SCIENCE

Sick From Fracking? Doctors, Patients Seek Answers

Mysterious fumes wafting in from outside have repeatedly sickened several nurses at a rural Pennsylvania health clinic, forcing the clinic to temporarily relocate. Like many other people living near gas wells around the country, the clinic's staff wonders whether the industry in their backyard is making them sick.

SCIENCE

Dan Barber: Does Good Flavor Equal Sustainability?

Chef Dan Barber chronicles his pursuit of a sustainable fish he could love and the foodie honeymoon he's enjoyed since discovering an outrageously delicious fish raised using a revolutionary farming method in Spain.

Medical Records Could Yield Answers On Fracking

Researchers plan to mine 10 years of data on people who live near the Marcellus Shale gas wells.

'Close Encounters' With Gas Well Pollution

A quest to find answers on fracking pollution becomes too polarizing to pursue.

Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Fish. What's The Solution?

If we don't notice that animals are in decline, do we keep eating until they're gone permanently?

Jetlagged By Your Social Calendar? Better Check Your Waistline

The disconnect between our social calendars and our biological clocks is creating 'social jet lag.'

Ape Apps: Orangutans Learn With iPads At Miami Zoo

Six orangutans at Jungle Island have been using iPads to play games and learn about vocabulary.

California's Genetically Engineered Food Label May Confuse More Than Inform

An analysis shows that labeling requirements could make it harder to discern what "natural" food is.

With Gas Boom, Pennsylvania Fears New Toxic Legacy

Industry has ruined a lot of Pennsylvania's water. Coal mining companies hammered the state, leaving behind acidic water that turned thousands of miles of streams into dead zones. People in the state are looking for ways to make sure the fracking boom doesn't deal another blow to its water. - READ MORE

Science And The Fracking Boom: Missing Answers

People living on the front step of the natural gas boom have the same questions: What kinds of pollutants are entering our water and air, and are those pollutants making us sick? Explore key components of the natural gas production process — and the questions scientists are asking. - READ MORE

NPR Series To Examine Fracking

All this week, NPR is taking a deeper look at the natural gas boom in the United States. Steve Inskeep previews the upcoming series on fracking from NPR's Science Desk. - READ MORE

Maya Artwork Uncovered In A Guatemalan Forest

Archaeologists have stumbled on a room full of wall paintings and numerical calculations in the buried ninth century city of Xultun. The room was apparently an astronomer's workshop, with calculations painted on the walls counting lunar cycles and predicting eclipses. - READ MORE

The Case For A Presidential Science Debate

A group of science advocates say the American president should have the basic scientific know-how to understand policy challenges, evaluate options and devise solutions. Ira Flatow and guests discuss how a presidential science debate can help voters decide if a candidate is up for the job. - READ MORE

Why Race Could Color The Vote Against Obama

A new study shows eligible voters who favored whites over blacks- either consciously or unconsciously- also favored Republican candidates relative to Barack Obama. Psychologist Anthony Greenwald discusses the results and why racial attitudes continue to predict voter preference in 2012. - READ MORE

Can We Protect Food's Future And Improve School Lunch?

How will the varieties of food grown today survive climate change? A vast global seed bank under a frozen mountain in Norway may have answers. Also, what's in kid's lunches? There's a revolution coming in the way kids eat at school: local, sustainable, seasonal and even educational food. - READ MORE

120 Giants Found Living With 86 Year Old Man

What inspired 86-year-old Brendon Grimshaw to buy an island in the Indian Ocean, replant it with 16,000 trees, grasses and lure a bunch of giant tortoises to live with him? - READ MORE

Why Was A Huge 'Rogue Earthquake' Not Destructive?

The massive 8.6 magnitude earthquake in April off the coast of Indonesia was felt from Bangladesh to Australia. But it caused little damage and no major tsunami. Seismologists studying the quake say it revealed some interesting features about how the Earth's tectonic plates move. - READ MORE

Thomas Jefferson's Vegetable Garden: A Thing Of Beauty And Science

Thomas Jefferson's garden was a vast a beautiful science experiment involving over 300 varieties of 90 different plants. And no gardening detail was too small for Jefferson to note in the gardening journal he kept for nearly 60 years. - READ MORE