If You're Looking For Alien Life, How Will You Know If You've Found It?

"When a robotic probe finally lands on a watery world like Jupiter's moon Europa, what do scientists have to see to definitively say whether the place has any life?"

"That's the question retired astronaut John Grunsfeld posed to some colleagues at NASA when he was in charge of the agency's science missions."

"'We looked at him with blank faces,' recalls Jim Green, head of NASA's planetary sciences division. 'What do we need to build to really find life? What are the instruments, what are the techniques, what are the things that we should be looking for?'"

"To get some advice, the agency recently asked the prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to gather some of the top experts in astrobiology for a meeting that begins Monday."

Einstein's Age Of Extremism

"To see the effect that xenophobia, anti-intellectualism and populist rage can have on a nation's culture, we need look no further than the life of Albert Einstein."

"Germany in Einstein's lifetime had never been particularly hospitable to Jews, but by the early 1920s, German Jews like him were being treated like aliens in their own land. In 1922, when the Jewish foreign minister of Germany, Walter Rathenau, was assassinated — to the glee of conservatives across the country — Einstein realized that serious danger was beginning for prominent Jews like himself."

"Already, a Working Party of German Scientists for the Preservation of a Pure Science had been formed to fight Einstein's ideas. Their inaugural meeting had been held at the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin, with swastikas displayed in the hallway and anti-Semitic brochures on sale in the lobby. A few of the Einstein haters had some academic affiliation, but most were poorly educated. "Science, once our greatest pride, is today being taught by Hebrews!" the housepainter and failed art student Adolf Hitler complained."

The Electric Blue Polar Cloud Season Came Early This Year

"Each year, a glowing mass of clouds forms over the South Pole, high in the atmosphere, trapped between Earth and space."

"rom the ground they look wispy and shimmery, like a blue-white aurora borealis. From space, they look like an electric-blue gossamer haze."

"Scientists call them noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds, and this year the noctilucent cloud season came early to the Southern Hemisphere. In the decade since NASA launched a satellite that can take images of the ice crystals that make up such clouds, the clouds have usually started showing up over the South Pole in late November or early December."

"Composite satellite images posted on NASA's website today show Antarctica under noctilucent cloud cover beginning Nov. 17 this year, tying it with the earliest start measured."

Time For Homeopathic Remedies To Prove That They Work?

"Homeopathy has been around since the 1700s, but despite having devoted followers, there is no scientific evidence that it works. Soon, packages for homeopathic products might say just that."

"On Nov. 15, the Federal Trade Commission released an enforcement policy statement about labeling for over-the-counter homeopathic products. Homeopathic treatments have increasingly been marketed in drug store and supermarket aisles, alongside Food and Drug Administration-approved over-the-counter medications like Tylenol and Mucinex."

"Some homeopathic remedies have disclaimers that say their products aren't regulated by the FDA. Some don't have any disclaimers at all. One product even claims that homepathic remedies are regulated just like other medicines, which is not true."

Lab-Grown Diamonds Come Into Their Own

"Around the corner from the famous Diamond District in New York City, David Weinstein sorts through some envelopes on his cluttered desk. All of them are full of diamonds."

"'I deal with diamonds all day long, for three decades,' says Weinstein, executive director of the International Gemological Institute, a nonprofit research institute. 'To me, diamonds aren't anything spectacular. It's hard to get me to say, 'Wow!''"

"But lately he has been impressed by certain diamonds — those created in the lab."

"'These are all laboratory-grown,' he says, unwrapping diamonds and lining them up inside a folded piece of white paper. Under a bright light, he points out how colorless they are, and how, to the naked eye, they're indistinguishable from diamonds that took millions of years to form deep within the Earth."

Glowing Human Cells May Shed Light On Sickness And Health

"A nonprofit research group is giving scientists a new way to study the secret lives of human cells."

"On Wednesday, the Allen Institute for Cell Science provided access to a collection of living stem cells that have been genetically altered to make internal structures like the nucleus and mitochondria glow."

"'What makes these cells special is that they are normal, healthy cells that we can spy on and see what the cell does when it's left alone,' says Susanne Rafelski, director of assay development at the Institute. Under a microscope, 'they are a wonder to behold,' she says."

Millions Have Dyslexia, Few Understand It

"It's frustrating that you can't read the simplest word in the world."

"Thomas Lester grabs a book and opens to a random page. He points to a word: galloping."

"Goll—. G—. Gaa—. Gaa—. G—. " He keeps trying. It is as if the rest ­­of the word is in him somewhere, but he can't sound it out."

"I don't ... I quit." He tosses the book and it skids along the table."

"Despite stumbling over the simplest words, Thomas — a fourth-grader — is a bright kid. In fact, that's an often-misunderstood part of dyslexia: It's not about lacking comprehension, having a low IQ or being deprived of a good education."

"It's about having a really hard time reading."

