010/marc

Lightning -- one of the great unsolved mysteries.