ScienceBard Media

When blue whales sing their deep and resonant songs may indicate when they are about to migrate.

Blue Whale Song Timing Reveals Time to Go Blue whales off California’s coast sing at night—until it’s time to start migrating, and they switch to daytime song.

During the Civil War, soldiers were vaccinated against smallpox. Here is my latest podcast about the cool way scientists uncovered the virus doctors based the vaccine on. One thing I learned while researching this is that black soldiers in the Union army were 6 times more likely to get smallpox, and those who did were more likely to die from it. My guess is that poorer health care, living conditions, and racism were involved. Another thing I learned is that desperate soldiers tried to vaccinate themselves. Remember, hypodermic needles hadn't been invented, and viruses hadn't yet been discovered because they're tiny. This "spurious vaccination" often resulted in soldiers giving themselves syphilis and other diseases! ALSO, there's some evidence that people had gotten complacent about smallpox during the 19th century after the development of the vaccine, and that may have led to vaccine refusal! Just like today. Smallpox inoculation goes back a long time, but vaccination using viruses that are less deadly is a much more recent practice.

Civil War Vaccine May Have Lessons for COVID-19 Vaccination used against smallpox during the Civil War reveals the identity of the distantly related virus used to keep troops disease free.

Some bloody good news for once. Don't let the title fool you, tardigrades and sea-monkeys also figure prominently in this story. My latest for Scientific American.

Donut Sugar Could Help Stored Blood Last Dehydrated blood that could keep at room temperature for years may be possible thanks to a sugar used to preserve donuts, and by tardigrades and brine shrimp to dry out and spring back with water.

Swamp wallabies are pregnant ALL the time. I spoke to reproductive and behavioral biologist Marilyn Renfree from the University of Melbourne to find out more.

Swamp Wallaby Reproduction Give Tribbles a Run They're not born pregnant like tribbles, but swamp wallabies routinely get pregnant while pregnant.  

This ancient animal may be your oldest relative. My latest podcast for Scientific American.

Tiny Wormlike Creature May Be Our Oldest Known Ancestor The bilateral organism crawled on the seafloor, taking in organic matter at one end and dumping the remains out the other some 555 million years ago.