Pope's Missive On Environment, Poverty Could Affect Habits of Millions

"In April this year, on Earth Day, Pope Francis urged everyone to see the world through the eyes of God, as a garden to cultivate."

"'May the way people treat the Earth not be guided by greed, manipulation, and exploitation, but rather may it preserve the divine harmony between creatures and creation, also in the service of future generations,' he said."

"On Thursday, the Vatican will release the pontiff's hotly anticipated encyclical on the environment and poverty. The rollout of the teaching document has been timed to have maximum impact ahead of the U.N. climate change conference in December aimed at slowing global warming — and has angered climate change skeptics."

"Past popes have also spoken about man's duty to protect the environment. Pope Benedict XVI was known as the "Green Pope" for installing solar panels at the Vatican."

In Massachusetts, Lab Scientists Grow An Artificial Rat Limb

"A team of scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston made news earlier this month when they published research in the journal Biomaterials describing how they'd created the world's first bioartificial limb in the laboratory."

"Or, in other words: scientists have now grown the entire forelimb of a rat in a lab."

"Dr. Harold Ott, head of the Ott Laboratory for Organ Engineering and Regeneration, and his team were able to "engineer rat forelimbs with functioning vascular and muscle tissue," according to the hospital."

Science Fair Winner Designs Device To Cut Virus Spread On Planes

"When 17-year-old Raymond Wang saw the Ebola outbreak on the news last year, it got him thinking about viruses and how they spread around the world, especially on airplanes."

"He dug into the literature, and found some disconcerting studies. For instance, one study estimated that a person sick with H1N1 swine flu has the potential to infect 17 others during a 17-hour flight."

"Wang thought commercial airlines could do better. So he went to work."

"Using computer simulations, Wang designed a device that can potentially curb disease transmission on planes by optimally directing airflow in a cabin."

Should We Trust Science?

"Cheating in science has been in the news lately. The Office of Research Integrity — which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — punishes on the order of a dozen scientists a year for different sorts of misconduct, such as plagiarism and making up results, according to the founders of one watchdog group."

"According to the same op-ed piece, everyday, on average, a scientific paper gets retracted because of misconduct."

"For many, this is a cause for alarm and even pessimism."

"There have been numerous high-profile cases in recent years that have had lasting damage, not only on the public's trust in science, but also on the lives and careers of people working in science."

"Yoshiko Sasai, for example, took his own life after his highly publicized paper on stem cells turned out to be flawed. And, although former Harvard psychology professor Marc Hauser was found to have been solely responsible for misconduct in his lab, it is hard to believe that his students don't continue to pay the price for the errors as they seek to establish their own careers in science."

Jurassic World Tries To Build A Bigger Dinosaur and A Bigger Movie

"Making the original Jurassic Park in the early '90s, Steven Spielberg told the visual effects superband he'd assembled — Stan Winston for full-scale puppet dinosaurs; Phil Tippett for miniatures; Dennis Muren and Michael Lantieri for the photorealistic computer animation — that their film would depict even its most predatory dinos as animals, not monsters."

"In Jurassic World, that distinction is long extinct. Jurassic Park's second-best sequel is set 22 years after Velociraptor challenged Tyrannosaur in the biggest movie of 1993. The Central American island dino-zoo that onetime flea-circus operator John Hammond spent his fortune to build has been open long enough for attendance to start to sag. That's why this long-gestating fourth chapter boasts a bigger, craftier, never-was-found-in-nature dinosaur, its features shaped not by evolution but by user-experience surveys. 'Customers want bigger, louder, more teeth' says Claire, the movie's brittle, shamed-for-her-childlessness Career Woman. Too focused on the next rung to recall the ages of her visiting nephews — yeah, sorry, the requisite crying little kids are in this movie, too — she's the series' latest reluctant foster parent, and the latest thankless role on the resume of one Bryce Dallas Howard."

Raising Graduation Rates With Questionable Quick Fixes

"What's in a number?"

"To many, 81 percent is a success story. It's the nation's all-time-high rate for high school graduation in 2013, the most recent year of federal data."

"But the NPR Ed Team and reporters from member stations around the country have been digging into that number and found it's more complicated."

"Not all the news here is good."

"Yesterday, we took you to the state with the highest graduation rate — Iowa — to see what it's doing to keep at-risk students in school: free day care, an in-school food bank, small classes and flexible hours."

This Summer Explore An Alien Planet Earth

"The bright sun overhead was leaning down hard. The heat on my skin felt like I was standing too close to a fire. Each step took patience, as I tried to find footholds on the softening snow."

"We'd been at it for hours, trying to cross a broad alpine valley between two sharp ridges. I looked up for a moment to fill my lungs and adjust the heavy pack. The snowfield stretched into the distance, broken only by bare fields of scree. For a moment, I felt like I was walking in some alien world."

"Then, I realized I was."

