Research News

Playing Youth Sports Takes A Lot More Green Than It Used To

11:08am September 09, 2015

by Patti Neighmond

Kids on club teams have an advantage in making the high school team. But many families are being priced out by the high cost of league fees, equipment, and travel that club sports require.

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Preemies' Survival Rates Improve, But Many Challenges Remain

7:51am September 09, 2015

by Michaeleen Doucleff

Extremely premature babies, those born between 22 and 28 weeks of gestation, are more likely to survive now than they were 20 years ago. But the very youngest still have serious health problems.

The parts of the brain known to help process fear and negative emotion are hyperactive when someone with math anxiety confronts a tricky problem, scientists say.

1 Tutor + 1 Student = Better Math Scores, Less Fear

6:53pm September 08, 2015

by Patti Neighmond

Math anxiety is much like other fears, say scientists who scanned the brains of third-graders. One-on-one tutoring soothed the fear circuit in anxious kids' brains and improved performance, too.

Make mine a venti: An example of a drinking vessel from the Grasshopper Pueblo archaeological site in central Arizona. Researchers tested shards of similar vessels found at various sites in the American Southwest and found evidence that people in the regi

1,000 Years Ago, Caffeinated Drinks Had Native Americans Buzzing

3:32pm September 08, 2015

by Murray Carpenter

People in the American Southwest and Mexican Northwest were drinking cacao and tea-like yaupon in places where neither grew. That suggests an extensive trade network to deliver a caffeine fix.

Tech companies are trying to curb the influence of implicit bias in the workplace.

How Startups Are Using Tech To Try And Fight Workplace Bias

11:30am September 08, 2015

by Yuki Noguchi

The idea that everyone makes automatic, subconscious associations about people is not new. But now some companies are trying to reduce the impact of such biases in the workplace.

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Hard Evidence: Teachers' Unconscious Biases Contribute To Gender Disparity

1:34pm September 07, 2015

by Shankar Vedantam

Girls often outperform boys in science and math at an early age but are less likely to choose tough courses in high school. An Israeli experiment demonstrates how biases of teachers affect students.

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Science

Just How Sweet Is The Taste Of Victory?

10:12am September 06, 2015

Ah, the sweet taste of victory. And now there's scientific evidence to back that up. NPR's Linda Wertheimer talks to researcher Robin Dando at Cornell, who used hockey fans to test his theory.

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Ten-year-old Jake Herrera and his Los Angeles team run around the diamond as a warmup for baseball practice.

Benefits Of Sports To A Child's Mind And Heart All Part Of The Game

5:53pm September 04, 2015

by Patti Neighmond

In NPR's most recent poll, a majority of American adults say they played sports in their youth. Many say they encourage their kids to play, too, and see health benefits as well as lifelong lessons.

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Squirrels closely mimic bird warning calls and help spread the alarm through the forest that hawks, owls or other predators are nearby.

Squirrels Mimic Bird Alarms To Foil The Enemy

1:49pm September 04, 2015

by Christopher Joyce

It can take more than just a keen ear to figure out what animals are saying. Sometimes, scientists are learning, you have to talk back to map the rich networks of conversation in a forest.

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Scientists Find Fern Whose Parents Are Separated By 60 Million Years Of Evolution

6:21pm September 03, 2015

by Geoff Brumfiel

Scientists have found a fern whose parents are separated by some 60 million years of evolution. This story originally aired on February 24, 2015 on Morning Edition.

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