Research News

Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes appears during a 2015 interview with CNBC.

Theranos Is Shutting Its Blood-Test Facilities, Shedding 40 Percent Of Workers

12:37pm October 06, 2016

by Merrit Kennedy

The company has been under scrutiny from federal regulators over its blood-testing technology. Theranos says it will focus on a testing product called miniLab.

A researcher says the typical maximum human life span may have peaked at around 115 years, despite medical advances.

Has The Human Life Span Hit The Ceiling?

4:37pm October 05, 2016

by Rob Stein

An analysis of global demographics indicates the maximum human life span may have peaked at around 115 years. That's despite medical advances and the occasional person who lives a few years longer.

Yoshinori Ohsumi, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, smiles as he speaks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a phone during a press conference in Tokyo today, after he was awarded the Nobel Medicine Prize.

Japanese Biologist Wins Nobel Prize In Physiology Or Medicine

11:24am October 03, 2016

by Rob Stein

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to a Japanese scientist who explained that cells have their own versions of recycling plants, how they work, and the role of this process in diseases.

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A new study says brain games won't make you smarter.

Brain Game Claims Fail A Big Scientific Test

8:34am October 03, 2016

by Jon Hamilton

When a team of researchers evaluated the scientific literature on brain games, they found little evidence that the products improve memory or thinking in real-world tasks.

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Prof. Dana Carney, co-author of a 2010 Psychological Science study on the idea of "power poses," says she now has no "faith in the embodied effects of power poses."

Science

'Power Poses' Co-Author: 'I Do Not Believe The Effects Are Real'

3:31pm October 01, 2016

NPR's Scott Simon talks to behavioral scientist Uri Simonsohn about how one of the scientists behind 2010 research on 'power poses' is distancing herself from that work.

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A model of the planned Dream Chaser mini-shuttle designed by Sierra Nevada Corp. is displayed in March 2014 for a news conference at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

The United Nations Is Launching A Space Mission

9:24pm September 30, 2016

by Merrit Kennedy

The U.N. is planning to send its first spacecraft into orbit, packed with scientific experiments from countries that can't afford their own space programs.

Science

Researchers Study Sugar's Effect On Bees

11:35am September 30, 2016

A study says that after bees got a jolt of sugar water, they would fly faster toward a flower, have higher levels of dopamine and recover faster after being attacked.

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Rosetta's mission control specialists at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, were jubilant on Jan. 20, 2014, after getting back the first signals that their mission's probe had "woken up" on the comet's surface.

Scientists To Bid A Bittersweet Farewell To Rosetta, The Comet Chaser

10:24pm September 29, 2016

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

To cap its 12-year scientific voyage, the Rosetta spacecraft will take a final plunge Friday. Scientists will signal Rosetta to crash into the surface of a comet — and gather data all the way down.

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Rats are great at remembering where they last sniffed the strawberries.

Rats That Reminisce May Lead To Better Tests For Alzheimer's Drugs

4:34pm September 29, 2016

by Jon Hamilton

Most potential Alzheimer's drugs are tested on mice. But rats may be a better choice because they seem to have a type of memory that's more like ours, and also are highly vulnerable to Alzheimer's.

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A multi-million dollar effort to produce a test to guide treatment for a potentially lethal skin cancer recently fell apart after the scientific investigator discovered that the commercial antibodies he was using were unreliable.

Flawed Research Tool Leads To Faulty Medical Findings

5:00am September 29, 2016

by Richard Harris

Just as natural antibodies help your body find and fight microbial invaders, tailored research antibodies let scientists target and study cancer cells. But too many are poorly made, scientists say.