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Nell Greenfield Boyce

Appearances

La dinamica

Cose sbagliate, cose giuste - #21

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Unlike dogs, cats, and horses, people can't literally prick up their ears. Our evolutionary ancestors seem to have lost this ability millions of years ago. Recently, though, lab scientists put electrodes on the muscles around people's ears and ran some tests. And the electrodes registered tiny amounts of electrical activity in one muscle whenever people were listening especially hard.

La dinamica

Cose sbagliate, cose giuste - #21

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It was the muscle that, in other animals, lifts the ear up. The research appears in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience. Researchers say a smart hearing aid could monitor this muscle to keep track of how much effort it was taking for someone to hear and then respond accordingly. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 12-18-2024 6PM EST

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Astronauts brought back moon rocks, and almost all date back to around 4.35 billion years ago. Trouble is, scientists think the moon got created much earlier than that, when an object the size of Mars slammed into the Earth. Now, in the journal Nature, researchers offer this explanation.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 12-18-2024 6PM EST

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As the moon moved away from Earth, at a certain point, it underwent a temporary period of remelting due to gravitational forces that heated it up. Francis Nimmo is with the University of California, Santa Cruz.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 12-18-2024 6PM EST

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Creating new rocks that appeared to be younger than the true age of the moon. Nell Greenfield Boyce, NPR News.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 04-24-2025 4PM EDT

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The telescope is the size of a school bus, and to get it into orbit over 300 miles up, it took a space shuttle.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 04-24-2025 4PM EDT

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Soon after its launch in 1990, NASA discovered the telescope's primary mirror was flawed. This Hubble trouble resulted in much public mockery. But once astronauts installed corrective optics, Hubble's gorgeous images became part of popular culture on everything from lunchboxes to U-Haul rental trucks.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 04-24-2025 4PM EDT

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The aging observatory mostly still works great, though it's operating on just one gyroscope, and astronomers still clamor to use it. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 03-24-2025 6PM EDT

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Cognitive scientists at Yale University made recordings of people speaking in a variety of contexts. Here's one from a job interview scenario.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 03-24-2025 6PM EDT

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Then the researchers altered the recordings to create lower quality versions.

NPR News Now

NPR News: 03-24-2025 6PM EDT

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People who heard the high quality audio were consistently more likely to have favorable impressions of the speaker, seeing them as more intelligent, attractive and convincing. A report on this research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Nell Greenfield Boyce. NPR News.