Science

Families harvest poppy bulbs in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. To collect the opium, they score the bulbs and let the milky substance ooze out. The dried residue contains about 10 percent morphine.

Home-Brewed Morphine Is Around The Corner

9:09pm May 19, 2015

by Michaeleen Doucleff

What if microbes could ferment sugar into narcotics, like the way yeasts make beer? That day is quickly approaching. This week scientists report all the steps needed to make morphine in yeast.

A man and his drone: Carlos Casteneda of the Amazon Basin Conservation Association prepares to launch one of his plastic foam planes.

Eyes In The Sky: Foam Drones Keep Watch On Rain Forest Trees

7:46pm May 19, 2015

by Jason Beaubien

The autopilot toy planes, equipped with cameras, help conservationists detect illegal logging and mining earlier in the remote parts of the Amazon basin.

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Demolition crews remove the last remains of a house that was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy, which battered parts of the East Coast, in 2013.

As States Ready Disaster Plans, Feds Urge Them To Consider Climate Change

7:06pm May 19, 2015

by Debbie Elliott

Several U.S. senators are accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency of injecting "unnecessary, ideological-based red tape" into the disaster-preparedness process.

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Does A Foreign Accent Mess Up Our Memory Of What's Said?

5:28pm May 19, 2015

by Nancy Shute

It can be hard to decipher what a non-native speaker is saying. But that might not always be a bad thing when it comes to understanding or remembering, scientists say.

The federal government hopes to reverse America's declining honeybee and monarch butterfly populations.

Plan Bee: White House Unveils Strategy To Protect Pollinators

3:50pm May 19, 2015

by Brian Naylor

The national strategy addresses the alarming decline in honeybee populations. It calls for more bee habitat and more research into ways to protect bees from disease and pesticides.

Mchezaji "Che" Axum stands in a hoop house at the University of the District of Columbia's Muirkirk Research Farm, a resource for urban farmers in the city.

Urban Farmers Say It's Time They Got Their Own Research Farms

1:56pm May 19, 2015

by Whitney Pipkin

The University of the District of Columbia is the one land-grant university in the U.S. with an urban focus. It's leading research on growing food in raised beds, hoop houses and shipping containers.

Researchers meet participants: (from left) investigator Jose Luis Roca; Dr. Ernesto Ortiz; study participants Rainer Leon and his mother, Rina Leon Chanbilla; and nurse Jennifer Rampas.

They're Going Door To Door In The Amazon To See Why People Get Sick

10:14am May 19, 2015

by Jason Beaubien

In one of the most remote parts of the Peruvian Amazon, researchers are in the midst of an extensive health census. The study could be key to figuring out the impact of mercury used in illegal mining.

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In Arctic Drilling Debate, A Dispute Over Cleanup Preparedness

9:12pm May 18, 2015

by Christopher Joyce

Royal Dutch Shell can drill oil exploration wells this summer in the Chukchi Sea, if Shell shows it can prevent and clean up a potential spill. Environmentalists are skeptical; Shell says it's ready.

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Peter Mawson, director of animal health and research at the Perth Zoo in Australia, shows off a Western Swamp Tortoise in the zoo's breeding area (where visitors are not allowed). Like numbats, these tortoises are critically endangered and Mawson and his

How To Feed A Numbat: Zoo Cookery Aids Endangered Species

2:01pm May 18, 2015

by Sujata Gupta

Zoo nutritionists these days have to do more than try to keep displayed animals happy and healthy. Sometimes the goal is to bring endangered wildlife back from the brink.

The 200-inch Hale Telescope, a masterpiece of engineering at Caltech's Palomar Observatory, was the world's largest telescope until 1993.

Science

'Playing Around With Telescopes' To Explore Secrets Of The Universe

12:26pm May 18, 2015

by Joe Palca

For astrophysicist Shrinivas Kulkarni, "The sky is so much richer and so much more imaginative than the imagination."

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