Science

According to the Food and Drug Administration, there were four flavors of Kind bar that were misbranded when the agency reviewed them in August 2014.

Nut So Fast, Kind Bars: FDA Smacks Snacks On Health Claims

4:30pm April 20, 2015

by Poncie Rutsch

The FDA has issued a warning letter to Kind about the labeling of its fruit-and-nut snack bars. It argues that the bars contain too much fat to bear the label "healthy" printed on the wrapper.

Galileo (portrayed by a peep) stand in front of his telescope.

Science

Kitchen Science: We Used Peeps To Calculate The Speed Of Light

4:20pm April 20, 2015

by Adam Cole

There's a new use for those stale Easter marshmallows you still have lying around: calculating a constant that governs the universe.

How The Food Industry Relies On Scientists With Big Tobacco Ties

4:20pm April 20, 2015

Critics of the system that ushers food products to market say it is rife with conflicts of interest. When scientists depend on food companies for work, they may be less likely to contest food safety.

Science

Students' Work Ethic Affected By Peer Groups, Desire To Be Popular

3:57pm April 20, 2015

by Shankar Vedantam

Teachers can become frustrated when students don't seem to try hard when it comes to schoolwork. There's a surprising explanation of why some students might not be putting their best effort forward.

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"We're built with a strong bias to differentiate the world between us and them" — Paul Bloom

Why Do We Create Stereotypes?

1:37pm April 20, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Psychologist Paul Bloom explains why prejudice is natural, rational and even moral — the key is to understand why we depend on it, and recognize when it leads us astray.

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"Compassionate concern activates the same system you see in every mammal when a parent cares for the young" — Daniel Goleman

Science
Arts

Why Aren't We More Compassionate?

12:11pm April 20, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, examines why we aren't more compassionate more of the time.

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"We're designed to convince ourselves that our very selective deployment of compassion is thoroughly justified" — Robert Wright

Science
Arts

Are We Wired To Be Compassionate?

12:09pm April 20, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Author Robert Wright says humans are not simply wired to be compassionate — we have evolved to feel compassion out of self-interest.

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Purdue University students are testing new software that may track and warn about tornadoes, such as this one which struck Rochelle, Ill., in early April.

Social Media Can Help Track Tornadoes, But Was That Tweet Real?

7:49am April 20, 2015

by Stan Jastrzebski

Researchers at Purdue are using software to mine tweets for data that can help warn that a dangerous storm is approaching. But the data may not always be reliable and analyzing it can be tricky.

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Science

Why Handsome Men May Be At A Disadvantage When It Comes To Hiring

7:49am April 20, 2015

by Shankar Vedantam

Researchers have known that beautiful people have advantages. But experiments find that in many hiring and evaluation decisions, being a good looking man can be a distinct disadvantage.

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Mother and infant Bouvier's red colobus monkeys in a first-ever photograph of the primate taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The species was thought to have gone extinct in the 1970s.

Congo Monkey Spotted Decades After Species' Alleged Demise

4:49pm April 19, 2015

by Scott Neuman

Bouvier's red colobus monkey — thought to have disappeared for good from the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo sometime in the 1970s — has been photographed by two researchers.