Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Exposed Nearby City To Little Radiation
After a tsunami disabled the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in March of 2011, residents of the nearby city of Minamisoma, just 14 miles from the plant, were evacuated.But within a few months, most returned...
View ArticleCDC Recommends Hepatitis C Testing For All Boomers
Listen up, baby boomers. The government wants every one of you to get tested for the hepatitis C virus.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a sweeping recommendation official amid...
View ArticleLink Between BPA And Childhood Obesity Is Unclear
BPA could be making kids fat. Or not.That's the unsatisfying takeaway from the latest study on bisphenol A — the plastic additive that environmental groups have blamed for everything from ADHD to...
View ArticleNew Experimental Drug Offers Autism Hope
An experimental drug that helps people who have Fragile X syndrome is raising hopes of a treatment for autism.The drug, called arbaclofen, made people with Fragile X less likely to avoid social...
View ArticleExperimental Drug Is First To Help Kids With Premature Aging Disease
Researchers have found the first drug to treat progeria, an extremely rare genetic disease that causes children to age so rapidly that many die in their teens.The drug, called lonafarnib, is not a...
View ArticleKetamine Relieves Depression By Restoring Brain Connections
Scientists say they have figured out how an experimental drug called ketamine is able to relieve major depression in hours instead of weeks.Researchers from Yale and the National Institute of Mental...
View ArticleBrain Scientists Uncover New Links Between Stress And Depression
Even extreme stress doesn't have to get you down.That's the message from brain scientists studying the relationship between stress and problems such as depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress...
View ArticleTeenage Brains Are Malleable And Vulnerable, Researchers Say
Adolescent brains have gotten a bad rap, according to neuroscientists.It's true that teenage brains can be impulsive, scientists reported at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans. But...
View ArticleTreatment For Alzheimer's Should Start Years Before Disease Sets In
Treatment for Alzheimer's probably needs to begin years or even decades before symptoms of the disease start to appear, scientists reported at this week's Society for Neuroscience meeting in New...
View ArticleIn Animal Kingdom, Voting Of A Different Sort Reigns
As part of NPR's coverage of this year's presidential election, All Things Considered asked three science reporters to weigh in on the race. The result is a three-part series on the science of...
View ArticleStorm's Uncertain Track Defies Weather Rules
It's still unclear whether Sandy will be a devastating storm or just a bad one.It is clear, however, that Sandy will be remembered as the storm that broke all the rules and baffled the nation's top...
View ArticleHigh-Def Storm Models Yielded Accurate Predictions
Better satellites, smarter computer models and faster computers helped government forecasters correctly predict the devastation from Hurricane Sandy, scientists say.It's unlikely the forecast would...
View ArticleNorfolk, Va., Puts Flooding Survival Plan To The Test
Superstorm Sandy got officials in New York and New Jersey talking about how to prevent flooding in a time of global warming and sea level rise.But the place on the East Coast that's most vulnerable to...
View ArticleProtection From The Sea Is Possible, But Expensive
While New York City and other places along the Northeast coast are still recovering from Superstorm Sandy, they're also looking ahead to how they can prevent flooding in the future, when sea level rise...
View ArticleThe Beatles' Surprising Contribution To Brain Science
The same brain system that controls our muscles also helps us remember music, scientists say.When we listen to a new musical phrase, it is the brain's motor system — not areas involved in hearing —...
View ArticleMatching DNA With Medical Records To Crack Disease And Aging
A massive research project in California is beginning to show how genes, health habits and the environment can interact to cause diseases. And it's all possible because 100,000 people agreed to...
View ArticleExperts Argue Against Proposed Ban On Vaccine Preservative
An old complaint about the safety of childhood vaccines is finding new life at the United Nations.The U.N. Environment Program is considering a ban on thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that is widely...
View ArticleKiller's DNA Won't Explain His Crime
Connecticut's chief medical examiner, Wayne Carver, has raised the possibility of requesting genetic tests on Adam Lanza, the man responsible for the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.Carver...
View ArticleDespite Uneven Results, Alzheimer's Research Suggests A Path For Treatment
It's been a mixed year for Alzheimer's research. Some promising drugs failed to stop or even slow the disease. But researchers also found reasons to think that treatments can work if they just start...
View ArticleA Busy And Head-Scratching 2012 Hurricane Season
Superstorm Sandy is what most people will remember from the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season. But Sandy was just one of 10 hurricanes this year — a hurricane season that was both busy and strange.Late...
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