Science

Science

There's More To Wage Cuts Than Just Lost Pay

10:30am November 18, 2015

by Shankar Vedantam

Researchers find that wage cuts endured by workers whose peers do not have their wages cut are much more painful and detrimental to morale than wage cuts that are experienced by everyone on a team.

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Paris Climate Conference Represents 'Best Chance' For World To Act

7:26pm November 17, 2015

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy for climate change, ahead of the Paris Climate Conference. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss how to slow climate change.

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A traditional fisherman in La Paz, Mexico, who works with SmartFish brings sustainable seafood to market. SmartFish was one of the competitors in last week's Fish 2.0 competition.

Entrepreneurs Pitch Sustainable Seafood Ideas; Investors Take The Bait

5:42pm November 17, 2015

by Clare Leschin-Hoar

At Fish 2.0, entrepreneurs get the chance to sell their ideas for modernizing the industry to a roomful of investors and venture capitalists. It's kind of like TV's Shark Tank — for the fish world.

Science

Natural History Museums Rife With Mislabeled Specimens, Researchers Find

4:14pm November 17, 2015

As many as half of all natural history specimens sitting in our museums are mislabeled, according to a team at the University of Oxford and the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.NPR hears from Zoe Goodwin who is the lead author the study.

Comedian Aziz Ansari says while online dating has its problems, "1 out of 3 people that get married now, they meet their spouse through online dating. So you could look at it like, oh, well, there's an insane amount of love that would not even be there ha

Aziz Ansari: Talking Modern Love With The 'Master Of None'

11:56am November 17, 2015

by NPR Staff

Hidden Brain host Shankar Vedantam talks to comedian Aziz Ansari — star of a new Netflix show and co-author of Modern Romance — about Tinder, texting and how dating is a bit like ... buying jam.

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An image from the Allen Institute's Brain Explorer shows gene expression across the human brain.

A Genetic Map Hints At What Makes A Brain Human

7:20pm November 16, 2015

by Jon Hamilton

Differences in the patterns of genes that are turned on in brains of people and mice suggest glial cells may have helped humans develop brains that can acquire language and solve complex problems.

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Kate Teague, a registered nurse at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, in Palo Alto, Calif., holds a premature baby's hand.

In Caring For Sickest Babies, Doctors Now Tap Parents For Tough Calls

3:43pm November 16, 2015

by Jenny Gold

Doctors were once unquestioned authorities on how aggressively to treat the sickest and most premature babies. Then parents started pushing back for more say. The responsibility can be excruciating.

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Omar looks through Kai's photo book. The charges for the infant's six months of care in the neonatal intensive care unit totaled about $11 million, according to the family, though their insurer very likely negotiated a lower rate.

An Ill Newborn, A Loving Family And A Litany Of Wrenching Choices

6:01pm November 13, 2015

by Jenny Gold

As families consider how far to push an infant's medical care, a chasm can open between the parents' hopes and what doctors and nurses consider realistic. How do you measure a baby's quality of life?

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A bottle of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide in a gardening store in Lille, France. A group convened by the European Food Safety Agency reviewed the available scientific data on the chemical, also known as glyphosate, and concluded that it probably does not c

European Cancer Experts Don't Agree On How Risky Roundup Is

2:37pm November 13, 2015

by Dan Charles

Glyphosate, or Roundup, is a widely used weedkiller and has been classified as a "probable carcinogen." But experts from the European Food Safety Agency now contend it probably doesn't cause cancer.

Kenji Lopez-Alt is managing culinary director of Serious Eats, author of the James Beard Award-nominated column "The Food Lab," and a columnist for Cooking Light. His first book is The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science.

A Kitchen Science Savant Shares His Secrets In 'The Food Lab'

12:46pm November 13, 2015

by NPR Staff

Kenji Lopez-Alt left a restaurant job to test and write about the mysteries of food science. His new book details findings from how best to sear a steak to how to get more golden pancakes.