'Panda Grandpa' Pan Pan Dies In China
Pan Pan, who died this week at the age of 31, was known as the "panda grandpa": He has some 130 descendants worldwide, accounting for a quarter of the world's captive giant pandas.
Science
The Predictive Power Of The Junk In Your Genome
You are you because of a unique combination of your parents' genes, coded into the strands of DNA molecules, coiled tightly around an “X-shaped” structure. This is a chromosome, and you have 23 pairs of them, deep down in the nucleus of all 37 trillion cells in your body.
Dr. Beth Sullivan, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University, studies chromosome rearrangements in her lab and how they may cause disease.
QUIZ: Test Your Knowledge Of NPR's Tech Stories From 2016
A bar owner who wants patrons to put away their phones, Internet users tracking down a vandal, a project to analyze hundreds of Rembrandt paintings — can you remember (or guess) what happened?
The Wrong Eating Habits Can Hurt Your Brain, Not Just Your Waistline
A diet high in saturated fats and sugars can affect the parts of the brain that are important to memory. Diet-linked brain changes can also make people more likely to crave unhealthful food.
As A Rough Year Ends, We Turn To The Cosmos For Some Perspective
As 2016 winds down, we take a moment to contemplate the billions of years that led to 2017 and the billions more yet to come.
Is It Possible To Die Of Grief?
Actress Debbie Reynolds died just one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher's sudden death — which has led some to speculate that grief might have been a contributing factor.
With A Leap Second, 2016 Promises To Linger Just A Little Bit Longer
To keep our system of time in sync with Earth's rotation, the world's foremost timekeepers are adding an extra second to 2016. For such a small thing, the leap second has some big implications.
Astronomers Seeking Planet 9 Hope To Soon Catch A Glimpse
Scientists will search the sky Thursday for an undiscovered planet in the outer solar system — they're pretty sure it's out there, and computer models tell them where to look.
The Lost Ancestral Peanut Of The South Is Revived
Brought to America by enslaved West Africans, the Carolina African runner was a defining taste of the antebellum South. Now, from just 40 remaining seeds, it's come back from the brink of extinction.
Where Does Alzheimer's Treatment Go From Here?
The failure of an experimental drug that targets clumps of protein inside the brains of Alzheimer's patients called into question one of the leading theories about the cause of the dementia.