Military jargon in Syria, mythical beasts in Silicon Valley, Yiddish vulgarities in the presidential campaign: Linguist Ben Zimmer breaks down some noteworthy terms from the past year.
The bright moon will be "an added gift for the holidays," NASA says. Record high temperatures on the East Coast, snowfall on the West Coast and an asteroid passing Earth are also in the mix.
There's a restaurant in Dallas that's attracting some attention. Instead of waitresses wearing skimpy clothes, it's the waiters who do. It's called, "Tallywackers."
This week marks the 242nd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. This year is the 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland. If you'll follow us down the rabbit hole, you'll find some surprising links.
The winners of the Confucius Peace Prize, launched in reaction to a 2010 Nobel given to a Chinese dissident, rarely acknowledge it. Even this year's winner, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, doesn't want it.
This week on Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam looks at what we find funny and what, well, crosses the line. Comedian Bill Burr joins us to talk about why race, gender and Caitlin Jenner can be so funny.
A man in Turkey is on trial for creating a meme that compares the character Gollum to Turkey's president. Michael Drough, a Lord of the Rings scholar, talks about whether Gollum is a true villain.
August Engelhardt believed coconuts were a nutritional and spiritual panacea. So in 1902, he sailed to the South Pacific to start a utopian cult that survived only on the fruit. It ended calamitously.
Jeff Wysaski talks to NPR's Ari Shapiro about his Tumblr, Obvious Plant, where he posts photos of mischief like his latest prank: fake Black Friday ads that he tacked to a bulletin board at Target.