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2013-05-16 12:44:55 (27 comments, 67 reshares, 228 +1s)

Scientists have discovered water that has been trapped in rock for more than a billion years. The water might contain microbes that evolved independently from the surface world, and it's a finding that gives new hope to the search for life on other planets.

The water samples came from holes drilled by gold miners near the small town of Timmins, Ontario, about 350 miles north of Toronto. Deep in the Canadian bedrock, miners drill holes and collect samples. Sometimes they hit pay dirt; sometimes they hit water, which seeps out from tiny crevices in the rock.

Recently, a team of scientists (who had been investigating water samples from other mines) approached the miners and asked them for fluid from newly-drilled boreholes.

Greg Holland, a geochemist at Lancaster University in England, and his colleagues wanted to know just how long that fluid had been trapped in the rock.... more »

2013-05-15 17:53:12 (20 comments, 33 reshares, 71 +1s)

2013-05-08 13:36:42 (47 comments, 28 reshares, 66 +1s)

2013-05-07 15:11:32 (3 comments, 22 reshares, 69 +1s)

Who knew that the flower nectar of citrus plants — including some varieties of grapefruit, lemon and oranges — contains  #caffeine ? As does the nectar of coffee plant flowers.

And when honeybees feed on caffeine-containing nectar, it turns out, the caffeine buzz seems to improve their memories — or their motivations for going back for more.

By +Allison Aubrey from our #Food  blog The Salt.  #Coffee  for bees?

2013-05-03 18:46:18 (16 comments, 30 reshares, 51 +1s)

When it comes to bourbon, Tom Lix doesn't believe in age discrimination. Most bourbons might age in the barrel for eight to 12 years or more, but Lix figures his are ready to drink in less than a week.

Lix makes Cleveland Whiskey, a new brand of bourbon that exemplifies two major trends in American whiskey-making today: the desire to speed up the process and the effort to establish a local identity.

2013-05-01 20:07:44 (19 comments, 51 reshares, 75 +1s)

There's free range and then there's free rein — around your house.

When Julie Baker's backyard birds started spending more time inside, it was tough to keep them clean. So she got innovative.

She sewed up a cloth diaper — chicken-sized, of course — added a few buttons and strapped it onto her little lady.

One thing led to another, and eventually, a business was born.

2013-04-29 20:32:50 (33 comments, 95 reshares, 204 +1s)

Psychologists have long known that children often model their behavior on the actions of parents or peers. But science has only recently begun to measure the influence of siblings. An older brother's or sister's behavior can be very contagious, it turns out — for good and for bad.

2013-05-17 18:09:44 (64 comments, 11 reshares, 35 +1s)

All this week on +NPR's Morning Edition we've been exploring the stories behind your morning  cup of  joe. Now  you can join us  in the NPR virtual  coffee house. At noon eastern today, Reporters Allison Aubrey and Dan Charles, and  some special guests from the series, will join us to chat and answer your questions in this Hangout!  

Submit your questions below or by tagging them #nprcoffeeweek  .

2013-04-25 18:39:36 (4 comments, 13 reshares, 54 +1s)

The Rise of Women in Coffee

Great read from Allison Aubrey discussing how Margret Swallow and the  International Women's Coffee Alliance are helping women around the world finance coffee farms and start businesses.  

 In Colombia, 47 percent of the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers' members are female. In fact, one-fifth of that country's farms are owned and operated by women, according to the federation.

#coffee 

2013-04-25 15:23:16 (1 comments, 6 reshares, 25 +1s)

When Superstorm Sandy inundated lower Manhattan last year, thousands of lab animals drowned and many scientists lost months or even years of work. One of those scientists is Gordon Fishell, a brain researcher at New York University.

Just hours before Sandy reached New York, Fishell says, he began to worry that animals housed in a basement below his lab were in danger. "I realized Hurricane Sandy and high tide were going to coincide at Battery Park, which is right where my lab is," he says.

But by then, public transportation had shut down and Fishell was stuck at his home in suburban Westchester, N.Y. The next day, as he tried to get back to his lab, his worst fears were confirmed.