"Dyslexia is the most common learning disability in the United States. It touches the lives of millions of people, including me and Thomas. Just like Thomas, I spent much of my childhood sitting in a little chair across from a reading tutor."

Some Assembly Required: New Space Telescope Will Take Shape After Launch

"The next generation of great space telescopes is heading into its final round of ground tests. The nearly $9 billion James Webb Space Telescope will replace the aging Hubble Space Telescope. It's designed to provide unprecedented images of the earliest stars and galaxies that formed in the universe."

"But before the telescope can get to work, there are still a lot of engineering challenges to overcome."

"For example, the Webb telescope is designed to look at the infrared wavelengths of light given off by stars. Infrared is needed to see some of the earliest stars and galaxies that formed billions of years ago."

"But to work properly, infrared telescopes have to be kept cold — very cold. So engineers had to design a multilayered sun shield to protect the telescope from the sun's heat."

Long Unseen By Readers, H.G. Wells Ghost Story Finally Debuts In Print

"H.G. Wells' eerie writing brought us time machines, aliens and a submarine, long before a real one was seen in the world. Still, one of his short stories spent decades unseen by his avid readers."

"Until now, that is."

"His long-unpublished story 'The Haunted Ceiling' is making its way into print for the first time. In its new issue, The Strand Magazine is publishing the story — which features a man driven mad by the image of a dead woman, with her throat slit, appearing on his ceiling."

"The magazine's managing editor, Andrew Gulli, says he found the manuscript among the tens of thousands of pages of works by H.G. Wells at the University of Illinois."

"'It's been there for a very, very long time — yet for some reason, nobody knew anything about this story,' Gulli tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer."

As Tourists Crowd Out Locals, Venice Faces 'Endangered' List

"On a recent fall morning, a large crowd clogged the steps at one of Venice's main tourist sites, the Rialto Bridge. But on this day, there was a twist: it was filled with Venetians, not tourists."

"'People are cheering and holding their carts in the air,' says Giovanni Claudio Di Giorgio, who helped organize the march with a grass-roots organization called Generazione '90."

"The carts he refers to are small shopping carts — the symbol of a true Venetian."

"'It started as a joke,' he says with a laugh. 'The idea was to put blades on the wheels! You know? Like Ben Hur. Precisely like that, you just go around and mow people down.'"

"Venice is on many bucket lists. But that's a problem. Up to 90,000 tourists crowd its streets and canals every day — far outnumbering the 55,000 permanent residents."

Matisse And Diebenkorn 'Meet' At Last, At The Baltimore Museum Of Art

"A 'conversation' between two major artists — Henri Matisse of France, and Richard Diebenkorn of the U.S. — is taking place on the walls of the Baltimore Museum of Art. The two artists n"

"Matisse's great-granddaughter and Diebenkorn's daughter got to see the exhibition before it opened to the public; Gretchen Diebenkorn Grant, 71, and Sophie Matisse, 51, met for the first time at the Baltimore Museum of Art."

"'My whole life we all looked at Matisse the whole time,' Grant tells Matisse."

"'That's funny, me too,' Matisse laughs."

"Curator Katy Rothkopf began thinking about getting Matisse and Diebenkorn (the painters, not the descendants!) together some 15 years ago. She was poking through the Baltimore Museum's storage room when inspiration struck."

How To Teach A Sea Lion Who's Fussy About Grammar

"When it comes to sentence structure, Rocky, a sea lion, was a stickler."

"'It really mattered to her, what's going to be the direct and indirect object,' says Kathy Streeter, an animal trainer."

"For Sierra, it isn't the grammar that interests her. It's the vocalizations. This California sea lion loves experimenting with her vocal range, and she hates being interrupted."

"More than 1 million people visit the New England Aquarium in Boston each year. Before walking through the front door, they watch Atlantic harbor seals play. Inside, visitors watch sea lions cruise around the open-air pool."

"What these visitors may not know is that the aquarium's 10 seals and two sea lions go to school each day; Streeter is one of their teachers."

Scientists Say Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Made Earth's Surface Act Like Liquid

"When the asteroid believed to have killed off the dinosaurs smashed into Earth some 66 million years ago, its sheer force made the planet's surface momentarily act like a liquid."

"The asteroid ripped open a 60-mile-wide hole. From miles deep in that abyss, rock hurtled upward to a height twice that of Mount Everest and then collapsed outward to form a ring of mountains."

"And it all happened within 5 minutes — 10 tops, as Sean Gulick, a geophysicist at the University of Texas, Austin, tells The Two-Way."

"Gulick helped lead a team of researchers that drilled for samples of that mountain ring in the Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico earlier this year. Their initial findings were recently published in the journal Science."

Dementia Risk Declines, And Education May Be One Reason Why

"Some encouraging news in the battle against Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia: The rate at which older Americans are getting these conditions is declining. That's according to a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers say one reason for the improved outlook is an increase in education."

