science

North is on the move, and that's a problem for your smartphone's maps.

Earth's geographic north pole is fixed. But the planet's magnetic north pole — the north that your compass points toward — wanders in the direction of Siberia at a rate of more than 34 miles per year.

A scientist in New York is conducting experiments designed to modify DNA in human embryos as a step toward someday preventing inherited diseases, NPR has learned.

For now, the work is confined to a laboratory. But the research, if successful, would mark another step toward turning CRISPR, a powerful form of gene editing, into a tool for medical treatment.

It's cold outside, you're sick and all you want to do is curl up under the covers until you feel better.

In fact, the need for sleep can be so strong when we're sick that this may be all we can do.

Gitanjali Rao is already on the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 list and she hasn't even made it to high school yet.

In 2017, the then 11-year-old from Lone Tree, Colo. was named 'America's Top Young Scientist' for the design of a small, mobile device that tests for lead in drinking water.

The next great insect repellent might come from a strain of bacteria that lives inside a common parasitic worm.

A study published Wednesday in Science Advances has found that a compound derived from these bacteria is three times more potent than DEET in repelling mosquitoes. More research must be done to demonstrate its safety, but this bacterial chemical could play an important role in the fight against mosquito-borne illness.

Big, important scientific breakthroughs are built of small, incremental experiments. And the partial government shutdown is already interfering with some of that research.

Scientists often depend on the government for grant funding, expertise and — in some cases — even regulatory approval. With the shutdown, some researchers are missing those key elements of scientific collaboration. Here's how some scientists say the shutdown is affecting their work.

If your New Year's resolution is cutting down on sweets and other foods that aren't good for you – you may want to follow your nose.

It's known as Ultima Thule — "beyond the known world" — but on Tuesday a minor planet got a little less mysterious.

NASA's New Horizons probe successfully conducted the farthest-ever fly-by of an object in space when it sped past Ultima Thule in the first minutes of 2019.

Three of the most influential scientific organizations in the world are calling for an urgent international effort to prevent scientists from creating any more gene-edited babies without proper approval and supervision.

Global standards are needed quickly to ensure gene-editing of human embryos moves ahead safely and ethically, according to the presidents of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

China's government ordered a halt Thursday to work by a medical team that claimed to have helped make the world's first gene-edited babies, as a group of leading scientists declared that it's still too soon to try to make permanent changes to DNA that can be inherited by future generations.

A Chinese scientist's claims that he created the world's first gene-edited babies is a "deeply disturbing" and "irresponsible" violation of international scientific norms, according to a formal conclusion issued Thursday by organizers of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong.

But the summit rejected calls for a blanket moratorium on such research, saying that the work could eventually lead to new ways to prevent a long list of serious genetic diseases.

After a cold snap across much of the U.S. last week, some are reviving the debunked talking point that cold weather disproves climate change. President Trump tweeted Wednesday, “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – Whatever happened to Global Warming?”

Walk into a U.S. supermarket on any given day and you're pretty much guaranteed to find apples.

In our globalized economy, we expect nothing less than to be able to consume our favorite fruits and vegetables all year, even when they're not in season locally. Placing strawberries from Mexico in your shopping cart in February and stocking up on kiwis from Chile in July – that's pretty much normal, even expected.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 11:52 a.m. to add information about an ethics committee investigation into the DNA-editing experiment.

For the first time, a scientist claims to have used a powerful new gene-editing technique to create genetically modified human babies.