Research News

Science

Scientist Gets Research Donations From Crowd Funding

11:44am March 15, 2013

by Joe Palca

What do you do when you're a scientist and you have no job and no money for your research? If you're Ethan Perlstein, you try crowd funding. He raised $25,000 to investigate where the drug methamphetamine is stored in the brain.

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Researchers wanted to know if Japanese quail were aware of the colors and patterns on their eggs.

Science

Quick Brown Fox Can't Find Camouflaged Quail Eggs

1:57am March 13, 2013

by Véronique LaCapra

The tiny, speckled eggs of Japanese quail should be easy targets for hungry predators. But these quail have a survival advantage — each goes out of her way, research suggests, to choose a nesting location that best matches the particular color pattern of her eggs.

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Researchers found that exposure to uncivil comments can polarize opinion on news issues.

Science

The 'Nasty Effect': How Comments Color Comprehension

5:56pm March 12, 2013

by NPR Staff

At its best, the Web is a place for unlimited exchange of ideas. But the uncivil discourse that unfolds in comments sections can be poisonous. A study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication suggests that rude comments on articles can change the way we interpret the news.

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Op-Ed: We Need More Aaron Swartz-Style Hacktivism

3:58pm March 11, 2013

When Internet activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide, he faced federal charges for illegally downloading and releasing articles from JSTOR, the digital library of academic journals. Northwestern University professor Peter Ludlow says Swartz was right to fight for public access to scholarship.

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Scientists say they have put together a record of global temperatures dating back to the end of the last ice age, about 11,000 years ago. This historical artwork of the last ice age was made by Swiss geologist and naturalist Oswald Heer.

Past Century's Global Temperature Change Is Fastest On Record

10:40pm March 08, 2013

by Christopher Joyce

In the past 100 years, average temperatures on Earth have changed by 1.3 degrees. Previously, that large of a swing took 5,000 years. That's the word from researchers who pored over temperature data going back to the end of the last ice age.

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These drawings by Santiago Ramon y Cajal, published in 1899, show cortex neurons.

To Make Mice Smarter, Add A Few Human Brain Cells

6:13pm March 07, 2013

by Adam Cole

For more than a century, neurons have been the superstars of the brain. Now researchers say that when they placed human versions of another type of brain cell into mice brains, the mice grew up to be faster learners. This supports the hypothesis that these glial cells — and not just better-known neurons — play an important role in learning.

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A promo image depicting a bee at a coffee flower.

If Caffeine Can Boost The Memory Of Bees, Can It Help Us, Too?

6:13pm March 07, 2013

by Allison Aubrey

Feeding on flowers with caffeinated nectars gives bees a memory boost, new research shows. Turns out, other studies have found humans can get a similar boost in short-term memory with caffeine — if they're exhausted.

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Scientists say that understanding how the cocktail party effect works could help people who have trouble deciphering sounds in a noisy environment. Guests make it look easy at a Dolce and Gabbana Lounge party in London in 2010.

Hear That? In A Din Of Voices, Our Brains Can Tune In To One

11:49am March 07, 2013

by Jon Hamilton

Scientists are beginning to understand how people focus on a single voice in a crowded, noisy room. This ability, known as the "cocktail party effect," appears to rely on areas of the brain that have completely filtered out unwanted sounds.

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Rats share information via brain implants, say researchers.

Science

Researchers Connect Rats' Minds Via Internet

3:31pm March 01, 2013

by Bill Chappell

An experiment that used rats to create a "brain-to-brain interface" shows that instructions can be transferred between animals via cortical implants, according to scientists. The research could help create "novel types of social interaction and for biological computing devices," says Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University.

Mapping The Effects Of The Sequester On Science

1:03pm March 01, 2013

On Friday March 1, automatic cuts known as the 'sequester' go into effect across the federal budget. Michael Lubell of the American Physical Society discusses what scientific programs will likely be affected, in fields from medical research to renewable energy development.

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