"The study used data gathered in two snapshots, one in 2000 and another in 2012, that each looked at more than 10,000 Americans who were at least 65 years old. In the first snapshot, 11.6 percent of them had some form of dementia. In the second snapshot, it was 8.8 percent."

"Put in more human terms, 'that's well over a million people who don't have dementia, who would have had it if the rates had stayed the same as 2000 rates,' says John Haaga, who directs the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging, which funded the study."

What Does A Trump Presidency Mean For Climate-Change Education?

"On Nov. 8, the World Meteorological Organization published a press release summarizing the findings from a report on global climate from 2011-2015."

"The report identified the last five years as the hottest on record, with 2015 marking the first year with global temperatures more than 1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial era. Arctic sea ice declined, sea levels rose and many extreme weather events occurred — events that were 'made more likely as a result of human-induced (anthropogenic) climate change.'"

"The same day the press release was published, Donald Trump was elected as the next president of the United States."

"This combination of events is deeply troubling. Trump has called climate change a hoax and has threatened to withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement to limit climate change. Already, Trump has named climate skeptic Myron Ebell to head his Environmental Protection Agency transition team."

A $112,000 White Truffle?! At Auction, Philly Embraces Fungi Mania

"Bowtie-bedecked auctioneer Samuel Freeman was faced with the unusual task of convincing a crowd to buy something he admits he knows nothing about: the Tartufo Bianco d'Alba, or Alba White Truffle."

"'I've never auctioned food before,' Freeman says, 'and I'd never even eaten a truffle until two days ago.' Apparently that first taste won him over. 'It was unbelievable.'"

"At $458 per ounce once the bidding got underway, those truffles better knock your socks off."

"'I think that Americans are fascinated by truffles,' says Mauro Carbone, general manager of Italian tourism company Tu Langhe Roero. Carbone tutored Freeman in the finer points of the rare and earthy fungi."

From Hate Speech To Fake News: The Content Crisis Facing Mark Zuckerberg

"Mark Zuckerberg — one of the most insightful, adept leaders in the business world — has a problem. It's a problem he has been slow to acknowledge, even though it's become more apparent by the day."

"Several current and former Facebook employees tell NPR there is a lot of internal turmoil about how the platform does and doesn't censor content that users find offensive. And outside Facebook, the public is regularly confounded by the company's decisions — around controversial posts and around fake news."

"(Did Pope Francis really endorse Donald Trump? Does Hillary Clinton really have a body double?)"

New Satellite Provides Weather Forecasts For The Final Frontier

"Every morning in a government office building in Boulder, Colo., about a dozen people type a code into a door and line up against a wall on the other side. There are a couple of guys in military uniform, and some scientists in Hawaiian shirts. They work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and they're here for a daily space weather forecast."

"'Good morning, everyone,' says Jeff Stankiewicz, one of 11 forecasters who rotate around the clock. He tells the group about a pair of sunspots he's keeping an eye on. 'We have not seen any significant flare activity out of either of them over the last 24 hours,' he says, before moving on to wind speeds and coronal holes."

It may come as a surprise that there's weather in space, but there is, and it's happening pretty much all the time.

Magnitude 6.2 Earthquake In Central Italy Kills Scores Of People

"A powerful earthquake shook central Italy overnight, killing at least 73 people, according to Italy's civil protection agency, and destroying large swaths of several towns. Victims are still being pulled from the rubble, and the full extent of the devastation is not yet clear."

"The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the quake, which was centered about 100 miles northeast of Rome, had a magnitude of 6.2 and was shallow — at a depth of just over 6 miles."

"Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto, in the Apennine Mountains, are among the hardest-hit towns. They're small in size but popular as tourist destinations — and August is a prime time for vacations in the area."

"'A lot of the officials are lamenting that these are tiny towns but their populations swell in the summer, specifically because they are very sought-after vacation getaways,' Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield told NPR."

"'So the tiny town of Accumoli ... the mayor said is only a population of 700 but it swells to about 2,500 in the summer,' she says, raising concerns about high casualty numbers."

Mysterious, Encrypted Medieval Manuscript Set To Be Published In Replica

"The Voynich Manuscript is a singular mystery. But thanks to a small publishing house in Spain, the one-of-a-kind text will soon be more like one-in-900."

"The 15th-century document is written in an unknown, apparently encrypted language that has defied every code breaker's efforts. It's illustrated with unknown or imaginary plants and never-seen constellations. The only copy is locked away at Yale University to protect the book; scans online are the closest most mortals can get to viewing its pages."

"The Spanish publishing house Siloe specializes in replicas — very small runs of carefully re-created manuscripts, such as the 16th-century Bestiary of John of Austria and 10th-century Beato Emilianense. For 10 years, Siloe appealed to the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale, asking for access to the Voynich,Agence France-Presse reports."