Rae Ellen Bichell
Rae Ellen Bichell is a reporter for NPR's Science Desk. She first came to NPR in 2013 as a Kroc fellow and has since reported Web and radio stories on biomedical research, global health, and basic science. She won a 2016 Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award from the Foundation for Biomedical Research. After graduating from Yale University, she spent two years in Helsinki, Finland, as a freelance reporter and Fulbright grantee.
-
Turns out that for 7,000 years, snacking on nutsedge may have helped people avoid tooth decay. But at some point, the root it lost its charm. By the 1970s, it was branded "the world's worst weed."
-
Passenger pigeons used to be the most abundant bird in North America. But hunters drove them to extinction, and by 1914, only one was left. A century later, that pigeon, named Martha, is on exhibit.
-
On Titan, summer is almost three years away. But in a dark, placid ocean of natural gas, scientists have spotted something that could be the first inkling of springtime.
-
Each winter, a team of scientists sets out on a search for those rare shooting stars that make it to the ground instead of burning up in the sky. There aren't many better places to look for these space rocks than Antarctica, often in areas where no human has set foot before.
-
Humans are getting behind a movement that nature has known about for a long time.
-
When a powerful earthquake struck Pakistan last week, it triggered a mud volcano that created a new island just off the country's southern coast. It turns out this kind of thing happens every so often. Just ask Charles Darwin.
-
The students plan to make the nutritious "power flour" with grasshoppers, weevils and caterpillars. Their goal is to make insect-based food products available year-round to people living in some of the world's poorest slums.