Science

A recent study found jumping spiders exhibit REM sleep-like activity while resting.

Science

Spiders show signs of REM-like activity, raising the question: Do they dream?

5:01am August 23, 2022

by Kai McNamee

A team of researchers filmed jumping spiders overnight and observed behaviors that mirror rapid eye movement sleep in other species. It helps that baby jumping spiders have translucent exoskeletons.

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What happens to sweat in outer space (Hint: There's no gravity to help it drip away)

4:55pm August 22, 2022

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Humans' ability to sweat is useful on Earth — but when people go up into space, they find that perspiring in zero gravity presents some unique challenges.

A farmer stands above a deep crack in the dried mud of an earthen embankment in his rice fields near Chongqing, China, on Sunday. The government says it will try to protect China's grain harvest from record-setting drought by using chemicals to generate r

China plans to use chemicals to generate rain to protect its grain harvest

11:57am August 21, 2022

by The Associated Press

The hottest, driest summer since the government began recording rainfall and temperature 61 years ago has wilted crops and left reservoirs at half their normal water level.

Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology found an increase in stage 4 cervical cancer cases. They suspect young women aren't undergoing routine medical checks because they appear to be otherwise healt

Late-stage cervical cancer cases are on the rise

8:27pm August 20, 2022

by Dustin Jones

Researchers found an overall 1.3% increase per year in advanced stages of the disease, with the greatest increase taking place among white women in the South aged 40 to 44.

An orca pod seen in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021.

Killer whales are 'attacking' sailboats near Europe's coast. Scientists don't know why

9:01am August 20, 2022

by Scott Neuman

In recent years, orcas have been damaging the rudders of pleasure yachts, mostly along the coasts of Portugal and Spain. Scientists and sailors are struggling to understand the encounters.

Now extinct, a Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) is seen in the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania in 1933.

A plan to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction raises questions

5:00am August 20, 2022

by Bill Chappell

The thylacine had trademark stripes and, rare in the animal world, abdominal pouches in both females and males. The last known specimen died in a zoo in 1936.

This technology makes data accessible to blind and visually impaired people

5:10pm August 19, 2022

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Mona Minkara, a professor of bioengineering at Northeastern University who is also blind, about a new way to present science data to blind and sighted people alike.

How do mosquitoes smell us out? And how can we stop them? A new study offers a surprising answer to the first question — and hope for better preventive strategies as a result.

Mosquitoes surprise researcher with their 'weird' sense of smell

3:13pm August 18, 2022

by Ari Daniel

That's how neuroscientist Meg Younger describes her team's findings about how skeeters hone in on human aromas. And that could lead to better ways to keep us bite- and disease-free.

In this Sept. 15, 2017, photo provided by the U.S. Army Alaska, soldiers from Alpha Company, 70th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, conduct unscheduled field maintenance

Science

The Northern Lights may move farther south into the mainland U.S. this week

10:16am August 18, 2022

by Ayana Archie

The Northern Lights, known scientifically as auroras borealis, are triggered by geomagnetic activity from the sun. They typically occur closer to the North Pole, near Alaska and Canada.

The federal government wants to roll out another round of COVID-19 boosters this fall but drugmakers are still testing the new boosters. The Food and Drug Administration has said it will base its evaluation of the boosters on data from mouse studies, in a

What's behind the FDA's controversial strategy for evaluating new COVID boosters

5:04am August 18, 2022

by Rob Stein

Some scientists are alarmed that the agency plans to evaluate the next generation of boosters by reviewing mouse studies alone. Others say there's no time to waste waiting for human trials.