"I'm spending the month of June in Seattle working on one paper about astrobiology and the Anthropocene and another about the death of stars, like the sun. But, last weekend I went backpacking with two old friends through Garibaldi Provincial Park in British Columbia. . ."

What Makes Algorithms Go Awry?

"Like it or not, much of what we encounter online is mediated by computer-run algorithms — complex formulas that help determine our Facebook feeds, Netflix recommendations, Spotify playlists or Google ads."

"But algorithms, like humans, can make mistakes. Last month, users found the photo-sharing site Flickr's new image-recognition technology was labeling dark-skinned people as 'apes' and auto-tagging photos of Nazi concentration camps as 'jungle gym' and 'sport.'"

"How does this happen? Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science, tells NPR's Arun Rath that biases can enter algorithms in various ways — not just intentionally."

Declaring The Discovery Of A New Species Can Get Tricky

"May was an exciting month for new discoveries that add to our knowledge of human evolution during the period around 3 million years ago. This is before the origin of the genus Homo, 2.8 million years ago, and during the time when Australopithecus afarensis (the famous "Lucy") lived in East Africa."

"On May 21, details of 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Kenya — the oldest yet discovered — were published by Sonia Harmand and her colleagues in the journal Nature. The tools consist of sharp flakes, large cores and flat anvils. According to an NPR report, 'While they weren't as sophisticated as tools that have been associated with the first humans, they were definitely crafted intentionally.'"

"That intentionally-fashioned tools predate our genus doesn't surprise me; it makes abundant evolutionary sense, given what we know of sophisticated tool-use and tool-making among animals as diverse as chimpanzees and birds."

How Many Viruses Have Infected You

"A cheap new lab test can use just a drop of blood to reveal the different kinds of viruses you've been exposed to over your lifetime."

"The test suggests that, on average, people have been infected with about ten different types of known virus families, including influenzas, and rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, according to a report published Thursday in Science."

"'Usually if you go to the doctor, the doctor might suspect that you have a particular virus, and then he or she will order a test to test that one virus,' says Stephen Elledge at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. 'But if you want to know about all viruses, there was really no way to do it.'"

"He and his colleagues developed this test by turning to vast databases of information about known human viruses. Their test checks to see if a person's blood has antibodies that recognize bits of viruses. 'And in that way, you can look back into the history of your viral infections,' says Elledge."

Pluto's Moons Are Tumbling In Absolute Chaos, NASA Says

"In the NFL, something that behaves like Pluto's football-shaped moons might be called a wobbly duck. NASA simply calls them astonishing."

"Instead of steadily rotating through their orbits, two of Pluto's moons "wobble unpredictably," the space agency says, citing new analysis of data from the Hubble Space Telescope."

"The two moons, Hydra and Nix, are the largest of the four moons that move around Pluto and Charon — the 'double planet' that is the destination of next month's visit by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft."

"New Horizons is expected to provide new details of Pluto, which has never been photographed in crisp detail. For now, scientists are going over the new Hubble analysis."

Would You Like To Hear A Song Dave?

"Late one Saturday morning last December, after a couple months using my Aether Cone, the 'thinking' speaker played David Bowie's 'Changes.' I pressed the soft button in the center of the sleek, chrome-plated player, and out came the swaggering piano and sharp blast of sax. 'Oh yeah,' cooed Bowie. 'That'll do just fine,' I thought, walking away from the wireless speaker sitting on the desk in my bedroom in order to do a few chores."

"For the next half hour, the Cone played a selection of classic rock songs spanning the decades: Queen's "Somebody to Love" into The Cars' "I'm Not the One" into T.Rex's "Lean Woman Blues" into The Velvet Underground's 'I'm Sticking With You' into The Move's 'I Can Hear the Grass Grow' into Pink Floyd's 'The Wall.' I was feeling the progressively adventurous run from T.Rex through The Move, while years of classic rock radio consumption has left me comfortably numb to 'The Wall.' Then, out of nowhere: late era Foo Fighters. I thought you knew me, Aether Cone."

In Eating Lab Psychologist Spills Secrets On Why Diets Fail

"As soon as Traci Mann's new book, Secrets From The Eating Lab, hit bookstores, I ordered my copy."

"As the author of a no-diet book myself, I was eager to read what one of the leading researchers on the psychology of eating, dieting and self-control had to say about why diets fail to bring about significant or sustainable weight loss."

"After all, Mann, who runs a lab at the University of Minnesota, has studied the scientific literature as well as her own diet subjects for two decades. She has concluded, among other things, that diets are unnecessary for optimal health."

"Diets don't work for a variety of reasons, from biology to psychology. Mann points the finger, first and foremost, at human biology. 'Genes,' she writes, 'play an indisputable role in regulating an individual's weight: Most of us have a genetically set weight range. When we try to live above or below that range, our body struggles mightily to adapt.'"

At World's Fair in Italy The Future of Food Is On The Table

"For the next six months, Italy is hosting a dinner party — and the entire world is invited to attend."

