Trumpetfish: The fish that conceal themselves to hunt

Damselfish didn't detect a threat when the two models of a trumpetfish and a parrotfish passed by together. Sam Matchette hide caption

toggle caption Sam Matchette

Damselfish didn't detect a threat when the two models of a trumpetfish and a parrotfish passed by together.

Sam Matchette

All Things Considered host joins 's and to nerd-out on some of the latest science news. They talk NASA shouting across billions of miles of space to reconnect with Voyager 2, the sneaky tactics trumpetfish use to catch their prey and how climate change is fueling big waves along California's coast.

Shouts across interstellar space

NASA with the Voyager 2 spacecraft on August 4 after losing contact for almost two weeks.

The spacecraft's antenna typically points at Earth, but scientists accidentally sent the wrong command on July 21. That command shifted the Voyager 2 receiver two degrees. As a result, the spacecraft could not receive commands or send data back.

Voyager 2 launched a little over two weeks before Voyager 1 in 1977. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to study Uranus and Neptune. The spacecrafts are currently in interstellar space — beyond our solar system — and are the farthest human-made objects from Earth. Both Voyager 1 and 2 contain sounds and images selected to portray life on Earth in the event they ever encounter intelligent life in our universe.

The sneaky swimmers hiding to catch their prey

A from researchers in the U.K. showed the first evidence of a non-human predator — the trumpetfish — using another animal to hide from their prey.

To study the behavior, two researchers dove into colonies of trumpet fish prey and set up a system that looked like a laundry line. They moved 3D models of fish — either a predatory trumpet fish, a non-predatory parrotfish or both — across the line and observed the colony's reaction. They saw that when the trumpet fish model "swam" closely to the parrotfish, the prey colony reacted as though they only saw the parrotfish.

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The findings were published Monday in the journal

Big waves along the California coast

Some surfers describe them as the .

Climate researchers aren't as sure. As NPR climate correspondent reported earlier this month, a new investigating nearly a century of data found increasing wave heights along the California coast as global temperatures warm. Researchers say this heightened ocean wave activity poses a threat to coastlines and may exacerbate the impacts of extreme waves for coastal communities.