‘Cocaine hippos,’ underground bees, and surprising science on aging and the heart

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Science Quickly, we explore Colombia’s controversial plan to cull invasive “cocaine hippos” and the discovery of millions of underground bees in a New York State cemetery. And we dive into new research on how HIV may accelerate biological aging and how chronic inflammation is reshaping scientists’ understanding of heart disease. Recommended Reading: Today in Science newsletter Colombia will euthanize Pablo Escobar’s invasive ‘cocaine hippos’ The hidden cause of heart disease is inflammation Scientists just discovered 5.6 million bees under a New York State cemetery E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:05.9	Thank you. For Scientific American Science, quickly, I'm Kendra Pierre-Lewis.
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