Science

Genetic tests are recommended for women with a family history of breast cancer. One researcher says all women should be screened, but others say there's not enough evidence that they are at risk.

This summer, Michigan's aquaculture industry took a step forward. And that has touched off a debate over whether the Great Lakes are an appropriate place for fish farming.

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.

As part of the series "Unfolding Science," NPR's Joe Palca presents the science of protein folding. A properly folded protein keeps you alive; a misfolded protein can kill you.

DNA from a 12,000-year-old skeleton of a teenage girl found in a cave in the Yucatan Peninsula shows the same markers found in modern Native Americans.

The ALS Association has raised more than $94 million in recent weeks via its online ice bucket challenge — compared with $2.7 million this time last year. Now what?

Scholars have long tried to understand how culture affects communities. New research argues that the parking behavior of drivers may tell us something about the economic productivity of nations.

A coffee entrepreneur claims his brew is different — and better — than the trendy civet poop coffee. And it starts with the idea that elephants, unlike humans or civets, are herbivores.

Scientists now think the entire outbreak in West Africa was triggered by one person and then the virus took off from there. Early signs pointed to a little boy in southern Guinea.

The EPA wants to "clarify" the scope of its oversight of water under the Clean Water Act. Big farm groups like the American Farm Bureau Federation call this a power grab that would place every ditch and mud puddle under federal regulation, forcing farmers to get permits for small trenches around the farm.

An analysis by two economists finds that winners of the medal, the most significant prize in mathematics, become significantly less productive in their chosen field of study after they win the prize.

As the Ebola outbreak rages in West Africa, it is also unfolding — in a virtual sense — inside the computers of scientists trying to predict how far the outbreak will spread and when it will end.