Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig 8bellsresearch.com. NS
Answer
8bellsresearch.com. 5 NS ns3fgq.name.com.
8bellsresearch.com. 5 NS ns1cwy.name.com.
8bellsresearch.com. 5 NS ns2dqx.name.com.
8bellsresearch.com. 5 NS ns4kpx.name.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0