Joe Palca

If scientists can convince people to use the app, they hope it will help them solve a cosmic mystery. This story originally aired on March 27, 2015 on All Things Considered.

Can a computer program craft passable prose — something readers can't distinguish from human-authored stuff? How about poetry, or dance mixes? New contests pose those challenges.

The drug derived from the venom of cone snails must be injected into the spinal column to get beyond a patient's blood-brain barrier and bring relief. But scientists think they may have a workaround.

Sometimes one person's insight transforms medicine. Dr. John Clements is one of those people. In the 1950s he discovered a slippery lung substance key to breathing, and to the survival of tiny babies.

Scientists have long wondered what's in the wispy cloud of gas floating in the space between the stars, absorbing starlight. Turns out it's a form of carbon named after architect Buckminster Fuller.

Scientists have had a hard time finding the weak spots of Cryptosporidium parvum, but now that's changing. It's not a common killer in the U.S., but it's a different story in the developing world.

Entrepreneurs are turning to Oak Ridge National Lab's supercomputer to make all sorts of things, including maps that are much more accurate in predicting how a neighborhood will fare in a flood.

Scientists found a molecule crucial to perceiving the sensation of itching. It affects how the brain responds to serotonin, and may explain why anti-depressants that boost serotonin make some itch.

First you get a crazy message from a friend. Then you get a not-so-crazy message that could help you find a job or fight a disease.

Shrinivas Kulkarni, an astronomy and planetary science professor at the California Institute of Technology, is a serious astronomer. But not too serious.

"We astronomers are supposed to say, 'We wonder about the stars and we really want to think about it," says Kulkarni — in other words, think deep ...

Two new large planets have been found orbiting a nearby star. But what makes the discovery interesting is they were found using a telescope at an observatory that was slated to be shuttered.

Using telescopes in Hawaii and California, astronomers have found two super-Earth-size planets orbiting a star a mere 54 light-years away.

This brings to three the total number of exoplanets around the star HD 7924.

The discovery is important for two reasons. NASA's Kepler telescope has shown that giant rocky ...

The Hubble Space Telescope this week celebrates 25 years in Earth's orbit. In that time the telescope has studied distant galaxies, star nurseries, planets in our solar system and planets orbiting other stars.

But, even with all that, you could argue that the astronomer for whom the telescope is named ...

At the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the future of manufacturing is taking shape. At the lab, 3D printers offer some unique design opportunities as well as interesting challenges.

A modified venom from scorpions that carries a dye into the brain and makes tumors glow has cleared its latest hurdle. But will this attempt to improve brain surgery work in humans as well as animals?

Two physicists keen to detect a a very rare, high energy particle think you and I can help. The researchers are working on an app that would allow any smartphone to detect rare particles from space.

Current tests require growing anthrax in the lab, which isn't the best option for labs in Afghanistan. So engineers have come up with a credit-card-size test that could make the world a safer place.

Why are 20 tons of fossils being stored in the bell tower at the University of California at Berkeley? A look into the world's only paleontological collection that has its own carillon.

Scientists in California report they are using the rapidly reproducing organism to track evolutionary changes. The twist is that the new work on evolution has implications for human cancers.

Physicist Robert Davies worked with a classical quartet and two visual artists to create a musical performance about climate change. The music and images, he says, help the information take hold.