Science : NPR

Animals

Pythons Blamed For Everglade's Disappearing Animals

January 31, 2012 • The Florida Everglades is infested with Burmese pythons. To keep them from spreading, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is making it illegal to import the pythons into the country, or transport them across state lines. Scientists have discovered the pythons are doing more damage than ever imagined.

New Depression Drugs Offer Hope For Toughest Cases

Chris Stephens, 28, who has been battling depression all of his life, plays with his dogs at home in Concord, Calif., on Friday. After a dose of ketamine, Stephens says, "I actually wanted to do things. I wanted to live life." Lianne Milton for NPR hide caption

toggle caption

Lianne Milton for NPR

Shots - Health News

New Depression Drugs Offer Hope For Toughest Cases

January 31, 2012 • The anesthetic and club drug ketamine seems to quickly lift depression symptoms. How does it work? Researchers are searching for the answer in an attempt to make a new class of depression medications.

Pacific Mackerel Stocks That Feed Farmed Salmon In Decline

A Chilean purse seiner catches jack mackerel. NOAA hide caption

toggle caption

NOAA

The Salt

Pacific Mackerel Stocks That Feed Farmed Salmon In Decline

January 30, 2012 • At current rates of overfishing, jack mackerel stocks in the southern Pacific could collapse soon, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reports.

Invasive Pythons Put Squeeze On Everglades' Animals

Nonnative pythons, like this one, are invading the Florida Everglades. As a top predator, the snakes have crippled the populations of rabbits, raccoons and other animals. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Animals

Invasive Pythons Put Squeeze On Everglades' Animals

January 30, 2012 • Burmese pythons have been slithering around south Florida for decades, but scientists now say the invasive constrictors are so bad, they're eating their way through the swamps. The snakes have decimated populations of mammals like raccoons, possums and white-tailed deer.

Could A Club Drug Offer 'Almost Immediate' Relief From Depression?

Ketamine has been used as an anesthetic for decades. It's also a widely popular but illegal club drug known as "Special K." When administered in low doses, patients report a rapid reduction in depression symptoms. Huw Golledge/flickr hide caption

toggle caption

Huw Golledge/flickr

Shots - Health News

Could A Club Drug Offer 'Almost Immediate' Relief From Depression?

January 30, 2012 • Currently, there's no quick fix for severe depression. Antidepressants usually take weeks to work, if they work at all. But patients who received experimental doses of ketamine — long used as an anesthetic, and an illegal club drug — report an astounding relief from their symptoms in less than a day.

Deception Diet: How Optical Illusions Can Trick Your Appetite

The Delboeuf illusion makes one dot appear larger than the other. But they're the same size. Your brain is misled by comparing the dots to the surrounding circles. Washiucho/Wikimedia Commons hide caption

toggle caption

Washiucho/Wikimedia Commons

The Salt

Deception Diet: How Optical Illusions Can Trick Your Appetite

January 28, 2012 • Everything from the size of your plate to the color of your food may be telling you to eat more than you actually need. The good news is you can use psychology to your advantage, if you learn a few tricks of the trade.

Shots - Health News

Scratching An Itchy Ankle Is Hard To Beat

January 27, 2012 • Scratching an itchy ankle is more satisfying than relieving an itch on your back or arm. Even if you thought you knew that, scientists now have evidence to back up your hunch.

Space

How 'Space Weather' Affects Planes And Power Grids

January 27, 2012 • This week solar flares sent a huge blast of X-rays and charged particles screaming towards the Earth. Solar astronomer David Hathaway and physicist Doug Biesecker discuss the sun's explosive behavior, and how that 'space weather' affects satellites, airplanes and the electric grid.

Research News

Ancient Skull Holds Clues to Dog Domestication

January 27, 2012 • A 33,000-year-old skull of a "wolf on the way to becoming a dog" was found in a Siberian cave. Evolutionary Biologist Susan Crockford, co-author of a study about the skull in PLoS ONE, discusses why the discovery challenges common beliefs about dog domestication.

Art & Design

Ode To Ice

January 27, 2012 • Discover the secret life of ice--what makes it cloudy or clear, why cracks form on ponds. Science Friday visited Queens ice sculptor Shintaro Okamoto in his studio and spoke with ice researcher Erland Schulson, of Dartmouth University, to find out why ice is an interesting subject for artists and scientists.

Medical Treatments

Stem Cell Eye Therapy Shows Promise

January 27, 2012 • Reporting inThe Lancet, researchers write that a preliminary study shows embryonic stem cell therapy in two patients with macular degeneration was safe. Results suggest the patients' vision improved slightly. Dr. Robert Lanza, Chief Scientific Officer of Advanced Cell Technology and co-author of the study, discusses the trial.

Author Interviews

Can Science Be Done Without Secrecy?

January 27, 2012 • In his book, Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science, Physicist Michael Nielsen discusses why scientists jealously guard their data and are slow to adopt online tools for collaboration. Nielsen talks about why attempts to create science wikipedias have failed.

Research News

Magnetic Soap May Help Clean Up Spilled Oil

January 27, 2012 • BP released millions of gallons of dispersants to break up oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But what if dispersants could be sucked up again after doing their job? Chemist Julian Eastoe talks about an iron-containing soap he's created that can be recaptured using a magnet.

How To Find A New Nuclear Waste Site? Woo A Town

Without a centralized national repository for nuclear waste, the radioactive material is currently being kept at various sites across the country. Above, large concrete canisters, each holding 14 55-gallon drums of waste, are loaded on a truck in 2005 in Richland, Wash., where they were later shipped to a facility in New Mexico. Jeff T. Green/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Jeff T. Green/Getty Images

Energy

How To Find A New Nuclear Waste Site? Woo A Town

January 26, 2012 • Community opposition helped sink plans for a nuclear waste repository in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Meanwhile, thousands of tons of radioactive waste are piling up at temporary storage sites around the country. As the U.S. once again looks for a new permanent storage site, an expert panel says local buy in will be key.

Vucetich Discusses Long-Running Predator-Prey Study

January 26, 2012 • Melissa Block speaks with John Vucetich, a wildlife ecologist from Michigan Technological University who is leading the wolf-moose winter study at Isle Royale National Park. The park is located in the northwest corner of Lake Superior. The study is in its fifth decade.