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December 6, 2012 Researchers found a surprising number of mutations, including several associated with disease, in the genes of normal healthy people. Their study raises questions about whether widespread genetic sequencing could end up scaring people for no good reason.

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December 6, 2012 Although we can usually smell when food goes bad, humans just don't have the fruit fly's direct path from nose to brain that alerts it to food poison. But the detection of this pathway could someday lead to more research that could help us develop better bug repellants.

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December 6, 2012 What a person remembers of a meal hours later, not the actual calories consumed, matters more when it comes to hunger. Eating while watching TV sets us up to eat more food than we should, but a new experiment shows how manipulating our memories of a meal can change how hungry we feel.

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December 6, 2012 New research suggests older adults may have less activity in the area of the brain that processes risk and subtle danger. Another possible reason older adults don't pick up on warning signs is an increasing bias against negativity.

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December 5, 2012 "The night is nowhere as dark as we might think," says one scientist. How does your location light up the night?

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December 5, 2012 Cheatgrass is about as Western as cowboy boots and sagebrush. And until recently, scientists didn't realize that the yellowish plant is making Western wildfires much worse.

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December 5, 2012 It's a tombstone like no other. A rough, clumpy hunk of granite, carried across Europe on a sea of ice, dumped in a valley, shipped across the Atlantic, lugged to Massachusetts — all to honor a restless man.

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December 4, 2012 "The President" is a 3,200-year-old giant sequoia that clocks in at 247 feet tall and counting. And contrary to most living things we can think of, giant sequoias grow faster later in life than earlier in life.

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December 3, 2012 NASA believes its Curiosity rover might have found carbon and chlorine molecules on the red planet. But before anyone says "life on Mars," NASA needs more testing to confirm the rover's results.

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December 3, 2012 Gotcha! An underwater camera caught large Maine lobsters gobbling up their younger brethren along the coastline. Biologists think this turn to cannibalism may be due to a recent spike in the Maine's lobster population, combined with a decrease in the numbers of their natural predators.

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December 3, 2012 The Hayden Planetarium director and pop-culture go-to science guy offered expert advice on how Superman could watch the destruction of Krypton.

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December 2, 2012 There's a possibility the Mars rover has found signs of carbon-containing molecules on the red planet. That discovery is exciting because of what it might say about the Martian environment where the rover is sitting at the bottom of Gale crater.

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December 2, 2012 NCPRScientists and citizens are filling up a database on dead critters with their smartphones. The EpiCollect app pulls data such as location, speed limit and the carcass's condition. Wildlife ecologist Danielle Garneau says the project tracks animal movement and may help protect species in the future.

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