Rob Stein
Rob Stein is a correspondent and senior editor on NPR's science desk.
An award-winning science journalist with more than 30 years of experience, Stein mostly covers health and medicine. He tends to focus on stories that illustrate the intersection of science, health, politics, social trends, ethics, and federal science policy. He tracks genetics, stem cells, cancer research, women's health issues, and other science, medical, and health policy news.
Before NPR, Stein worked at The Washington Post for 16 years, first as the newspaper's science editor and then as a national health reporter. Earlier in his career, Stein spent about four years as an editor at NPR's science desk. Before that, he was a science reporter for United Press International (UPI) in Boston and the science editor of the international wire service in Washington.
Stein's work has been honored by many organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the Association of Health Care Journalists. He was twice part of NPR teams that won Peabody Awards.
Stein frequently represents NPR, speaking at universities, international meetings and other venues, including the University of Cambridge in Britain, the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea, and the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC.
Stein is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He completed a journalism fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health, a program in science and religion at the University of Cambridge, and a summer science writer's workshop at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.
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Unless a cigarette is safer than others, it can't be labeled "natural" or "additive-free," the Food and Drug Administration told three manufacturers.
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The daily pill, called Addyi, modestly increased women's interest in sex in clinical tests. The approval was praised by some women's advocates as a milestone and condemned by others as irresponsible.
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A small study found that women with diverse microorganisms in their birth canals were more likely to give birth before their babies reached full term than women with less microbial variety.
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Excess fluoride consumption is leading to tiny white marks on many people's teeth. It's mainly a cosmetic problem, but one that could be solved by lowering the fluoride in drinking water.
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By editing the genes in embryos in the lab, Chinese scientists showed that it's possible to change hereditary traits that cause a blood disorder. But the work also created unintended mutations.
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A company has priced its test for mutations linked to breast and ovarian cancer at $249 — far less than the thousands of dollars another firm charges. But is there a downside for the worried well?
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Homeopathy's popularity has exploded in recent years. Now the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether homeopathic remedies should have to be proven safe and effective.
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A little MRI video seems to settle the decades-old debate about that loud pop of the joints: It's all about bubbles. But imagine an air bag inflating, not the bursting of a balloon.
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The product is called snus — a tiny bag of smokeless tobacco that users slip between the lip and gum. A Swedish maker claims the product is safer than cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.
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Researchers who helped develop powerful techniques warn that tweaking the genome is now easy. More public debate's needed, they say, before making changes in genes passed from parent to child.