"The event, called Expo Milano 2015, is the latest World's Fair. This year's theme is "feeding the planet, energy for life." The global population is projected to pass 9 billion by 2050, and Expo organizers want to start a global conversation now about sustainability, biodiversity and food security."

"With exhibits from 145 countries over a 12-million-square-foot area, the expo is a showcase for the many cultures of food and environmental technology. Some pavilions have vertical farms. Brazil has transplanted a tropical forest. And some countries are exhibiting jointly their staple products— such as rice, coffee and cocoa."

A Century After His Birth Saul Bellow's Prose Still Sparkles

"Saul Bellow, one of the 20th century's great writers, was born 100 years ago next month. The publishing world is marking the anniversary with a flurry of books — a Library of America edition of Bellow's fiction, a hefty tome of collected nonfiction, and a big new biography."

"Another way to remember the author, of course, is to go back to the original books. His best-known work is probably Humboldt's Gift,the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1975 novel based on his own friendship with poet Delmore Schwartz."

"In one scene, the narrator and the poet drive through the Holland Tunnel:

The car went snoring and squealing through the tunnel and came out in bright sunlight. Tall stacks, a filth artillery, fired silently into the Sunday sky with beautiful bursts of smoke. The acid smell of gas refineries went into your lungs like a spur. The rushes were brown as onion soup."

Trickster Journalist Explains Why He Duped Media On Chocolate Study

On Thursday we told you about an elaborate hoax carried out by a science journalist who wanted to teach the media a lesson about being more responsible in reporting on nutrition science.

As we reported, John Bohannon conducted a real — but deeply and deliberately flawed — study on how chocolate affects weight loss. He wrote press releases to alert the media, then sat back and watched who bit. Many news organizations around the world took the bait.

On Friday's All Things Considered, Bohannon talks with NPR's Robert Siegel about how and why he carried out this scheme, which he revealed this week in a post on i09.

Scientists Discover Evidence of a 435,000 Year Old Murder

"Two episodes of "localized blunt force trauma" to the skull with 'an intention to kill.' 3-D imaging to re-create the injuries. Bodies dropped down a 43-foot-deep vertical shaft into a mass grave. A murder case — more than 435,000 years old."

"It's all detailed in a study in the journal PLOS One called 'Lethal Interpersonal Violence in the Middle Pleistocene,' and its authors say it's evidence of one of the earliest murders on record."

"One of the authors of the study, Rolf Quam of Binghamton University, spoke with NPR and said the evidence they found, which includes a skull reconstructed from about 50 fragments, clearly points toward murder. Two major injuries on that skull, above the left eye, couldn't have both happened unintentionally."

The Technology Of Books Has Changed But Bookstores Are Hanging In

"If the book is dead, nobody bothered to tell the folks at Capitol Hill Books in Washington, D.C. Books of every size, shape and genre occupy each square inch of the converted row house — including the bathroom — all arranged in an order discernible only to the mind of Jim Toole, the store's endearingly grouchy owner."

"Visitors are greeted by a makeshift sign listing words that are banned in the store, including "awesome," "perfect" and, most of all, "Amazon." The online giant has crushed many an independent bookstore — but not Toole's. "Hanging in here with my fingernails," he says with a harrumph."

"Those are mighty strong fingernails, it seems. While stores like Toole's continue to struggle, independent bookstores overall are enjoying a mini-revival, with their numbers swelling 25 percent since 2009, according to the American Booksellers Association. Sales are up, too."

In A Digital Chapter, Paper Notebooks Are As Relevant As Ever

"I confess. I'm a notebook nut. I own dozens and dozens of them. Everything from cheap reporter's notebooks to hand-crafted Italian leather beauties."

"I wondered: Am I an analog dinosaur, or are there others out there like me?"

"The first stop in my investigation was, frankly, discouraging."

"At first glance, a Starbucks on the campus of George Washington University points to the dinosaur conclusion. So plentiful are the laptops and tablets that they outnumber the double-mocha-half-caf-triple-shot-Frappuccinos."

"But when I look more closely, I spot plenty of paper here as well."

It's Not Rude: These Portraits of Wounded Vets Are Meant To Be Stared At

It's impolite to stare. But when it comes to severely injured soldiers, maybe we don't look enough; or maybe we'd rather not see wounded veterans at all. That's the message you get from photographer David Jay's Unknown Soldier series. Jay spent three years taking portraits of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but before that — for nearly 20 years — he was a fashion photographer. His stylish, artful images appeared in magazines like Vogue andCosmopolitan. He says, "The fashion stuff is beautiful and sexy — and completely untrue."

Truth became the focus of Jay's work for the first time about 10 years ago, when he started The SCAR Project, a series of portraits of women, naked from the waist up, with mastectomy scars. Around the time he was taking those photos, he was also trying to comprehend the news coming from Iraq and Afghanistan. "We hear about 'this number of men were killed' and 'this many were injured,' " Jay says, "and we think of them — maybe they got shot — or we don't really picture what these injured men look like."