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Mar 17, 2023
One third of American adults don't get enough sleep. The CDC suggests a regimen that limits electronics, big meals, caffeine and alcohol — but adds a little exercise during the day.
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Mar 17, 2023
Data from an old NASA spacecraft reveals a volcano erupted on the surface of Venus in 1991, a new study in Science says.
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Mar 16, 2023
A Mississippi woman's life has been transformed by a treatment for sickle cell disease with the gene-editing technique CRISPR. All her symptoms from a disease once thought incurable have disappeared.
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Mar 13, 2023
Researchers say sighing works better than inhaling deeply because all deep breathing activates part of the nervous system in charge of how the body rests.
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Mar 13, 2023
One in five Sierra Nevada conifers are no longer compatible with the environmental conditions around them, raising questions about how to manage the land. Researchers say it may get worse.
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Mar 10, 2023
Three years ago, the novel coronavirus swept the world. Here are 24 quotes and 13 photos that sum up the reaction in the weeks before the World Health Organization's declaration of a global pandemic.
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Mar 10, 2023
Monkeys using stones to crack open nuts generate many stone flakes accidentally that look exactly like the ones archaeologists have long thought early humans made intentionally as tools. Oops.
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Mar 09, 2023
Researchers have mapped the more than 500,000 connections in the intricate brain of a fruit fly larva. This map, they say, could help scientists figure out how learning changes the human brain, too.
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Mar 09, 2023
The lingering jet-lagged feeling you get when daylight saving time begins and ends can disrupt your health as well as your mood. Try these 6 tips from sleep experts to make next week easier.
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Mar 09, 2023
New research analyzing eggshells sheds light on the 1,000-pound elephant birds that once roamed Madagascar.
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Mar 08, 2023
The Third International Summit on Genome Editing concluded Monday with ethicists warning scientists to slow down efforts to use gene-editing to enhance the health of embryos.
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Mar 07, 2023
Before they were driven to extinction, giant elephant birds roamed Madagascar, weighing up to 2,000 pounds and towering 10 feet tall. A new analysis gives hints as to how many species there once were.
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Mar 07, 2023
A new study in PLOS Biology finds that bumblebees can learn to solve puzzles from each other — suggesting that even invertebrate animals may have a capacity for 'culture.'
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Mar 07, 2023
Victoria Gray's life has been transformed by her treatment for sickle cell disease with the gene-editing technique called CRISPR. She's in London telling her story at a scientific summit.
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Mar 06, 2023
The last time this summit convened in 2018, the world was shocked to hear a scientist had created the first gene-edited babies. He was condemned, but gene-editing has continued, with some success.
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Mar 04, 2023
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid, directly altering its path through space. Scientists are still studying the space rock to learn more.
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Mar 03, 2023
Researchers have found evidence of horseback riding in skeletal remains of people who lived about 5,000 years ago, adding to a body of research on when people first started using horses to get around.
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Mar 03, 2023
New research suggests that vocal fry among toothed whales is what gives them the ability to echolocate, hunting down their prey with the loudest sounds produced by any animal on the planet.
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Mar 02, 2023
Scientists have confirmed that toothed whales have a vocal register and can produce a variety of sounds -- something previously confirmed only in humans and crows.
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Mar 02, 2023
Treating cholera has been a passion for Bangladeshi scientist Firdausi Qadri. She reflects on her career and inspirations, cholera's scourge, as well as successes in combating the disease.
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Mar 02, 2023
As climate change shifts resources and habitat, humans and wildlife are coming into conflict more often, new research finds. It underscores the need for interventions, the researchers say.
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Mar 01, 2023
A study published in the Frontiers of Psychology found that the higher a person's regard for their appearance — the more they thought that wearing a mask made them less attractive.
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Mar 01, 2023
The British Journal of Sports Medicine says if we can just squeeze in 11 minutes of moderate exercise everyday to get the heart pumping, we'd cut our health risks by almost a quarter.
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Feb 27, 2023
A plane loaded with scientists and their equipment has been flying through frozen skies this winter, sampling cloud particles to improve predictions of which storms will wreak havoc on the ground.
