Science

Medical debt is as much a hallmark of having children as long nights and dirty diapers. The Crivilare family, Andrew, Heather and Rita, 2, are pictured at their kitchen table in Jacksonville, Ill.

Their first baby came with medical debt. These Illinois parents won't have another.

7:18pm May 09, 2024

by Noam Levey

Millions of new parents in the U.S. are swamped by medical debt during and after pregnancy, forcing many to cut back on food, clothing, and other essentials.

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Researchers reveal nearly every detail of a sand grain-sized bit of brain

4:55pm May 09, 2024

by Jon Hamilton

Scientists have imaged a tiny fragment of brain in unprecedented detail, showing detailed connections between individual neurons. The method could help researchers better understand brain circuits.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , who is running as a third party candidate for president, made news this week for his deposition from 2012 that "a worm ... got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died."

RFK Jr. is not alone. More than a billion people have parasitic worms

3:35pm May 09, 2024

by Gabrielle Emanuel

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke about a time when, as he put it, "A worm ... got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died." Here's a global perspective on these worms.

In a decade of drug overdoses, more than 320,000 American children lost a parent

12:51pm May 08, 2024

by Rhitu Chatterjee

New research documents how many children lost a parent to an opioid or other overdose in the period from 2011 to 2021. Bereaved children face elevated risks to their physical and emotional health.

Science

Venus and Earth used to look like 'twin' planets. What happened?

6:00am May 08, 2024

by Regina G. Barber

Earth, Mars and Venus all looked pretty similar when they first formed. Today, Mars is dry, cold, and dusty; Venus has a hot, crushing atmosphere. Why did these sibling planets turn out so different?

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Photographers capture the Boeing Starliner capsule atop an Atlas V rocket as it is rolled out to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41, Saturday, May 4, 2024, in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Launch for Boeing Starliner's first crewed ride into space has been scrubbed

9:29pm May 06, 2024

by Joe Hernandez

Boeing's Starliner program has been plagued with delays and design problems for several years.

Scientists study the mysteries of bird migration in the mountains of Los Angeles

5:49pm May 06, 2024

Every spring, a remarkable sight unfolds in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles, as thousands of songbirds fly north.

For decades, all research in federally funded laboratories had to use only marijuana grown at a single facility located in Oxford, Mississippi.

Scientists welcome new rules on marijuana, but research will still face obstacles

4:59pm May 06, 2024

by Rhitu Chatterjee

When marijuana becomes a Schedule III instead of a Schedule I substance under federal rules, researchers will face fewer barriers to studying it. But there will still be some roadblocks for science.

"The primary way plants communicate with each other is through a language, so to speak, of chemical gasses," journalist Zoë Schlanger says.

Plants can communicate and respond to touch. Does that mean they're intelligent?

2:58pm May 06, 2024

by Tonya Mosley

Climate journalist Zoë Schlanger says research suggests that plants are indeed "intelligent" in complex ways that challenge our understanding of agency and consciousness. Her book is The Light Eaters.

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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson at the space agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

NASA's chief is worried about China getting back to the moon first. Here's why

9:33am May 06, 2024

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told NPR he sees the U.S. in an urgent race with China to find water on the moon, and that he trusts SpaceX, despite Elon Musk's increasingly controversial profile.

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