Science

Science

Comet Shines Light on Sun Dynamics

1:33pm June 07, 2013

In 2011, Comet Lovejoy traveled through the sun's corona and lived to tell the tale. But its tail was the most telling. Reporting in the journal Science, Cooper Downs, an astrophysicist at Predictive Science Inc., says that the wiggly path of the comet's tail helps explain the sun's magnetic field.

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How To Survive A Mass Extinction

1:33pm June 07, 2013

In her new book Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction writer Annalee Newitz looks back at Earth's previous mass extinctions to see what lessons might be learned, and how earthlings might prepare themselves to survive a future planet-wide catastrophe.

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In her latest book about Henry Molaison, Corkin tells the story of the amnesic man she studied for a half-century, whose brain helped teach neuroscientists about the distinctions between memory and intellect.

The Patient Who Let Us Peek Inside A Brain In 'Present Tense'

5:03pm June 06, 2013

For nearly 50 years, neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin worked with Henry Molaison, who lost most of his memory in 1953 after experimental surgery for severe seizures. Their work together taught us much of what we know today about memory, and she writes about Molaison and their work in her new book.

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Miss. Turns To Cord Blood To Track Down Statutory Rapists

8:43am June 05, 2013

by Jeffrey Hess

Starting in July, doctors and midwives in Mississippi will be required by law to collect samples of umbilical cord blood from babies born to some girls under the age of 16. Officials will analyze the samples and try to identify the fathers through matches in the state's DNA database.

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Bad Diagnosis For New Psychiatry 'Bible'

7:22pm June 04, 2013

The new edition of the DSM, the so-called "Bible" of psychiatry, is out. But many psychiatrists and psychologists say the manual's approach is outdated, boxing mental illness into discrete categories like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, when very little is known about the underlying causes of disease.

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Whenever a steer or cow leaves a farm in Michigan or goes to a slaughterhouse, it passes by a tag reader, and its ID number goes to a central computer that keeps track of every animal's location.

Michigan Tracks Cattle From Birth To Plate

10:54am June 04, 2013

by Dan Charles

Would you like to know the life history of that steak before you eat it? Technology exists to give you that information, at least in Michigan, where the state government requires all cattle to carry an electronic tag for tracking purposes.

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Genetically modified wheat has been discovered growing in a field in Oregon. GMO wheat is not approved for sale in the U.S. Above, a wheat field in Arkansas.

GMO Wheat Found In Oregon Field. How Did It Get There?

2:03pm June 03, 2013

by Dan Charles

An Oregon farmer discovered genetically engineered wheat growing in his field. Nobody knows how it got there. GMO wheat is not approved for sale in the U.S.

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No 'Universal' Best Practice To Save Yourself From Tornadoes

6:11pm June 01, 2013

by NPR Staff

When you're caught in a tornado's path, should you run or hide? The tornado in Moore, Okla., and the storms that tore through the Oklahoma City area Friday provide contradictory answers.

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Grace Aber stands in the shade of a mango tree with her children in the remote village of Tumangu in northern Uganda. Four of Aber's nine children have been diagnosed with nodding syndrome, starting with Partick (front), who first showed symptoms in 2002.

After Years Of War, Ugandan Children Face New Deadly Threat

8:27am June 01, 2013

by Matthew Kielty

Uganda has lost one generation to a brutal, decades-long war. Now, a second generation is jeopardized by a strange disease known as nodding syndrome, which affects only children in parts of Africa and has no known cause.

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A screen grab from an animation explaining the lung gizmo.

Gizmo Uses Lung Cells To Sniff Out Health Hazards In Urban Air

9:23pm May 31, 2013

by Richard Harris

Scientists are trying to figure out how chemicals in the air interact with each other to make people sick. So they're building an instrument — a "lung in a box" — that goes way beyond the usual chemical monitors.

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