Science

Researchers Examine The Ways Of Southern Coyotes

10:40am February 28, 2015

by Grant Blankenship

The number of coyotes in the Deep South is growing, but biologists know relatively little about their habits across the south and how they are diverging from their cousins out west.

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A Neuroscientist Weighs In: Why Do We Disagree On The Color Of The Dress?

8:13pm February 27, 2015

Robert Siegel speaks with Dr. Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist at Wellesley College, about the dress that has the whole Internet asking: What color is it?

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Eyelashes Grow To Just The Right Length To Shield Eyes

4:04pm February 27, 2015

by Poncie Rutsch

Eyelashes keep dust out and fend off drying breezes, a study finds. To do that they need to be a very precise length. Extra-long fake eyelashes hurt more than they help.

From Naked Mole Rats To Dog Testicles: A Writer Explores The Longevity Quest

4:03pm February 27, 2015

"Nature knows how to let animals live a very long time," says Bill Gifford, whose latest book is Spring Chicken, a look at the history of anti-aging schemes and current ways people try to live longer.

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A field of unharvested wheat is seen in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, England, in 2012. Wheat wasn't cultivated in Britain until some 6,000 years ago, but DNA evidence suggests early Britons were eating the grain at least 8,000 years ago.

Stone Age Britons Were Eating Wheat 2,000 Years Before They Farmed It

10:45am February 27, 2015

by Chris Joyce

Scientists have recovered cultivated wheat DNA from an 8,000-year-old submerged site off the British coast. The finding suggests hunter-gatherers were trading for the grain long before they grew it.

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This NASA file image shows a true color photo of Saturn assembled from images collected by Voyager 2.

Exploring The Solar System Through The Eyes Of Robotic Voyagers

9:06am February 27, 2015

by NPR Staff

The Voyager spacecraft revolutionized our understanding of space. In a new book, The Interstellar Age, planetary scientist Jim Bell shares stories about the planning and excitement back on Earth.

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Marine Biologist Eugenie Clark Remembered As Passionate Shark Advocate

9:42pm February 26, 2015

During a career that spanned almost 75 years, Dr. Eugenie Clark was one of the world's foremost marine biologists and defender of sharks. Clark died Wednesday at the age of 92.

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Opposition Grows To Nicaragua Canal Connecting Atlantic And Pacific

9:42pm February 26, 2015

by John Otis

The canal would allow passage for the largest ships on the water, but cut through wetlands, forests and the region's largest freshwater lake — and environmentalists worry about the consequences.

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How Peer Pressure May Encourage Tax Delinquents To Pay Up

5:33pm February 26, 2015

by Shankar Vedantam

A field experiment in Kentucky, Kansas and Wisconsin finds that shaming tax cheats is a more effective way to get scofflaws to pay up rather than threatening them with fines.

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A supermassive black hole, like the one illustrated here, has been discovered 12.8 billion light years away, at the center of an exceptionally bright quasar.

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Astronomers Discover A Supermassive Black Hole Dating To Cosmic Dawn

5:15pm February 26, 2015

by Hannah Bloch

It's enormous, and it grew relatively quickly — less than 900 million years after the Big Bang.