Regina G. Barber

Oh, likewise.

This has been really fun.

This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson and edited by showrunner Rebecca Ramirez.

Tyler Jones checked the facts, and Jimmy Keeley was the audio engineer.

Beth Donovan is our vice president of podcasting.

I'm Regina Barber.

Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey, short wavers.

Regina Barber here.

And Emily Kwong.

With our biweekly science news roundup, this time featuring, and this is what I always say because it's true, the legendary Mary Louise Kelly of all things considered.

Welcome to the show again.

Yeah.

So the rate of smoking cigarettes has declined since the 1960s.

That's when Congress required warnings on cigarette boxes.

And researchers have found that people are more likely to try to quit smoking when they're under 40.

Yeah, Michaela and her team looked at survey data of over 9,000 smokers from 12 different countries for almost two decades.

Half of them quit smoking and the other half continued.

And the survey included cognitive test participants took over the years.

And what the results showed is that people who quit smoking in middle age or even older age scored better than those who never quit.