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Adam Cole

Pumpkin facts.

Adam Cole/NPR

The Salt

VIDEO: You Don't Know Jack-O'-Lanterns

October 30, 2014 • Explore the guts and glory of pumpkin science with Skunk Bear's latest video.

A collection of stills from the Skunk Bear video "Life in a Beer."

NPR

The Salt

VIDEO: Glimpse The History Of Life In A Beer

October 3, 2014 • It took more than a billion years of evolution to yield the biology behind a beer. Here, we bring you a video celebration of the science in a cold one.

A still from the Robert Krulwich video, The Animal That Wouldn't Die.

Adam Cole/NPR

Krulwich Wonders...

Everything Dies, Right? But Does Everything Have To Die? Here's A Surprise

September 26, 2014 • Meet two animals. Both are teeny. Both live in water. Both mature extra fast. But while one dies in about a week, the other — well, prepare to be amazed.

Dense flocks of martins like this filled the skies above Lake Murray, S.C., for more than two decades. This year, their traditional roost site is empty.

Dense flocks of martins like this filled the skies above Lake Murray, S.C., for more than two decades. This year, their traditional roost site is empty. Adam Cole hide caption

itoggle caption Adam Cole

Animals

How Do You Lose A Half-Million Birds?

July 27, 2014 • For the past 25 years, a giant flock of purple martins has gathered in Lake Murray, S.C., in late July. This year, they didn't show up.

A still from a quirky animation exploring some of the ways we relieve stress.

Avi Ofer/NPR

Shots - Health News

Dialing Back Stress With A Bubble Bath, Beach Trip And Bees

July 16, 2014 • Socializing topped the list of stress reducers for those dealing with a great deal of stress, according to an NPR poll. Prayer, meditation, exercise and playing with pets were also common responses.

Science

What Does Sound Look Like?

April 9, 2014 • A clever photography trick allows you to see the invisible: the rising heat from a lighter, the turbulence around airplane wings, the plume of a sneeze ... and even sound waves.

Dave Brinker and veterinarian Cindy Driscoll adjust the GPS backpack on Hungerford, the 15th snowy owl tagged during this winter's irruption.

Meredith Rizzo/NPR

Science

Trapping And Tracking The Mysterious Snowy Owl

March 11, 2014 • This winter's unexpected arctic bird invasion has given owl researchers a rare opportunity. They're fitting a few of the errant owls with GPS backpacks to track their return to the Arctic.

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Up close with popcorn.

Adam Cole/NPR

The Salt

From Aztecs To Oscars: Popcorn's Beautiful, Explosive Journey

February 27, 2014 • Long before it fueled moviegoers, popcorn helped lay the foundation for the Aztec empire. In our video, we look at popcorn under a microscope, where the rock-hard kernel's fluffy secret is revealed.

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A still from a computer simulation of hummingbird flight.

Haoxiang Luo/Vanderbilt University

Science

We Have A Science Tumblr, And Its Name Is 'Skunk Bear'

January 13, 2014 • Follow Skunk Bear for quirky animations, intriguing videos, illustrations, GIFs, behind-the-scenes radio moments, dispatches from the intersection of science and culture, homemade lava recipes, underwater operas, and fascinating graphs hastily scrawled on napkins. It's all about science.

Alexandra Jones-Twaddell and Malley Chertkov add a Christmas tree to the growing line in Island Beach State Park in February 2013. Similar dune restoration projects — using trees as a foundation to trap sand — will be carried out this year all along the Atlantic Coast.

Alexandra Jones-Twaddell and Malley Chertkov add a Christmas tree to the growing line in Island Beach State Park in February 2013. Similar dune restoration projects — using trees as a foundation to trap sand — will be carried out this year all along the Atlantic Coast. Adam Cole/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Adam Cole/NPR

Science

Tree-Incarnation: Christmas Trees Return To Nature (A Poem)

January 4, 2014 • Americans buy about 30 million live trees every year. Many end up as mulch, but in some communities they help rebuild dunes, create fish habitat and feed zoo animals. Hear the story of arborial resurrection in anapestic tetrameter.

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Two African penguins stretch their flippers at the Maryland Zoo.

Two African penguins stretch their flippers at the Maryland Zoo. Adam Cole/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Adam Cole/NPR

Animals

RoboCop? How About RoboPenguin!

January 1, 2014 • When physicist Flavio Noca first saw penguins zooming around underwater, he was blown away by their speed and maneuverability. Now, his team has built a robotic arm that perfectly mimics the flippers in action — and he says the device could someday propel underwater craft.

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Brain Candy

Do Crossword Puzzles Really Stave Off Dementia?

December 20, 2013 • On Dec. 21, 100 years ago, a paper in New York published the first crossword. It quickly became known as a game for the intelligent — even helping Britain recruit code-breakers during WWII. But there isn't much evidence that this brainy game can help stave off dementia.

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A Geminid meteor streaks across the sky early Friday near Scotland, Md.

A Geminid meteor streaks across the sky early Friday near Scotland, Md. Morgan Walker/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Morgan Walker/NPR

The Two-Way

Catch The Geminid Meteor Shower Tonight

December 13, 2013 • This year's shower might serve up more than a hundred shooting stars every hour, but the bright streaks could be washed out by a nearly full moon.

Space

To Understand A Russian Fireball, Physicists Turn To YouTube

November 7, 2013 • Hundreds of videos captured the flight of a fiery meteor over the city of Chelyabinsk in central Russia last winter. Now scientists have used those videos to help calculate the force of the blast and to triangulate the meteor's path.

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An image from an electron microscope of the back legs of a planthopper insect.

An image from an electron microscope of the back legs of a planthopper insect. Gregory Sutton hide caption

itoggle caption Gregory Sutton

Science

Living Gears Help This Bug Jump

September 13, 2013 • Planthoppers are champion jumpers — launching themselves upward, hundreds of times their own height, in just a couple of milliseconds. They achieve this feat with the help of cog-like teeth on their legs — the first mechanical gear system ever found in nature.

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Food

Cash For Halloween Candy? Dentists' Buyback Program Is Booming

Dr. Curtis Chan, a dentist in Del Mar, Calif., loads up a truck with 5,456 pounds of candy to deliver to Operation Gratitude during the Halloween Candy Buyback on Nov. 8 last year. Chan personally collected 3,542 pounds of candy from patients.

Health

Virus Sleuths Chip Away At Ebola Mysteries

Stringy particles of Ebola virus (blue) bud from a chronically infected cell (yellow-green) in this colorized, scanning electron micrograph.

U.S.

Eric Frein, Suspected Of Killing Pennsylvania Trooper, In Custody

This undated photo of Eric Frein was released Tuesday by Pennsylvania State Police. Frein, 31, had been sought in connection with September's killing of a state trooper and the critical wounding of another.

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