Rae Ellen Bichell
Rae Ellen Bichell is a reporter for NPR's Science Desk. She first came to NPR in 2013 as a Kroc fellow and has since reported Web and radio stories on biomedical research, global health, and basic science. She won a 2016 Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award from the Foundation for Biomedical Research. After graduating from Yale University, she spent two years in Helsinki, Finland, as a freelance reporter and Fulbright grantee.
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Researchers following a group of New Zealanders over the course of 40 years found an association between childhood lead exposure and declines in intelligence and socioeconomic status later in life. -
Meet Kate Rubins, a virus-hunter turned astronaut. When she sequenced DNA in space for the first time, she opened the door to a new era in space biology.
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After six weeks of training, people could memorize twice as much. Areas of the brain had begun communicating in new ways — a lot like what happens inside the heads of world memory champions. -
They don't have wings, but bacteria sure can fly. Researchers at MIT say that tiny bubbles trapped by raindrops play a part in launching bacteria on long-distance flights.
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Scientists say they've found the remains of tube- and string-like organisms in Canadian rocks that are at least 3.7 billion years old. But findings like these are always controversial. -
Carp are a major food source, but they've been plagued by viruses. Scientists now say they have a simple solution. And along the way, they hit on an ancient commonality between fish and people. -
Wild hogs inflict $1.5 billion in damage on U.S. property each year. But biologists can now track the elusive animals via tiny bits of DNA the swine leave behind in puddles and ponds. -
Scientists now have a fairly noninvasive way to test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare form of dementia. A similar test, they say, might offer earlier diagnoses of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. -
Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf is about to lose an iceberg the size of Delaware. Scientists gathering in the U.K. are scratching their heads about why it's cracking off. -
As 2016 draws to a close, we are re-visiting some of the people we met this year — including one man who survived a stroke at a young age, and a listener who heard his story on the radio.