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Feb 22, 2023
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of a rare type of skull surgery dating back to the Bronze Age that's similar to a procedure still being used today.
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Feb 21, 2023
Scientists want you to know that most balloons come in peace. They're used for experiments to look at everything from cosmic rays to the ozone layer.
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Feb 20, 2023
Two stroke patients regained control of a disabled arm and hand after researchers delivered electrical stimulation to their spines, paving the way toward a medical device that could aid movement.
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Feb 17, 2023
For decades researchers have struggled to find a contraceptive methods for males. A new fast-acting compound shows promise — assuming it turns out to work as well in men as in mice.
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Feb 13, 2023
She's seen what happens when people don't trust or understand their doctor. Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick founded 'Grapevine Health' to get solid information out, especially to Black and Latinx patients.
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Feb 12, 2023
For years, chocolate-lovers have pointed to studies suggesting compounds in cocoa may be good for heart health. But some of the recent evidence comes from flavanol-rich cocoa, not from candy bars
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Feb 11, 2023
Increasingly, private equity firms shape staffing decisions at hospital emergency rooms, research shows. One apparent effect: Hiring fewer doctors and more health care practitioners who earn far less.
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Feb 09, 2023
Orca moms spent precious resources feeding their fully grown adult male offspring. A new study finds that this may limit how many more young they produce.
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Feb 06, 2023
When a case of COVID-19 morphs into the mysterious, chronic condition known as long COVID, the specialists, appointments, medications and daily need for family care can overwhelm everyone involved.
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Feb 02, 2023
The illness sends tens of thousands of babies to the hospital each year. If approved, the new injection would be the first broadly available prevention tool.
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Feb 01, 2023
Researchers re-analyzed elephant bones found in a German cave and say Neanderthals likely cut and butchered them, suggesting Neanderthal groups may have been larger and more sedentary than thought.
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Jan 29, 2023
On Jan. 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the "novel coronavirus" sweeping through China to be a global health emergency. Here's how NPR covered the story at that point in time.
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Jan 29, 2023
The World Health Organization issued the statement as the novel coronavirus, calling it an "unprecedented outbreak." Here's what we knew — and didn't know — about the virus at that time.
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Jan 27, 2023
The hormone oxytocin plays a key role in long-term relationships. But a study of prairie voles finds that the animals mate for life even without help from the "love hormone."
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Jan 27, 2023
The hormone oxytocin plays a key role in long-term relationships. But a study of prairie voles finds that the animals mate for life even without help from the "love hormone."
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Jan 27, 2023
Policymakers have long grappled with how to handle experiments that might generate potentially dangerous viruses. Now, officials are considering whether oversight needs to be expanded.
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Jan 27, 2023
Policymakers have long grappled with how to handle experiments that might generate potentially dangerous viruses. Now, officials are considering whether oversight needs to be expanded.
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Jan 26, 2023
On average, half the participants in a study by the University of St. Andrews in Scotland could recognize what either chimpanzees or bonobos were communicating.
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Jan 25, 2023
Mattress review website Sleep Junkie will pay five volunteers $1,000 each to eat cheese snacks before bedtime. A study is looking into whether eating cheese before bed leads to nightmares.
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Jan 19, 2023
Researchers have studied the physics behind heavy stones skipping across the surface of water. They say these findings could be applied to real-world problems like de-icing airplanes.
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Jan 18, 2023
For nearly a century, jazz musicians have debated what gives songs that propulsive, groovy feel that makes you want to move with the music. The secret may lie in subtle nuances in a soloist's timing.
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Jan 17, 2023
Charles Darwin once speculated that all animals may share the ability to perceive melody and rhythm. Although the evidence is slim, there are a few studies that support Darwin's idea.
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Jan 17, 2023
Socially isolated older adults have a 27% higher chance of developing dementia, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins. The findings suggest that simple interventions could be meaningful.
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Jan 12, 2023
MIT Technology Review has released its annual list of breakthrough technologies. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Amy Nordrum, an editor who helped put the list together.
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Jan 12, 2023
Exxon's climate research decades back painted an accurate picture of global warming, according to a new scientific paper. Still the oil company continued climate-denying policy efforts.
