Podcast
Cycles in the Earth's orbit and tilt may cause extinctions, what got the Oracle of Delphi high, why farming salmon hurts their wild cousins, the masculine face of compulsive shopping, and the health benefits of smoking bans.
Podcast
Eggs that can run away, a slobber stress test for babies, humans' speedy emotional rebounds, an international congress of dirt, and where dinosaurs come from.
Fossil Bird
Researchers have found an ancestor of modern birds that walked with dinosaurs.
Promoting Parasites
Wetlands around the world have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Now scientists have found a new cheap and easy way of monitoring those that remain.
Metals Roundup
Metals are essential to our modern lifestyle. But there's a finite amount in the earth, and we seem to be on the fast track to running out.
Terra Preta
Before Europeans arrived, the Amazon may have once supported a dense population. But with soil quality so low, how did those early Amazonians survive?
Podcast
A better way to browse music, sexual orientation in the brain, a great locust migration, the tectonic future of California, and why the desert is an Amazon.
Fault Line
San Francisco and Los Angeles are on different tectonic plates. One listener asked what consequences that has for the future of California.
Urban Myth Roundup
Scientists have long derided the notion that getting cold could give you a cold. But a new study seems to prove them wrong.
Crater Nurseries
After a devastating meteor strikes, the resulting crater may be the key to life.
Mass Extinction
An asteroid probably did not cause a mass extinction 250 million years ago.
Gold Mine Quakes
Using seismic data from South African gold mines to learn about small earthquakes
Petrified Wood
What exactly is petrified wood? (it's a fossilized tree [or part of one] -- where the wood has been replaced by minerals)
Gravity Detector
Detecting exploding stars and other stellar events by monitoring minute changes in gravity
Tilted Earth
Why is the Earth tilted? (Got knocked around as it was forming billions of years ago)
Stardust Roundup
Stardust from the atmosphere, tracking earthquakes by looking at leaning trees, and better software for clearing up traffic jams
Patterned Ground
The cycle of freezing and thawing of soil arranges rocks in the Arctic into neat patterns.
Finding Diamonds
Measuring the earth's gravity from an airplane can pinpoint diamond mines.
Carbon Cloisters
Storing carbon dioxide underground could help environment -- removing CO2 and recovering natural gas
Burning Coal Beds
Underground coal seams catch on fire and burn for years
Listening to Twisters
Infrasound instruments can detect tornadoes long before traditional means
Spinning World
Why don't human activities make the Earth unbalanced as it spins on its axis? (They don't move as much mass around as natural processes do, except for putting water in reservoirs.)