Research News

How Obamacare Affects Our Wallets And Debt Ratio

8:04am May 18, 2016

by Shankar Vedantam

A study examined the economic effects of the Affordable Care Act. Researchers found states that opted to expand Medicaid through Obamacare had residents with fewer unpaid bills and less debt overall.

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Rest Easy: New Study Doesn't Change What We Know About Safe Swaddling

7:58am May 15, 2016

A new report on swaddling raised alarm for many new parents, but Joy Victory of HealthNewsReview.org tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer they needn't worry.

Reviving Memory With An Electrical Current

9:33am May 14, 2016

by Bret Stetka

While still experimental, deep brain stimulation with implanted electrodes is being tested as a way to ease dementia in patients with Alzheimer's and other neurological conditions. Could it work?

Scientists at the University of Lund in Sweden have shown that dung beetles use mental "snapshots" of the Milky Way to navigate.

Dung Beetles Navigate Poop-Pile Getaways Using Celestial 'Snapshots'

5:17pm May 13, 2016

by Laura Wagner

The tiny waste harvesters use the Milky Way as a guide to roll their dung meals away to safety. Now researchers say the beetles take "snapshots" of the constellation and store them in their brains.

"I'm afraid there's a growing sense that the path to health is through testing," says Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a Dartmouth Institute internist who has written books on the pitfalls of overdiagnosis. Encouraging the worried well to order their own blood tests

DIY Blood Tests? There's A Downside To Ordering Your Own

9:16pm May 12, 2016

by Jon Brooks

It's legal to order diagnostic blood tests without consulting a doctor in many states. But critics say healthy patients can go down a rabbit hole of invasive assays and unnecessary treatments.

Normandy cows feed on alfalfa before milking at a farm in Courcite, northwestern France. Feeding cows alfalfa could reduce how much they burp. So could feeding them oregano, which has belch-squelching essential oils.

Can Oregano Fight Cow Belches — And Climate Change?

7:19pm May 12, 2016

by Sidsel Overgaard

Gassy cows account for a good deal of the methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — generated by livestock farming. Danish researchers think feeding cows oregano might help rein in the bovine burps.

These mitochondria, in red, are from the heart muscle cell of a rat. Mitochondria have been described as "the powerhouses of the cell" because they generate most of a cell's supply of chemical energy. But at least one type of complex cell doesn't need 'em

Look, Ma! No Mitochondria

3:06pm May 12, 2016

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Scientists have found the first eukaryotic organism that functions fine without mitochondria, the "powerhouses" that make energy for the cells of yeast, humans and other animals.

Researchers Offer Jet Lag Advice In Return For Data About Your Sleep

1:35pm May 12, 2016

by Alan Yu

Users of an app developed by the University of Michigan to help with jet lag entered information on their time zone and sleep patterns that helped academics with their work. But is the approach valid?

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Does The Placebo Effect Influence Consumer Product Purchases?

4:55pm May 11, 2016

by Shankar Vedantam

Novices play better golf when they have expensive brand name equipment, research shows. Brand name products alleviate some performance anxiety but brands have no effect on better players.

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This artist's concept depicts some of the planetary discoveries made by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. Tuesday's announcement more than doubles the number of verified planets discovered by the Kepler mission.

NASA Spots 1,284 New Planets, Including 9 That Are 'Potentially Habitable'

6:39pm May 10, 2016

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Of the more than 1,200 planets in the latest trove turned up by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, about half seem to be rocky, like Earth.

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