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Can we improve concentration when our attention is constantly being diverted? Researchers found running electrical current through someone's head helps — but it isn't the most practical solution.

A new study shows a connection between cigarette taxes and food stamps. When cigarette taxes go up, smokers end up spending more of their income on cigarettes and that leaves less money for food.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says 5,500 people are in shelters. Host Rachel Martin talks to Rachel Osier Lindley, an editor for the Texas Station Collaborative, about the conditions in the city.

Compared to older siblings, second-born boys are more likely to go to prison, get suspended in school and enter juvenile delinquency. Why? Parents of first-borns are more invested in their upbringing.

NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Zoë Jenkins, Miranda Zanca and Ichtaca Lira, reporters for YR Media, about their series "Teens in America."

Fresh Air's book critic suggests the aptly titled 'Summer Reading,' by Hilma Wolitzer; 'Be Near Me,' by Andrew O'Hagan, and the much-lauded 'On Chesil Beach,' by Ian McEwan.

A young scientist achieves startling results. A colleague is suspicious. Allegra Goodman's novel Intuition, explores tense relations between researchers in a cancer lab, and the professional passions driving them.

Before most Americans had heard of the Taliban, Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote a book about them. After the Sept. 11 attacks, it became a best-seller. Rashid's recent reporting for English-language newspapers involves Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Louis Eppolito was a decorated New York cop who came from a longtime mob family. Then he was convicted of working as a mob hit man. But his conviction was recently overturned on a technicality.

Religious scholar Reza Aslan explains to Robert Siegel why the Muhammad cartoons recently published in several European newspapers are offensive to Muslims. The depiction of Muhammad is considered blasphemous by many in the Muslim world and has prompted vigorous protest.