Science

David Daniel, an east Texas landowner, was so determined to block the Keystone XL pipeline from coming through his forest that he built an elaborate network of treehouses eight stories above the ground.

Texas Man Takes Last Stand Against Keystone XL Pipeline

4:20pm December 25, 2012

by Elizabeth Shogren

The Keystone pipeline is supposed to carry tar sands oil from Canada to Texas — a route that runs right through David Daniel's land. To try to save his woods from bulldozers, Daniel built tree houses 80 feet in the air and protesters climbed up into them.

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A person's DNA can say a lot about a person, but not why someone has committed a horrific crime like mass murder.

Killer's DNA Won't Explain His Crime

9:21pm December 21, 2012

by Jon Hamilton

Sandy Hook and other mass killings have left people wondering how someone could engage in such behavior. Scientists say that genes can indeed predispose a person to mental illness or violence. But genetic variants alone can't explain why someone commits mass murder.

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Science

Why Some Kids Have An Inflated Sense Of Their Science Skills

8:49pm December 21, 2012

by Shankar Vedantam

A massive analysis of some 350,000 students in 53 countries has uncovered a paradox: Students in many countries that are mediocre at science have an inflated sense of good they are.

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Food companies have begun quietly reducing salt in regular foods because low-salt items like these don't sell as well.

Big Food And The Big, Silent Salt Experiment

10:18pm December 20, 2012

by Dan Charles

Food manufacturers have been quietly reducing sodium by tiny amounts in popular foods like crackers for years now. That's because if products are marked "low sodium," consumers won't buy them. But companies are also working on ways to deliver more salt taste with less sodium.

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A section of the Sutter's Mill meteorite, dubbed "Darth Vader," is studied at a lab at the University of California, Davis. The meteorite is made of carbonaceous chondrite, which contains materials that formed the planets of the solar system.

Science

In Calif. Gold Country, A Rush That's Out Of This World

10:18pm December 20, 2012

by Richard Harris

When a meteorite crashed down in April on the exact spot where gold was discovered in 1848, professional and amateur meteorite hunters alike fanned out to collect small chunks. Now more than 50 scientists have published an analysis of the rare space rock.

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Photo Project Tracks Climate Change On Everest

1:18pm December 20, 2012

Filmmaker David Breashears has summited the world's highest peak five times. His latest project matches old photos of Mount Everest and its glaciers with new images to demonstrate how climate change is affecting the mountain. Melissa Block talks with Breashears about the GlacierWorks project.

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Bali sea salt and a spoonful of Hawaiian red alae salt.

The Paradox And Mystery Of Our Taste For Salt

11:37am December 20, 2012

by Dan Charles

Many health experts say we should eat less salt, but that's not easy. Salt is added to almost everything that we cook or bake. Are we born with a taste for that much salt, or do we just like what we've always eaten? Scientists say it's some of both.

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Archaeologists believe that ancient farmers used pots made from these pottery shards to make cheese â a less perishable, low-lactose milk product.

Science

Archaeologists Find Ancient Evidence Of Cheese-Making

12:19pm December 17, 2012

Scientists have detected milk fat on 7,000-year-old pottery vessels from archaeological sites in Northern Europe. They think it's the earliest evidence of cheese-making, and they argue dairy products gave early farmers an evolutionary edge.

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At the operations center at JPL, the spacecraft's status was posted on the wall.

Science

50 Years After First Interplanetary Probe, NASA Looks To Future

10:27am December 17, 2012

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Mariner 2's 1962 mission to Venus was the first time any spacecraft had gone to another planet. Before the mission, very little was known about the planets, and much of what was believed to be true turned out to be wrong.

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Science

Why Tragedies Alter Risk Perception

5:44am December 17, 2012

If Friday's school shooting in Connecticut follows the pattern set by other mass tragedies, huge numbers of Americans are worrying about the safety of their kids at school. How is our perception of risk is shaped by tragedy, and what happens when our perceptions do not line up with the facts?

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