Another vaccine has shown its effectiveness against the coronavirus. There’s one caveat though, it’s not as effective against the South African variant, which has now made its way to the U.S.
Also, how unified is the GOP around Donald Trump these days? After the insurrection at the Capitol, some Republican Congress members tried to distance themselves from the former president. But others never left his side. And President Biden says he’ll take on environmental justice issues. But other presidents have made similar promises.
On its first day, the new Biden administration announced plans to recalculate the social cost of carbon—a way of estimating the economic toll of greenhouse gases. Staff Writer Paul Voosen and host Sarah Crespi discuss why this value is so important and how it will be determined.
Next up, Alison Barker, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, talks with Sarah about the sounds of naked mole-rats. You may already know naked mole-rats are pain and cancer resistant—but did you know these eusocial mammals make little chirps to identify themselves as colony members? Can these learned local dialects make naked mole-rats a new research model for language learning?
Yesterday, President Joe Biden signaled a new direction for the country when it comes to climate change. He said it should be considered an essential part of foreign policy and national security.
He signed an extremely wide ranging executive order that includes a number of new measures that could kick off the battle between the White House and the oil industry.
Plus, Facebook’s pull back from politics.
And, the second round of small business loans are off to a slow start.
Guests: Axios’ Ben Geman, Courtenay Brown, Sara Fischer and Joann Muller
A neuroprosthetic device restores blood-pressure control after spinal-cord injury, and identifying the neurons that help us understand others’ beliefs.
In this episode:
00:47 A neuroprosthetic restores the body’s baroreflex
A common problem for people who have experienced spinal-cord injury is the inability to maintain their blood pressure, which can have serious, long-term health consequences. Now, however, researchers have developed a device that may restore this ability, by stimulating the neural circuits involved in the so-called baroreflex.
Humans are very good at understanding that other people have thoughts, feelings and beliefs that are different to our own. But the neuronal underpinnings of this ability have been hard to unpick. Now, researchers have identified a subset of neurons that they think gives us this ability.
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, the science of why cats love catnip, and the struggle to identify what the mysterious celestial object StDr 56 actually is.
A new variant of the coronavirus has scientists worried about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has lifted regional stay-at home orders.
But 54 counties in the state are still classified as having “widespread” coronavirus risk. So why did the state loosen the restrictions? And the CDC is reporting the highest number of overdoses in a 12-month period.
NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report join Judy Woodruff to discuss the latest political news, including President Biden’s first days in office, the prospects for bipartisanship in Congress, and former President Trump’s impeachment trial.
Today, the U.S. Senate will receive the article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection. But the actual trial won’t start for another two weeks. Why the delay?
Logistics continue to be a challenge in the fight against the coronavirus. Only about half of the vaccines that have been distributed have been administered. And NPR’s investigations team finds that 135 unarmed Black people were killed by police in the past five years.
The weekend’s biggest talking points are dissected by Tyler Brûlé, Rob Cox and Chandra Kurt, with commentary from our editors in London and Milan. Plus: Christoph Amend of ‘Zeit Magazin’.
We flick through the weekend’s papers across the Middle East and North Africa and examine the future relationship between the UK and the US under Joe Biden. Plus: Andrew Tuck’s Saturday column.
Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a controversial new paper that estimates how many rodents are used in research in the United States each year.
Though there is no official number, the paper suggests there might be more than 100 million rats and mice housed in research facilities in the country—doubling or even tripling some earlier estimates.
Next, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel talks with Sarah about a new theory behind the cause of irritable bowel syndrome—that it might be a localized allergic reaction in the gut. Sarah also chats with Taline Kazandjian, a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for Snakebite Research & Interventions in Liverpool, U.K., about how the venom from spitting cobras has evolved to cause maximum pain and why these snakes might have developed the same defense mechanism three different times.
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