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.
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They were ugly. And, unfortunately, they were not equipped with an anus. But the sand dwellers could be an important part of filling in our own early evolutionary tree.
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Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf is about to lose an iceberg the size of Delaware. Scientists gathering in the U.K. are scratching their heads about why it's cracking off.
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If the rift gets long enough, Antarctica will lose a chunk of ice the size of Delaware.
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Black holes aren't all doom and gloom. Some of these incredibly dense matter-suckers fling powerful jets of light and charged particles — the space version of a fireworks show.
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When scientists got their hands on a collection of the world's biggest gem diamonds, they found something surprising inside — clues about what sits hundreds of miles beneath our feet.
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Millions of years ago, a dinosaur about the size of a sparrow had a bad day. It got stuck in tree resin. Paleontologists recently came across the rare amber fossil containing its tail in Myanmar.
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To research mysterious and deadly diseases, a scientist puts on a plastic bodysuit and steps into a lab sealed off from the outside world.
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When the volcano started rumbling, North Korean researchers realized they didn't have the tools to predict if it might erupt. So they reached out to Western scientists for help.
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The GOES-R satellite launched on Nov. 19. It'll enter orbit and sit 22,000 miles above the Americas, monitoring weather on the planet — and in space.
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The toxin comes from tiny frogs in Colombia — the ones that pack a punch on the tip of poison darts. In the past, research on toxins like this has led to some pretty amazing drug discoveries.
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Two monkeys with spinal cord injuries were able to move after a wireless implant restored the connection between brain and legs. But any help for people will be years away, researchers say.
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As scientists try to figure out what happened to the Schiaparelli lander, which may have crash-landed, a craft known as the Trace Gas Orbiter is orbiting the red planet in search of signs of life.