Research News

News Brief: Senate Rebuke, Opioid Lawsuit, Gene-Editing Embryos

6:26am February 01, 2019

Senate rebukes Trump's Syria decision. Legal documents allegedly detail allegations of years of deceptive opioid practices. A new experiment in the U.S. aimes at creating gene-edited human embryos.

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NASA's rover Curiosity crawls up the side of Vera Rubin Ridge on Mars' surface in January 2018. Mount Sharp — a 3-mile-high mountain — can be seen in the distance.

Science

Exploring The Mysterious Origins Of Mars' 3-Mile-High Sand Pile

8:01pm January 31, 2019

by Joe Palca

Space scientists on Earth have improvised a tool on the Mars rover to help them figure out how a giant mountain on the Red Planet came to be. Their surprising conclusion: It's likely windswept sand.

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After scientists screened over 8,000 genes in fruit flies, only one, which hadn't been described before, triggered sleepiness.

Sick And Tired? Scientists Find Protein That Puts Flies To Sleep And Fights Infection

2:13pm January 31, 2019

by Jonathan Lambert

In the search for what triggers sleep, researchers stumbled upon a link between sleep and the immune system. A single fly gene gets turned on in sick flies, inducing sleep and an immune response.

Uptick In Butterfly Census Could Be A Fluke, Researchers Caution

6:40am January 31, 2019

by Carrie Kahn

Environmentalists say the number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico's forests is up dramatically. That's good news after years of drastic decline, but researchers warn it might not last.

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Science

Massive Starfish Die-Off Is Tied To Global Warming

3:16pm January 30, 2019

by Rebecca Hersher

Sea stars along the Pacific Coast are dying in the largest disease epidemic ever documented in a wild marine species. New research suggests warmer water is making the disease even more deadly.

Steep Climb In Benzodiazepine Prescribing By Primary Care Doctors

6:40pm January 25, 2019

by Rhitu Chatterjee

U.S. prescriptions for Valium, Ativan and other benzodiazepines have shot up since 2003, statistics show, especially for chronic pain. Roughly half those prescriptions are from primary care providers.

As a child on a New York farm, Eben Bayer helped his dad shovel wood chips in the barn. That's where he noticed a stretchy web of fungus that became the basis of his biodegradable packing material.

Science

VIDEO: Inventor Inspired By Childhood Memories Of Fungus

10:51am January 24, 2019

by Joe Palca

As a child on a New York farm, Eben Bayer helped his dad shovel wood chips in the barn. That's where he noticed a stretchy web of fungus that became the basis of his biodegradable packing material.

Science

Why Camera Angles And Bias Support Different Opinions

6:47am January 23, 2019

Accounts vary of what happened when students faced an Native American elder in Washington. Steve Inskeep talks to Adam Benforado, author of Unfair who argues camera angles undermine our legal system.

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Science

Why Did So Many Americans Trust Russian Hackers' Election Propaganda?

3:57pm January 22, 2019

by Shankar Vedantam

Investigations of Russian influence on the 2016 election have tended to focus on the role of social media. Researchers are also exploring the psychological vulnerability that hackers exploited.

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A scanning electron micrograph shows microglial cells (yellow) ingesting branched oligodendrocyte cells (purple), a process thought to occur in multiple sclerosis. Oligodendrocytes form insulating myelin sheaths around nerve axons in the central nervous s

Researchers Find A Web Of Factors Behind Multiple Sclerosis

8:35am January 21, 2019

by Bret Stetka

It's looking like MS strikes when a variety of triggers gang up to impair neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Researchers are using their new knowledge to search for treatments.