Category: ScienceNews

The human brain tends to slow down as we age — even healthy brains shrink. That can make learning and memory harder as people age. But some people’s brains shrink more slowly than their peers. This lucky group is called “SuperAgers.” They’re people aged 80 or older. But they have the memory abilities of someone 50-to-60 years old. This week in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, researchers from Northwestern University’s SuperAging Program summarized some of the secrets they’ve learned in the last 2.5 decades. 

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As the United States secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr., announces a $500 million cut to mRNA vaccine research in the United States, we hear a statement from the Nobel Prize winning biologist who made mRNA vaccines possible.

A team of scientists from Northwestern University have uncovered the pathway believed to protect some people from allergic reactions (even when they are sensitive to an allergen) and have tested a drug which could protect the most severely allergic. Also this week, satellite data shows that large parts of the Earth are running dangerously low on ground water.

And although people often believe scientific fraud is committed by a few bad actors, a new paper uncovers networks of journals, editors, and authors who are allegedly cooperating to publish fraudulent papers.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber and Alex Mansfield Assistant Producer: Minnie Harrop Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Allergy testing. Credit: Peter Dazeley via Getty Images)

Many public health experts and scientists say they are stunned by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s decision to cancel nearly half a billion dollars in federal funding for future vaccine development. MRNA technology was central in the battle against COVID and can be developed more quickly than traditional vaccines. Geoff Bennett discussed the implications with Dr. Michael Osterholm. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

The rise of artificial intelligence has sparked concerns across various sectors, including employment, education and national security. But one Kentucky county is taking a different approach, using the technology to boost something far more human: civic engagement. Judy Woodruff reports on an experiment that revealed surprising levels of agreement. It’s part of her series, America at a Crossroads. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Every September, the small town of La Junta, Colorado puts on a whole festival to celebrate a beloved local animal: the tarantula! Around this time of year, thousands of mature male tarantulas start to migrate en masse – but until recently, scientists didn’t know what triggered them to move out of their cozy burrows. On today’s show, biologist Dallas Haselhuhn explains how they solved the mystery, and how climate change could affect future treks.

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This episode was produced by Berly McCoy and edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Robert Rodriguez was the audio engineer.

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It’s no secret that stress isn’t good for you. But just how bad is it? Well, in the last few decades, scientists have linked psychological stress to changes in our DNA that look a lot like what happens on the molecular level as we age. Today on the show, host Regina G. Barber talks to freelance science journalist Diana Kwon about the latest research on stress and aging, including a new hypothesis for how your brain handles aging — and what science could do about all of it.

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Let’s say you were asked to name the greatest health risks facing the planet. Priceton University economist Ramanan Laxminarayan, founder and director of the One Health Trust, would urgently suggest you include anti-microbial resistance near the top of that list.

“We're really in the middle of a crisis right now,” he tells interview David Edmonds in this Social Science Bites podcast. “Every year, about 5 million people die of infections that are associated with antibiotic resistance -- 5 million. That's nearly twice the number of people who die of HIV, TB and malaria, put together -- put together. Antibiotic resistance and associated deaths are the third leading cause of death in the world, after heart disease and stroke. So you're talking about something that's really, really big, and this is not in the future. It is right now.”

The underlying problem, simply put, is that humans are squandering perhaps the greatest health innovations in the last century by using antibiotics stupidly, allowing pathogens to develop resistance and thus rendering existing antibiotics worthless.

For the last 30 years and in particular through One Health Trust and as director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Antimicrobial Resistance, Laxminarayan has labored to make both shine a light on anti-microbial resistance and push for policies to address it. This, he tells Edmonds, is a social science problem even more so than a medical science problem – but not the exclusive province of either. “I think one of the failures of economics,” he says, “in some ways, is that we don't take the trouble to understand the nitty gritty of the actual other field, especially when it deals with health economics or environmental economics.”

In addition to his role as a senior research scholar at Princeton, Laxminarayan is an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, a senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde.

The bathypelagic zone of the ocean is 1,000 to 4,000 meters below the surface. Sometimes it's called the midnight zone, because it's too deep for sunlight to reach. Most animals here are much smaller than their shallow-water counterparts. But occasionally, researchers find the rare deep sea giant: giant isopods, giant squids, colossal squids, sea spiders.

While these giants sound like the subjects of some people's nightmares, deep sea biologist Craig McClain dreams about them. And today on the show, he helps unravel the mystery and research behind these creatures.

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Interested in more ocean mysteries? Let us know at shortwave@npr.org.

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The bathypelagic zone of the ocean is 1,000 to 4,000 meters below the surface. Sometimes it's called the midnight zone because it's too deep for sunlight to reach. Most animals here are much smaller than their shallow-water counterparts. But occasionally, researchers find the rare deep sea giant: giant isopods, giant squids, colossal squids, sea spiders.

While these giants sound like the subjects of some people's nightmares, deep sea biologist Craig McClain dreams about them. And today on the show, he helps unravel the mystery and research behind these creatures.

SIGN UP FOR OUR SEA CAMP NEWSLETTER! WE WORKED SO HARD ON IT!

Interested in more ocean mysteries? Let us know at shortwave@npr.org.

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

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CrowdScience listener Jon started wondering how our teeth are created while he was in the dentist’s chair. It took his mind off the drilling. He wants to know how our teeth are made, what goes into them and how come we only get two sets of teeth when other animals, like sharks, grow thousands of new ones throughout their lives.

Anand Jagatia goes back to prehistoric times to discover how the story of teeth began millions of years ago. Palaeontologist Yara Haridy explains that teeth weren’t designed originally for eating at all, but as a kind of armour on the exoskeletons of fish that was also sensitive to the environment. It turns out that our teeth in fact are part of our evolutionary success story. Biological anthropologist Peter Ungar reveals that we flourished as a species because our teeth are designed to get the maximum energy from our food.

Anand discovers how teeth can even be grown in a lab when he meets researchers Ana Angelova Volponi and Xuechen Zhang whose team has managed to replicate the environment in which teeth develop. He also talks to Katsu Takahashi who has discovered a method for developing a third set of teeth. It’s a whole new way of creating teeth that will change the way we make them.

Presenter Anand Jagatia Producer Jo Glanville Editor Ben Motley Studio Manager Bob Nettles Production co-ordinator Ishmael Soriano Translation, Katsu Takahashi interview Bethan Jones