Jon Hamilton archive

Sensations on the skin can help people understand speech, according to a study in the journal Nature. The study builds on decades of research showing that the brain often uses visual information to augment hearing — making people "whole-body perceiving machines," says one researcher.

Summary

On Morning EditionPlaylist

• Sounds During Sleep May Help You Remember

November 19, 2009 Certain sounds played while people napped helped them remember information associated with those sounds once they woke up, say researchers at Northwestern University.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

• What NPR Reporters Sound Like When They Snore

November 11, 2009 Researchers have successfully used gene therapy to increase monkeys' muscle strength. The team hopes to use the same treatment to help people with muscle-wasting diseases grow back their muscle strength.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

November 11, 2009 Researchers who looked at handwriting samples found that children with autism struggle more than their peers to correctly form letters. The findings add to evidence that autism is a brain disorder that isn't limited to behavior, but affects motor skills, too.

Transcript

On Morning EditionPlaylist

November 4, 2009 By flying planes over Antarctica with ice-penetrating radar, lasers and other technology, NASA scientists are able to piece together a picture of the vast mountains, valleys and rivers under the miles of Antarctic ice, revealing a dynamic and complex world. And scientists have already found some really surprising stuff happening inside the ice itself.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

October 30, 2009 Climate scientists are about to lose a satellite that helped show how global warming affects the Earth's polar ice caps. A replacement won't be in orbit until at least 2015, so NASA will use a DC-8 aircraft instead to track whether the process of melting and subsequent sea-level rise is accelerating.

Transcript

On Morning EditionPlaylist

October 20, 2009 Implanting an electronic retina can help restore some vision to people who've been blinded by retinal diseases, scientists reported Tuesday at the Neuroscience 2009 conference. Other researchers partially restored sight by growing new retina cells from stem cells.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

October 19, 2009 Musicians don't have better ears than the rest of us, but several new studies find that musical training can improve hearing. The musically trained brain can distinguish between subtle pitch and tonal differences in sound that many of us cannot.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

October 16, 2009 Researchers had the rare chance to learn more about how speech works by testing patients with electrodes embedded in their brain. The study found it takes the brain less than half a second to cue up what the mouth is about to say.

Transcript

On Morning EditionPlaylist

October 8, 2009 Chronic fatigue affects more than 1 million people in the U.S. Scientists have discovered that nearly two-thirds of them are infected with a retrovirus called XMRV.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

• 'Seabiscuit' Author Hopeful About Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Discovery

October 5, 2009 The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Americans Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, who made key discoveries about how living cells age.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

September 17, 2009 Scientists have used gene therapy to achieve full color vision in two male squirrel monkeys that were born unable to tell red from green. Researchers say the technique could someday be used on people with colorblindness or other vision problems.

Transcript

On Morning EditionPlaylist

September 11, 2009 For years scientists have used squid data to estimate how human brains use energy. Squid brains are easy to study, as some of their nerve signals are big enough to be seen by the naked eye. Now German scientists say these data are misleading, and they are working to set the record straight.

Transcript

On Morning EditionPlaylist