"I got through to one of my postdocs who had been there since 7 in the morning," Fishell says. "I asked, 'Well, how about the mice?' And he said he was really... more »

2013-03-26 20:39:58 (22 comments, 17 reshares, 58 +1s)

The U.S. Supreme Court heard lively arguments Tuesday in a challenge to California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriages.

And, as many learned painfully after last year's court decision to uphold Obamacare, it is risky business to predict how justices will rule later based on questions raised in arguments.

So we won't.

Instead, here are five areas of discussion we found interesting, even if they may not prove predictive of the outcome.

Most involve Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is, once again, considered the swing vote of a court otherwise divided evenly between liberal and conservative justices. The quotes below were taken from various parts of the arguments.

2013-03-25 15:44:24 (125 comments, 14 reshares, 86 +1s)

When Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman recently reversed his stance on gay marriage after his son came out as gay, he joined a tidal wave of Americans who have altered their views on the subject.

This dramatic change forms the backdrop to two Supreme Court cases this week about the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Support has reverberated at the highest level: The White House has urged the high court to come down in favor of gay rights, and President Obama has reversed his own stance on the issue.

"There's just been a real huge sea change in how people view gay marriage," says Dawn Michelle Baunach, a sociologist at Georgia State University who has tracked attitudes toward same-sex marriage over the past two decades.

"In 1988, we had 72 percent of people who said they disapproved of gay marriage, and only 13 percent approved. But by 2010, we had cut... more »

2013-03-21 16:57:07 (17 comments, 4 reshares, 30 +1s)

When rumblings began in early March that NBC might be preparing in earnest to replace Jay Leno with Jimmy Fallon, +Linda Holmes felt more like Bill Murray than she ever had before.

Not the Bill Murray in Ghostbusters or the Bill Murray in Meatballs or even the Bill Murray in Stripes. No, this was the Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, who wakes up every morning to "I Got You Babe," over and over. And over.

NPR's +Linda Holmes asks, does anyone really care who hosts the Tonight show?

2013-03-21 13:34:49 (18 comments, 12 reshares, 38 +1s)

Dora Hernandez gave a decade of her life to the U.S. Navy and the Army National Guard, but some of the dangers surprised her.

"The worst thing for me is that you don't have to worry about the enemy, you have to worry about your own soldiers," she says.

Sitting in a circle, a group of women nod in agreement. All are veterans, most have spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they're also survivors of another war. According to the Pentagon's own research, more than 1 in 4 women who join the military will be sexually assaulted during their careers.

2013-03-21 13:21:18 (3 comments, 20 reshares, 40 +1s)

It's hard to believe, but seven years ago no one had ever heard of a tweet. Thursday is the anniversary of the first tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Since then the social media company has been an important communication tool in everything from the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, to its use as a megaphone for celebrities. Over the years, its relationship to its free speech principles has changed.

2013-03-21 00:13:01 (19 comments, 27 reshares, 57 +1s)

2013-03-20 20:03:01 (25 comments, 19 reshares, 69 +1s)

When you read the words of Clotaire Rapaille, a "French-born psychiatrist-turned-marketer" quoted in yesterday's interesting +Slate   article about the marketing of cars to women, it's hard not to read them in a voice that's sultry and French and not entirely serious, as if he's some kind of sales expert crossed with Pepe Le Pew (despite the fact that this doubtless has no basis in reality).

Rapaille told writer Libby Copeland that women just loooooove cup holders. Rapaille says women love cup holders because — and this is really what he told her — cup holders mean coffee, and coffee means safety, because of the memories we all have of our mothers preparing coffee with breakfast.

Maybe, maybe not. But quite frankly, when our +Linda Holmes was recently shopping for a new car, she was pretty surprised when the car salesman — undoubtedly doing whathe'd... more »

2013-03-20 19:27:23 (37 comments, 2 reshares, 23 +1s)

Dr. Frank Dumont never thought of himself as being on the front lines of suicide prevention. But after the death of a patient he was particularly close to, he sees his role changing. He's seeking to reduce suicides by asking his patients about guns in their homes.

2013-03-05 16:15:50 (26 comments, 4 reshares, 37 +1s)

2013-01-15 13:32:08 (67 comments, 26 reshares, 77 +1s)

NPR Morning Edition co-host David Greene wanted to understand why, so he gathered a roundtable of young people at a synagogue in Washington, D.C. The Historic 6th & I Synagogue seemed like the right venue: It's both a holy and secular place that has everything from religious services to rock concerts. Greene speaks with six people — three young women and three young men — all struggling with the role of faith and religion in their lives.

