Originally published on Fri December 28, 2012 1:03 pm
In time for New Year's Eve, Science Friday examines the chemical reactions that transpire in fluted glassware. Ira Flatow and Richard Zare, a chemist at Stanford University, pore over the science of bubbles — from how to keep that open champagne fizzy (forget the cork) to why beer tastes better from a glass rather than a bottle.
Originally published on Fri December 28, 2012 12:41 pm
Got milk? Ancient European farmers who made cheese thousands of years ago certainly had it. But at that time, they lacked a genetic mutation that would have allowed them to digest raw milk's dominant sugar, lactose, after childhood.
Today, however, 35 percent of the global population — mostly people with European ancestry — can digest lactose in adulthood without a hitch.
Also last month, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency joked to an environmental law conference: Everyone who wants my job, stand up. Yesterday, Lisa Jackson turned serious and made it official: She's leaving the EPA next month.
As NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reports, there are mixed feelings about Jackson's departure.
For the Druids, mistletoe was sacred. For us, it's a cute ornament and maybe an excuse to steal a kiss. And of course it's a Christmas tradition.
But for a forest, mistletoe might be much more important. It's a parasite, shows up on tree branches and looks like an out-of-place evergreen bush hanging in the air.
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that she's stepping down. Lisa Jackson won praise from environmentalists for efforts to cut air pollution and greenhouse gases. But she faced fierce opposition from the coal industry and congressional Republicans. And she sometimes found herself at odds with the White House.
A parking lot full of yellow taxis is flooded as a result of Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 30 in Hoboken, N.J.
Credit John Moore / Getty Images
Rain clouds move over the remnants of parched cornstalks on Aug. 22 near Wiley, Colo. A summer storm came too late to help farmers whose crops were decimated in the wide zone of exceptional drought in Colorado's eastern plains.
Credit Darren McCollester / Getty Images
Waves crash over Winthrop Shore Drive in Winthrop as Hurricane Sandy comes up the Massachusetts coast on Oct. 29.
Credit Jeff Swensen / Getty Images
Rob Kohler, an electrical-line worker, clears snow-laden power lines on Oct. 31 in Terra Alta, W.Va. Hurricane Sandy mixed with colder temperatures in higher elevations and dumped as much as 3 feet of snow in some places.
Credit Kevin Dietsch / UPI/Landov
People in Takoma Park, Md., walk toward a fallen telephone pole on June 30 after heavy overnight thunderstorms devastated the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The line of storms known as a derecho left over 1 million people without power.
Credit Kevin Dietsch / UPI/Landov
People in Takoma Park, Md., walk toward a fallen telephone pole on June 30 after heavy overnight thunderstorms devastated the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The line of storms known as a derecho left over 1 million people without power.
Credit Paul Sancya / AP
Swimmers try to keep cool in near-100-degree temperatures at Red Oaks Waterpark in Madison Heights, Mich., June 28.
Opinion polls show 2012's extreme weather — producing wildfires, floods and drought — has more people making a connection with climate change. For Marti Andrews in southern New Jersey, a turning point was the summer's hurricane-like derecho.
"I don't want to say I freaked out about it, but holy crap, it scared me," she says. It packed winds up to 90 miles per hour and nonstop lightning, which Andrews says looked like some wild disco display in the sky.
"I've never seen anything like that," she says. "I sat there on the couch thinking, 'Oh my God, we're all gonna die!' "
Originally published on Thu December 27, 2012 4:45 pm
Who hasn't turned a camera around at arm's length to snap a picture to send to friends or family? It always seems like it takes a few tries to frame the shot just right to capture both you and that awesome mountain summit behind you.
In the aftermath of Christmas, a parent could be forgiven for thinking that materialism has trumped human kindness.
Take heart. Children can easily become kinder and more helpful. And that behavior makes them more positive, more accepting and more popular.
At least that's how it worked for fourth- and fifth-graders in Vancouver, Canada. Researchers there have been studying empathy and altruism in schoolchildren for decades.
