Research News

Authorities intercepted a woman using this drug kit in preparation for shooting up a mix of heroin and fentanyl inside a Walmart bathroom last month in Manchester, N.H. Fentanyl offers a particularly potent high but also can shut down breathing in under a

Fentanyl-Linked Deaths: The U.S. Opioid Epidemic's Third Wave Begins

10:29am March 21, 2019

by Martha Bebinger

Overdose deaths involving fentanyl are rising — up 113 percent on average each year from 2013 to 2016. Dealers are adding cheap fentanyl to the illicit drug supply, and some users get it accidentally.

Queue Listen Now

U.S. Mathematician Becomes First Woman To Win Abel Prize, 'Math's Nobel'

3:21pm March 19, 2019

by Bill Chappell

"I find that I am bored with anything I understand," Karen Uhlenbeck once said. That sentiment is part of why she won what many call the Nobel of mathematics Tuesday.

Researchers Examine Who's Better At College Basketball's Free-Throw Line

6:53am March 19, 2019

by Shankar Vedantam

March Madness is here, and college basketball is in the spotlight. When it comes to making free throws, who is better: College players who would eventually go pro, or players who would never go pro?

Queue Listen Now

Marijuana plants grow in a marijuana cultivation facility on July 6, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cannabis 101 At The University Of Connecticut

1:59pm March 16, 2019

by Patrick Skahill

With expanding markets for hemp and marijuana, some students believe that taking the class could help their careers. "I'm definitely interested in the plant and where it can go," Madison Blake said.

Queue Listen Now

Science

Google Employee Is Credited With Calculating Most Accurate Value Of Pi

6:40am March 15, 2019

Emma Haruka Iwao has computed over 31 trillion of its digits. She and her team calculated 31,415,926,535,897 digits of pi — crushing a 2016 record by trillions of digits.

Queue Listen Now

A biomechanical model of producing an "f" sound with an overbite (left) compared with an edge-to-edge bite (right). Some linguists are arguing that the advent of softer food thousands of years ago led to changes in biting patterns and, eventually, to more

Science

Did Cooking Really Give Us The F-Word?

8:22pm March 14, 2019

by Dan Charles

Some linguists are arguing that the advent of softer food thousands of years ago led to changes in biting patterns and, eventually, to more frequent use of sounds like "f" and "v" in human languages.

There was an uproar in 2018 when a scientist in China, He Jiankui, announced that he had successfully used CRISPR to edit the genes of twin girls when they were embryos. Prominent scientists hope to stop further attempts at germline editing, at least for

Call For Global Moratorium On Creating Gene-Edited Babies

5:20pm March 13, 2019

by Rob Stein

An international group of 18 prominent scientists and bioethicists is calling for countries around the world to impose a moratorium on the creation of babies whose genes have been altered in the lab.

Queue Listen Now

An artist's rendering shows a needle-like carbon nanotube delivering DNA through the wall of a plant cell. It also may be possible to use this method to inject a gene editing tool called CRISPR to alter a plant's characteristics for breeding.

Science

Scientists Thread A Nano-Needle To Modify The Genes Of Plants

11:16am March 11, 2019

by Joe Palca

Getting DNA into plant cells is tricky. Researchers have tried using infectious bacteria, as well as gene guns that shoot gold bullets. Then a physicist came up with a new approach almost by accident.

Queue Listen Now

Jonah Reeder prepares a special protein shake that helps him manage a metabolic condition called phenylketonuria.

A Gulp Of Genetically Modified Bacteria Might Someday Treat A Range Of Illnesses

11:57am March 08, 2019

by Rob Stein

Researchers think genetically engineered versions of microbes that can live in humans could help treat some rare genetic disorders and perhaps help with Type 1 diabetes, cirrhosis and cancer.

Queue Listen Now

This colorized scanning electron micrograph shows human cells in a lab infected with "pink" influenza viruses. As many as 650,000 people each year die from flu, according to the World Health Organization.

An Antibody-Inspired Small Molecule Could Make For A Better Flu Treatment

8:54pm March 07, 2019

by Jonathan Lambert

To outsmart influenza, researchers are leveraging the biological information encoded in infection-fighting antibodies to design new drugs. One attempt neutralizes near-lethal levels of flu in mice.