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Jan 11, 2023
People who lose track of time aren't rude, researchers say — they may just be listening to their inner timekeeper instead of an external clock. Living according to "event time" has its benefits.
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Jan 10, 2023
The Puerto Rican crested anole has sprouted special scales to better cling to smooth surfaces like walls and windows and grown larger limbs to sprint across open areas, scientists say.
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Jan 08, 2023
A new study out of the Technical University of Munich sheds new light on the "double bounce" in the human gait. NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks to mechanical engineer Daniel Renjewski who led the study.
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Jan 06, 2023
RSV and the flu appear to be receding in the U.S., but COVID is on the rise, new data suggest, driven by holiday gatherings and an even more transmissible omicron subvariant that has become dominant.
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Jan 04, 2023
Climate goals can feel distant. But climate change is a happening right now. Speed up the benefits for taking action, psychologists say, if you want leaders and others to pay attention and act.
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Dec 28, 2022
Public health officials want more Americans to get the latest COVID vaccine booster. Only 35% of people over 65 have gotten the shot, though 75% of COVID deaths are among people in this age group.
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Dec 27, 2022
Psychedelic drugs were a hot topic at this year's Society for Neuroscience meeting. Researchers hope the drugs can help people with disorders like depression and PTSD.
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Dec 26, 2022
A kind of transparent frog achieves near invisibility by hiding its red blood cells during the day, scientists found. "I had never seen anything like that," researcher Carlos Taboada says.
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Dec 26, 2022
Call it "precision waking" — the alleged ability to decide when you want to wake up and then doing so, without an alarm. If you think you can do it, you're not alone, though how is still mysterious.
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Dec 25, 2022
BBC science journalist Richard Gray tells NPR's Daniel Estrin that dinosaurs may not have roared in the manner we commonly imagine.
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Dec 23, 2022
Testing pregnant people's blood to look at free-floating DNA can tell doctors about the health of the fetus. But these tests sometime turn up DNA that might be shed by cancerous cells.
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Dec 22, 2022
After decades of wondering, an NPR reporter finally figures out how her husband's family dog knew when the school bus would arrive everyday. She did some digging — and now it all makes scents.
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Dec 20, 2022
The brain uses special neurons called time cells to organize our memories of events and experiences. But, despite their name, these cells don't work like a clock.
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Dec 17, 2022
We mark our days by sunlight, with special receptors in our eyes that respond to light and help reset our body clocks each day. This man can't see, but is still a circadian wiz. Here's how.
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Dec 15, 2022
The ruling is the latest twist in a long-running dispute over where dozens of federally-supported former research chimps should live out the remainder of their days.
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Dec 13, 2022
Using CRISPR to modify certain immune cells could make cancer-fighting immunotherapy more potent for a broader set of patients. Two people who went through the treatment share their stories.
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Dec 04, 2022
Bats and death metal singers have more in common than a love of the dark. A new study has found that some of bats' lower frequency calls appear to use a technique similar to death metal growling.
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Dec 04, 2022
For decades birth control research focused on women. Now there's a new push to develop gels, pills or other products that could keep men from getting their partners pregnant.
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Dec 02, 2022
This often fatal disease found in many African countries is painful and lengthy to treat. But a single oral dose proved incredibly effective in a clinical trial, raising hopes of eradication.
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Nov 30, 2022
In a large study, the experimental Alzheimer's drug lecanemab reduced the rate of cognitive decline by 27 percent in people in the early stages of the disease.
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Nov 16, 2022
A recent study in the journal Current Biology found that people danced 12% more when very low frequency bass was played.
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Nov 15, 2022
New research shows that a type of primate known as an aye-aye loves picking its nose. Researchers say the findings raise interesting questions about why nose-picking is such a common behavior.
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Nov 11, 2022
Two decades of research in Nouabalé-Ndoki Park in the Republic of Congo found the primates foraging alongside each other, wrestling, seeking out their pals — and occasionally making threats.
