Stimulating the brain with a very small electrical current through the forehead could boost a student's ability to learn and remember basic mathematics, a provocative experiment suggests.
The work, published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology, could help those who struggle with mental arithmetic. But the study was small and the long-term effect wasn't profound.
In the latest installment of our "Looking Ahead" series, NPR science correspondent and Radiolab co-host Robert Krulwich talks about reporting on big ideas in imaginative ways, the old days at NPR and what he's wondering about today.
Roxarsone, a drug linked to elevated levels of inorganic arsenic in chicken meat, is no longer used in broiler chicken farming, producers say. But another arsenic-based drug is still used to raise turkeys.
A study published online recently in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives documented slightly elevated levels of arsenic in samples of chicken purchased at grocery stores in 10 cities in the U.S.
So how did trace amounts of this toxin end up in supermarket poultry?
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
We're going to look closely this morning at a dramatic advance in science.
GREENE: And also its far-reaching implications. The advance involves embryonic stem cell research.
INSKEEP: Which scientists see as a route to dramatic advances in medical treatment. Researchers have now figured out how to make embryonic stem cells that carry a specific individual's DNA.
After President Obama overturned Bush-era policy restricting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research in 2009, Nebraska Right to Life led a protest of the research outside the University of Nebraska regents' meeting.
This map, from the United States Geological Survey, shows the age of bedrock in different regions of North America. Scientists found ancient water in bedrock north of Lake Superior. This region, colored red, was formed more than 2.5 billion years ago.
Credit NASA/JPL
Mars, seen in this composite image, has a lot of water in its polar ice caps. If water is also trapped in the planet's crust, experts say, it could house microbial life.
Scientists have discovered water that has been trapped in rock for more than a billion years. The water might contain microbes that evolved independently from the surface world, and it's a finding that gives new hope to the search for life on other planets.
The water samples came from holes drilled by gold miners near the small town of Timmins, Ontario, about 350 miles north of Toronto. Deep in the Canadian bedrock, miners drill holes and collect samples. Sometimes they hit pay dirt; sometimes they hit water, which seeps out from tiny crevices in the rock.
The planet-hunting career of NASA's Kepler spacecraft might be near its end.
Astronomers said Wednesday that a reaction wheel that keeps the orbiting telescope pointed at tiny, distant patches of sky to look for Earth-like planets has failed. If they can't fix it, Kepler will be relegated to a less prestigious mission, directing its gaze much closer to home in a search for so-called "near-Earth objects," i.e., meteors and asteroids.
Two dams that block the migration of salmon are coming down in the largest dam removal in U.S. history. The dam sits on the Elwha River in the northwest corner of Washington state. They were built in the early 1900s to power nearby timber mills, but their power is no longer needed. From member station KUOW in Seattle, Ashley Ahearn reports that the removal is releasing a lot of debris but also creating new life.
