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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Obstetrical emergency departments are a new aspect of some hospitals that can inflate medical bills for even the easiest, healthiest births. Just ask baby Gus' parents about their $2,755 ER charge. -
A college student never learned the cause of intense pain that drove her to an ER, but her bill totaled $18,735.93. She and her mom, a nurse practitioner, were outraged after dissecting the charges. -
Some of the first people to get vaccines — many of whom are in nursing homes — are seeing their lives get closer to the lives they led pre-pandemic. They say initial steps to normalcy feel great.
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The Mountain West has some of the highest rates of depression and suicide. Researchers think the mountains, with a lack of oxygen at high altitude, could be interfering with people's mental health.
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Too many decisions about the West get made in Washington, D.C. At least, that's what the Secretary of the Interior thinks. Ryan Zinke plans to move... -
The biological effects of lifelong exposure to racism or other sorts of discrimination can be complicated, scientists say, but likely tap into the same mechanisms as other types of chronic stress. -
Coloradans can get arrested for driving while stoned. But with no good roadside tools, officers' determinations are more subjective than for alcohol DUIs. Scientists hope to find chemical markers. -
The words "strong" and "inspiring" are not usually assigned to garden slugs. But slug slime inspired materials scientists to invent a new kind of adhesive that could one day help heal human wounds. -
NASA plans to send people to the Red Planet in the 2030s. In the meantime, a remote location in southern Utah serves as a non-NASA training ground for the Mars-minded. -
People are dumping corpses in the high desert of western Colorado. But those unloading bodies aren't criminal masterminds. They're scientists. And out here, the usual rules of human decay don't apply.
