This NASA map shows the size of aerosol particles in the atmosphere. Green areas indicate larger, more naturally occurring particles like dust. Red areas indicate smaller aerosol particles, which can come from fossil fuels and fires. Yellow areas indicate a mix of large and small particles.
The Atlantic Ocean, especially the North Atlantic, is peculiar: Every few decades, the average temperature of surface water there changes dramatically.
Scientists want to know why that is, especially because these temperature shifts affect the weather. New research suggests that human activity is part of the cause.
Scientists originally thought that maybe some mysterious pattern in deep-ocean currents, such as an invisible hand stirring a giant bathtub, created this temperature see-saw.
The "Taxi of Tomorrow" has arrived in New York City. On Tuesday night, officials unveiled the Nissan-designed cab that, over the next 10 years, will gradually replace the country's largest taxi fleet. It's the first New York taxi to be designed for the job since the city's iconic Checker cab.
For Nissan's designers, the process of putting the new cab together involved months of riding in taxis and talking to cab owners, drivers and passengers about what they did and didn't like.
Ambulances are parked outside the Mogadishu National Theatre on Wednesday after a suicide attack in the Somali capital. A young woman strapped with explosives blew herself up on at a ceremony in the Somali national theater attended by the prime minister and other officials.
Just as things had begun to seem peaceful in the Somali capital, a bomb exploded in the newly reopened National Theater. And it happened as the prime minister gave an address.
The New York Times reports that the bombing shattered what had been a tenuous calm in Mogadishu, which has been the center of a fierce civil war for the past 21 years.
The brains of people who grow up speaking two languages are wired differently, and those differences protect them from dementia as they age.
That's the news from two studies out this month from a scientist in Canada who has spent decades trying to figure out whether being bilingual is bad or good. "I've been doing this for 25 years," Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, tells Shots. "Suddenly people are interested. I figure it's because everybody's scared about dementia."
Former Child Star Fatigue. Many of us have suffered it, given the drug problems, the meltdowns, the awful nude photos.
But then there's Fred Savage, who starred in the ABC show The Wonder Years from 1988 through 1993. Now he's a successful, slightly offbeat 35-five-year-old television producer and director. He works on wicked, slightly warped comedies including Party Down, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and as of today, Best Friends Forever. His first network sitcom premieres tonight on NBC.
A worker monitors the loading of containers on to a ship at a harbor in China's Shandong province. Under a new U.S. law, Chinese food exporters will now have to share more food safety information with American food importers.
Locavores, a word with you. Local food may be gaining traction in all kinds of ways, but a report out today from the Institute of Medicine serves as a stark reminder of just how globalized our food system truly is.
"Political fundraiser" has a fancy ring to it — tuxedos, famous singers, billionaires. In fact, most political fundraisers aren't that glamorous.
Think instead of a dozen lobbyists eating breakfast with a Congressman in a side room at some DC restaurant. Off in a corner, someone who works for the Congressman is holding the checks the lobbyists brought to get in the door.
Kaniehtakeron Martin's work site at 54th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, which will someday be an office building.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Today, Martin is one of about 200 Mohawk workers building New York City skyscrapers. He lives in Brooklyn during the workweek and commutes home to Canada on weekends.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Kahnawake means "by the rapids." It's just south of Montreal, across the St. Lawrence River.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Steel beams erected in Kahnawake are a reminder of the century-long tradition of ironworking. The beams were used in competitions — participants climb to the top, assemble steel pieces, ring a bell and race down.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Back in Kahnawake, stickers show the link between the reserve and New York City. Mohawk workers helped build the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Kahnawake Grand Chief Mike Delisle comes from an ironworking family. He keeps plans from the original World Trade Center and his father's wrenches in his basement.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
The three spirit animals — the bear, the eagle and the wolf — adorn a fence in Kahnawake.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Martin takes a break on what will be the 27th floor of a Manhattan office building.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Kaniehtakeron "Geggs" Martin is a fourth-generation ironworker from Kahnawake, a Mohawk reservation south of Montreal.
Credit Stephen Nessen for NPR
Kaniehtakeron Martin takes a break from working on what will be the 27th floor of an office building in New York City.
Another batch of phony cancer drugs has made its way into the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says.
U.S.-based medical practices purchased vials of counterfeit medicine labeled as Altuzan from a foreign supplier, FDA spokesperson Shelly Burgess tells Shots. She said the agency doesn't have any reports of patients having received the counterfeit drugs.
Altuzan is the Turkish brand name for Avastin, the FDA-approved blockbuster cancer drug from Swiss drugmaker Roche's Genentech unit. Altuzan is approved for use in Turkey — but not in the U.S.