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Nov 10, 2022
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with neuroscientist Daniel Cameron, who found that inaudible, low-frequency bass appears to make people boogie nearly 12% more on the dancefloor.
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Nov 06, 2022
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks to researcher Hao Li about a new study that shows how the brain ascertains experiences as positive or negative.
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Nov 06, 2022
A new study shows that young bumblebees like to play with toys, mirroring the behavior of young mammals. Bumblebees are also the first insects observed to engage in object play.
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Nov 05, 2022
Scientists wanted to learn whether bees, like humans and other mammals, had any interest in playing for fun's sake. They say they have evidence that bees do, and that could change how we view insects.
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Nov 04, 2022
More than a third of U.S. states now support the idea of making daylight saving time permanent. It's already in effect for about eight months of the year.
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Nov 03, 2022
Some animals like birds and frogs are famous for the sounds they make. But have you ever heard a turtle talk? Most turtles were thought to not make sounds at all — before researchers went deep.
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Nov 01, 2022
Researchers are launching a make-or-break study to test the conventional wisdom about what causes Alzheimer's disease.
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Oct 31, 2022
In a recent small study, the antidepressant effects of ketamine lasted longer when an intravenous dose was followed with computer games featuring smiling faces or words aimed at boosting self-esteem.
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Oct 29, 2022
A study finds that we are happier the more we talk with different categories of people — colleagues, family, strangers — and the more evenly our conversations are spread out among those groups.
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Oct 26, 2022
A new study from a Dutch clinic found that 98% of transgender adolescents who received puberty suppression treatment went on to continue gender-affirming treatment.
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Oct 23, 2022
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks to Alexandra White of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences about the link between chemical hair straighteners and uterine cancer.
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Oct 22, 2022
Researchers and companies have tried over the years to automate the chore with limited success. Using a brand new method, researchers have taught a robot to fold a record 30-40 garments per hour.
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Oct 21, 2022
More than half of these deaths occur well after the mom leaves the hospital. To save lives, mothers need more support in the "fourth trimester, that time after the baby is born," one researcher says.
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Oct 19, 2022
Researchers have uncovered the first Neanderthals that are related to each other. The finding shows that these ancient people lived in clans similar to those of modern humans.
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Oct 19, 2022
The findings are a concern for Black women, researchers say, who are far more likely to report using straightening products such as relaxers.
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Oct 15, 2022
Astronomers were stunned to find that the black hole was emitting energy, two years after it pulled apart a star that had come too close.
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Oct 14, 2022
A dish of brain cells learned to play the 1970s video game Pong. The research could help computers become more intelligent
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Oct 13, 2022
Colon cancer specialists worry that results of a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine could be misconstrued, and keep patients from getting lifesaving cancer screening.
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Oct 12, 2022
Scientists have devised a new model for studying disorders like autism spectrum disorder and ADHD. It uses clusters of human brain cells grown inside the brain of a rat.
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Oct 06, 2022
New research out of the British Antarctic Survey found thousands of underground channels left by ice age glacial melt. The findings could improve the accuracy of modern-day models of sea level rise.
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Oct 05, 2022
Scientists have made a drug based on LSD that seems to fight depression without producing a psychedelic experience.
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Oct 05, 2022
This year's Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded in equal parts to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless for developing way of "snapping molecules together."
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Oct 04, 2022
This year's Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to research on how light and matter act on an atomic scale.
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Oct 03, 2022
This year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Swedish scientist Svante Pääbo for his discoveries on human evolution.
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Sep 20, 2022
Since 2020, office workers have waged an epic battle to work remotely. They're mostly winning.
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Sep 20, 2022
Research finds five to 10 minutes daily of a type of strength training for muscles used in breathing can help anyone reduce or prevent high blood pressure. The training can also help elite athletes.
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Sep 18, 2022
Scientists have found a mineral stronger than diamond. They say lonsdaleite could be used to fortify industrial tools like drill bits and saw blades - AND teach us about the evolution of earth.
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Sep 16, 2022
They argue the threat posed by COVID has lessened because of preexisting immunity and access to treatment. Plus, some deaths may be incorrectly blamed on COVID. Others caution it's too soon to tell.
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