Mayan Forestry
The early Maya culture practiced forest conservation – and may have paid a heavy price when they stopped.
Podcast
AMAZING ORGANISMS: Assessing the developmental level of canines, the origin of malaria, powerful bacteria, and more.
Plant Roundup
Plant geneticists are developing crops that can thrive in salty soils.
Podcast
Staring into space, assessing ocean health via satellite, teaching robots to smile, and the dangers of cancer in wildlife.
Green Cows & Trees Roundup
Today's cows are more efficient than those of 50 years ago.
Cow Methane
Geneticists say cattle can be bred to be more environmentally friendly.
Podcast
ANIMAL UPDATE: Frogs fight disease, species confusion, super spider silk, tenacious mosquitoes, better cows, and more.
Paldoxins
A new kind of chemical can control crop-killing fungi with less environmental impact.
Insect Food Choice
Eating just one type of plant helps insects avoid information overload.
Podcast
Caterpillars infiltrate ant nests, loneliness and your health, how planes can fly upside down, and more.
Podcast
EVOLUTION SPECIAL: Celebrating Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, the evolution of kissing, mosquito love duets, robot sex, and the unhealthy history of the human diet.
Podcast
MEDICINE: the dangers of old blood, overcoming the common cold, and getting healthy with plant therapy.
Hospital Plants
Putting plants in hospital rooms may help people recover from surgery.
Little Ice Age
Widespread disease epidemics in the Americas may have set off a period of global cooling in the past.
Podcast
CLIMATE CHANGE: A listener asks: How can it be "global warming" when it's so cold outside? And the chilling effects of deadly disease on the climate of the past.
Blue Bananas
You might not think by looking at them that bananas are really blue.
Allergies & Cancer Roundup
Allergies are associated with a lower risk of certain cancers.
Thoreau’s Plants
Global warming has altered the composition of plants on the shores of Walden since the time of Henry David Thoreau.
Atmospheric Aspirin
Trees release an aspirin-like compound under stress.
Podcast
THE SCIENCE OF TREES: Electricity from trees, building a tree from the ground up, a forest of aspirin, and trading rainforest conservation for healthcare.
Synthetic Tree
A synthetic tree wicks water more effectively than a real plant.
Carbon Roundup
Climate change could melt the Arctic permafrost – which would release even more greenhouse gases.