More from this week's "Losing Our Religion" series.

2013-01-15 13:30:31 (171 comments, 73 reshares, 181 +1s)

This week, Morning Edition explores the "nones" — Americans who say they don't identify with any religion. Demographers have given them this name because when asked to identify their religion, that's their answer: "none."

In October, the +Pew Research Center released a study, 'Nones' on the Rise, that takes a closer look at the 46 million people who answered none to the religion question in 2012. According to Pew, one-fifth of American adults have no religious affiliation, a trend that has for years been on the rise.

2013-01-14 14:21:26 (5 comments, 4 reshares, 30 +1s)

2013-01-14 14:07:11 (3 comments, 10 reshares, 39 +1s)

Imagine one-third of the entire U.S. population — 100 million or so people — visiting Dallas in the next 55 days.

That gives you a sense of what began today in Allahabad, India, a northern city of about 1.1 million people. Over about the next eight weeks it is expected to host nearly 100 times its population in pilgrims (not all at once, obviously). They're coming for the Hindu festival of Kumbh Mela, which happens every 12 years.

Today alone, +BBC News reports, at least 10 million pilgrims were expected to come to bathe "at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers." That's about five times more people than attend Mecca's annual six-day Hajj for Muslims.

From +NPR 's +Mark Memmott.

2013-01-11 17:56:39 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 27 +1s)

A roundup from NPR's +Mark Memmott.

2013-01-11 14:20:22 (8 comments, 14 reshares, 43 +1s)

For more than a week, it was the belle of the ball, the butter with no better: a giant 1,000-pound dairy sculpture that occupied the place of honor at the annual Farm Show in Harrisburg, Pa.

But after the indoor state fair shutters this Saturday, all that beautiful butter will leave its refrigerated display case and be unceremoniously dumped into a stinking pit of manure. That's because the sculpture will soon be converted into methane gas — enough to power a Pennsylvania dairy farm for three days.

From +Scott Detrow of +NPR StateImpact.

2013-01-10 18:27:45 (51 comments, 12 reshares, 52 +1s)

More than 300 college and university presidents have signed an open letter to American lawmakers, urging immediate action to curb gun violence and reform gun safety laws.

The letter is part of an initiative started by college presidents Lawrence M. Schall of Oglethorpe University and Elizabeth Kiss of Agnes Scott College, both located in Georgia.

From NPR's +Rachel Brody. 

2013-01-09 02:20:24 (15 comments, 12 reshares, 38 +1s)

Binge drinking is something many people want to shrug off.

But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say it's a public health problem that deserves more attention.

You might be tempted to think binge drinking is mainly an issue for men, but that's not the case. So the CDC is putting the spotlight on women's binge drinking, which it says is both dangerous and overlooked.

2013-01-09 02:19:04 (21 comments, 4 reshares, 18 +1s)

2013-01-03 20:46:11 (15 comments, 5 reshares, 45 +1s)

People have been sharing food with strangers since ancient days, offering up the household's finest fare to mysterious travelers. Think Abraham and the three men of Mamre in the Bible and the folks who take in strangers after natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. That deep tradition of generous hospitality has long been thought uniquely human.

If so, then bonobos, those gregarious African apes, may be more like us than we thought.

"The pairs that are unfamiliar with each other are the ones that shared most often," says JingZhi Tan, a graduate student at Duke University who tested bonobos' penchant for sharing food and discovered that they not only share with strangers, they even offer their fruit and nuts to an unfamiliar bonobo faster than they will feed one they know well.

2013-01-02 15:46:23 (15 comments, 3 reshares, 20 +1s)

Here at NPR, we've heard about some wacky food scandals. There have been gingerbread houses harboring bad bacteria, turkeys trotting around with arsenic in their guts and a prison hooch that brewed up botulism.

But a recent report from China may take the cake –- or should we say, the eggplant.

Two people in a Beijing restaurant intentionally laced the eggplant dishes with enough of a blood pressure drug to send 80 diners to the hospital. Everyone recovered, but 34 of them had to have their blood pumped to remove the drug.

