Green Roofs
Growing plants on your roof has ecological benefits – and can save energy, too.
Podcast
Mysteries of nature: Why do some leaves turn red in the fall? Global warming and the future of rivers. And the music of DNA.
Autumn Color
Fall colors come in several shades. But why the different colors?
Podcast
When plants heat things up. How dolphins sleep. "Healthy" restaurants that aren't. Army ant groupies. And more.
Podcast
Whale-inspired windmills. Tracing the origins of a killer asteroid. Using vowels to sell. And more.
Plant Gravity
A listener asks: Regardless of how you plant a seed, the roots always grow downward and the shoots upward, so how does the plant orient itself?
Shrubs and CO2
Carbon dioxide emissions can help shrub weeds at the expense of grasslands.
Podcast
Antibiotics made out of Teflon. A new diet for chickens. A virus that can cause obesity? Why things aren't quite as bad as we think they'll be. And just how fast can dolphins swim?
Chicken Diet
Special diets are helping curb the environmental impact of chickens.
Tree Carbon
A listener asks: Which trees are more effective at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, conifers or deciduous trees?
Agriculture Roundup
Unless the U.S. adopts different agricultural practices, the nation's topsoil will continue to disappear at an alarming rate.
Podcast
Diet foods could make kids fat, the incompatibility of ape and human blood, the secrets of fingerprints, all about the jet streams, and how the United States can better conserve its topsoil.
Podcast
How fetuses breathe inside the womb, rats that help out other rats, ancient chile peppers found in Mexico, why we yawn, and the surprising forms alien life might take.
Ancient Mexican Food
Mexican food may have changed surprisingly little over the last millennium.
Plant Medicine Roundup
Lifesaving drugs are being developed from unexpected sources.
Podcast
How the solar system formed, determining the standard for the kilogram, how brain damage affects art, cancer drugs from trees, protecting ports with underwater using sound.
Podcast
The importance of bubbles, living on icebergs, family-oriented plants, eye medicine from oven cleaner, and how water gets from your mouth to your muscles.
Podcast
The dinosaur extinction may have been stinky, carbon emission rates may be worse than was thought, wild wheat plants itself, a cow with naturally skim milk, and what sound sounds like on other planets.
Podcast
The Darfur region has an ancient underground lake, animals navigate with internal compasses, what plants would look like on other planets, why offering too many choices is bad marketing, and why kids have temper tantrums.
Extraterrestrial Plants
Lawns on other worlds might not be green, but black, red, or orange.
Podcast
Deciphering the calls of blue whales, genetic tests for mental conditions, a three-way symbiotic relationship, studying tear film, and the truth about tanning beds.