Science

Sibling Coffee Roasters owner Libby Powell poses with her brother, Benjamin Withem, outside her West Virginia coffee shop. In her hand is an early photo of the pair — one they are trying to re-create.

At the heart of this cozy coffee shop lies a big sister's love for her little brother

8:16am April 02, 2024

by Yuki Noguchi

Having siblings can mean shared family and childhood experiences — and also shared bedrooms and rivalries. A growing body of research shows us that sibling relationships can shape us for life.

Queue Listen Now

A woman and her child stand in front of a landscape denuded by gold mining in the southern Peruvian jungle in the Madre de Dios region. This picture is from 2015. Today, there's an effort to plant saplings to revive the forest.

Gold mining reduced this Amazon rainforest to a moonscape. Now miners are restoring it

5:00am April 02, 2024

by Simeon Tegel

Illegal gold mining has ravaged the Peruvian Amazon, leaving behind pollution and denuded landscapes. A group of miners are working with a U.S. charity to restore the forest.

In this image made available by NASA, the International Space Station is silhouetted against the sun during a solar eclipse Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, as seen from Ross Lake, Northern Cascades National Park in Washington state.

New York inmates sue to watch the solar eclipse after prisons ordered locked down

1:32am April 02, 2024

by The Associated Press

The suit filed in federal court argues the April 8 lockdown violates inmates' constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event.

These kids saw the last total solar eclipse in the U.S. This is how it changed them

6:12pm April 01, 2024

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Several kids have gotten not one but two opportunities to see total solar eclipses while growing up. We asked some of them what they remember of the last one, and how it changed them.

Queue Listen Now

Dairy cattle feed at a farm on March 31, 2017, near Vado, N.M. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says cows in multiple states have tested positive for bird flu.

For the first time, U.S. dairy cows have tested positive for bird flu

1:25pm March 31, 2024

by Joe Hernandez

Livestock in Texas, Kansas and Michigan are confirmed to have the virus, and herds in New Mexico and Idaho have also tested positive. The threat to the public is low, federal officials say.

"One second doesn't sound like much, but in today's interconnected world, getting the time wrong could lead to huge problems," geophysicist Duncan Agnew says. Here, an official clock is seen at a golf tournament in Cape Town, South Africa.

Science
Arts

Climate change is delaying world clocks' need for a 'negative leap second'

7:01am March 30, 2024

by Bill Chappell

We're nearing a year when a negative leap second could be needed to shave time — an unprecedented step that would have unpredictable effects, a new study says.

In Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta, oil bunkering — the practice of siphoning oil from pipelines — has transformed parts of the once-thriving delta ecosystem into an ecological dead zone, according to the U.N. Environment Programme.

Mercy me: Photos show what humans have done to the planet in the Anthropocene age

9:31pm March 29, 2024

Anthropocene refers to the age of humans — the things we've done to Earth. Geologists just rejected a proposal to declare an official "Anthropocene epoch." But everyone agrees: Damage has been done.

Science

California students find ancient sloth fossil

4:33pm March 29, 2024

by Jerimiah Oetting

Last spring, some elementary school students in Santa Cruz found an exposed bone in a creek bed, which turned out to be an ancient fossil – it just went on display.

Science

New images shed light on the supermassive blackhole at the center of the Milky Way

4:33pm March 29, 2024

NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with astronomer Sara Issaoun about the latest image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

PFAS 'forever chemicals' could be contaminating millions of acres of farmland

4:50pm March 28, 2024

by Teresa Homsi

Biosolids (a byproduct of wastewater treatment) are often used as fertilizer. But toxic "forever chemicals", or PFAS, could be contaminating that fertilizer, along with millions of acres of farmland.

Queue Listen Now