2013-01-02 15:27:34 (10 comments, 4 reshares, 27 +1s)

2012-12-31 21:13:07 (5 comments, 10 reshares, 29 +1s)

2012-12-31 19:58:12 (7 comments, 6 reshares, 20 +1s)

2012-12-24 13:59:01 (6 comments, 3 reshares, 25 +1s)

2012-12-24 13:43:00 (3 comments, 3 reshares, 39 +1s)

2012-12-20 14:41:09 (3 comments, 8 reshares, 34 +1s)

NPR's own Linton Weeks offers some words of comfort and wisdom from his experience losing his children. 

2012-12-20 14:20:14 (14 comments, 7 reshares, 29 +1s)

2012-12-19 16:19:17 (30 comments, 17 reshares, 70 +1s)

"According to countless prophecies, terrorizing people across the world, this will be my last contribution to 13.7. On Friday, December 21, the world will come to an end. I have been receiving dozens of concerned email messages from otherwise reasonable people, convinced that this time it is for real, that there is no escape.

Readers, you may relax. I can guarantee you that Friday, December 21, will be just another winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.The shortest day of the year will be harmless. Come Saturday morning, you will be calmly drinking your coffee, a large smile on your face, convinced that, indeed, these end-of-world prophecies are complete nonsense. Everything will be quickly forgotten, and life will go back to normal, Christmas celebrations and all.

Until the next doomsday prophecy, that is."

2012-12-19 14:24:30 (29 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

2012-12-18 18:18:16 (1 comments, 7 reshares, 21 +1s)

2012-12-12 13:16:41 (6 comments, 5 reshares, 28 +1s)

2012-12-11 15:26:27 (4 comments, 12 reshares, 39 +1s)

Come watch our interactive story on the impact of #fracking  in Towanda, PA.  From +Scott Detrow and +NPR StateImpact in Pennsylvania.

2012-12-11 02:20:18 (5 comments, 33 reshares, 62 +1s)

About 10 years ago, a visitor to the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum in Key West thought something was wrong. Were the cats being treated well? The museum said yes. The visitor, who had doubts, filed a complaint with the feds. It's a complaint that's gone to the courts.

Yes, Hemingway's cats are a federal case.

2012-12-10 21:01:21 (8 comments, 20 reshares, 48 +1s)

It's hard to keep track of new artists these days. Anyone with a credit card can start a Bandcamp page, and there are only so many hours in the day you can listen to music.

In an effort to make it a littler easier on you, we asked some colleagues around the country to share their favorite new discoveries of 2012, bands that made a real dent in their communities. Here are the artists you should have known in 2012.

From NPR #Music 's end of year series.  Recommendations from +WFUV Public Radio, +KCRW,   +The Current, +Folk Alley (from +WKSU), +WXPN, and more.

2012-12-10 19:15:56 (5 comments, 12 reshares, 36 +1s)

Smartphone users have a wide range of apps to choose from if they're looking to dine ethically. There are apps that advise which supermarkets have good environmental records and apps that keep tabs on restaurants and markets offering sustainable seafood.

But now, there's an app for diners who care about the plight of the people who prepare and serve their meals — not just what's in them.

2012-12-10 17:08:21 (15 comments, 8 reshares, 20 +1s)

The next time you are about to post a scathing review of a business on a site like Yelp or Angie's List, you might want to think twice.

This week, a housing contractor sued a former customer for $750,000 in defamation charges for her review.

2012-12-07 20:26:08 (4 comments, 8 reshares, 44 +1s)

+Breaking News: Supreme Court will review the Prop. 8 case.

2012-12-07 20:25:51 (11 comments, 11 reshares, 25 +1s)

Customer loyalty programs have been around for years. You think nothing of giving the supermarket or pet supply store your personal information. In exchange you get a card or a key ring tag that you present at checkout to get a discount.

Now wireless carriers are taking it a step further, raising alerts from privacy advocates.

Verizon and AT&T recently launched programs allowing customers to receive rewards based on information their smartphones share with the carriers.

2012-12-05 19:52:17 (9 comments, 5 reshares, 19 +1s)

From +WBUR 's +On Point Radio - a conversation about Domestic Violence.