The Whole World Is Fat and That Ends Up Costing 2 Trillion a Year

"Obesity used to be an issue primarily in well-off countries. It was one of those things flippantly dismissed as a "first-world problem." Now people are packing on the pounds all over the planet. In some fast-growing cities in China, for example, half the people are now overweight."

"A new report from the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company finds that more than 2.1 billion people nearly 30 percent of the world's population are overweight (a bit chubby) or obese (just plain fat)."

"Over the last decade, no country in the world managed to trim its obesity prevalence. Some of the worst rates of obesity are now in the developing world."

"'It seems that many of the emerging markets that are on this phenomenally fast growth trajectory are on an even faster obesity trajectory,' says Richard Dobbs, the head of the McKinsey Global Institute and one of the authors of the obesity report."

Sleep's Link to Learning and Memory Traced to Brain Chemistry

"Almost a century after the discovery that sleep helps us remember things, scientists are beginning to understand why."

"During sleep, the brain produces chemicals that are important to memory and relives events we want to remember, scientists reported this week at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington D.C."

"'One of the most profound effects of a night of sleep is the improvement in our ability to remember things,' says Ravi Allada, a sleep researcher at Northwestern University. Yet this connection hasn't been well-understood, he says."

"That's changing, thanks to recent research from scientists includingJennifer Choi Tudor from the University of Pennsylvania. At the meeting, Tudor presented a study involving a brain chemical (known as 4EBP2) that is produced during sleep and is thought to play a role in remembering new information."

Are Modafinils Brain-Boosting Benefits Hype Or Science?

"Nobody gets enough sleep these days and everyone needs to work harder. Sometimes coffee just doesn't seem like it's enough. Thus the temptation to apply pharmacology to thinking smarter, faster and longer."

"One option is modafinil, a prescription drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat narcolepsy. "I feel like a well-oiled machine 5 days a week on 5 hrs a night," one poster who uses modafinil writes on Reddit."

"But there's no conclusive evidence that modafinil actually makes people think better."

In A Dutch Town, A Glowing Bike Path Inspired By Van Gogh

"In the Dutch town of Eindhoven, artist Daan Roosegaarde has paid homage to its most famous resident, Vincent Van Gogh, by creating a glowing bike path that relies on solar-powered LED lights and interprets his classic painting Starry Night."

"Roosegaarde says he wants his work, illuminated by thousands of twinkling blue and green lights, to speak to everyone."

"'You have people who are interested in technology to make landscapes which are energy neutral,' he tells NPR. 'You have people interested in cultural history and experiencing it in a contemporary way. You have boys and girls who have a first date and want to take their date to a special place.'"

Yes, The Weather Is Polar No Its Not The Vortex

"Much of the country had to bundle up this week due to some unusually cold weather. Even in the deep South, residents struggled with temperatures in the low 20s."

"With the big chill comes the revival of an ominous phrase: 'the polar vortex.'"

"The sinister-sounding label has been hard to escape on TV news. The Today Show warned of the vortex in its promo spots. Some cautioned that the phenomenon might already put the squeeze on holiday shopping."

"Even The Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon poked fun at the hype."

Climate Change To Make Lightning More Common Study Says

"The likelihood of getting struck by lightning has long been a metaphor for something with an exceedingly remote probability."

"But that could be changing."

"A new study in the journal Science says that temperature increases due to climate change are ushering in a new era that could mean by the end of the century lightning strikes will be about half again as common as they were at the start of this century."

"That's because lightning occurs more frequently when it's hotter. To wit, Florida leads in lightning fatalities, with 32 since 2006, according to The Weather Channel (followed by Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas)."

How Jon Stewart's Film Shows That Humor Survives In the Bleakest of Conditions

"When asked about how he reacted to learning that one of his Daily Show satires was used as evidence to torture a journalist in Iran, Jon Stewart says, "I might have uttered the phrase: 'Are you — with some profane adjective — are you kidding me?' "

"'It's so surreal and it's so absurd that it's hard to imagine it as not farce,' Stewart tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross."

"That discovery led to Stewart making his first film, Rosewater, adapted from a memoir by journalist Maziar Bahari."

Photo Shows Lander Sitting On Comet 

"The European Space Agency released a new photo Thursday of the Philae lander safely resting in its new home on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, as it hurtles through space. The agency's data also show the lander bounced twice before coming to rest."

"Wednesday's historic landing came after hours of tension, as the ESA awaited signs from Philae and its parent craft, the orbiter Rosetta, that the robotic lander had arrived on the comet's surface and was able to function."

"Even as the ESA's scientists and engineers celebrated their achievement, they also began trying to puzzle out new technical challenges."

How Animals Hacked the Rainbow and Got Stumped On Blue

"Until about 600 million years ago, seeing colors didn't matter so much to Earth's inhabitants — nobody had eyes."

"'Before the eye evolved, you just wouldn't have seen what was there,' says Andrew Parker, a biologist at London's Natural History Museum who studies the evolution of color."

"Simple animals back then just floated around, he says. They were aware of sunlight, but didn't have any of the biological bits and pieces needed to perceive color. Then, as Parker tells it, something really big happened."

"'A predator that could swim quickly evolved vision,' he explains."

"That predator probably looked something like a big shrimp, and now it had eyeballs — compound eyes, like the ones that flies have. '"That's when color kicked off,' Parker says."

Combining the DNA of 3 People Raises Ethical Questions

"In a darkened lab in the north of England, a research associate is intensely focused on the microscope in front of her. She carefully maneuvers a long glass tube that she uses to manipulate early human embryos."

"'It's like microsurgery,' says Laura Irving of Newcastle University."

"Irving is part of a team of scientists trying to replace defective DNA with healthy DNA. They hope this procedure could one day help women who are carrying genetic disorders have healthy children."

"'We are talking about conditions for which there is currently no cure,' says Dr. Doug Turnbull, a professor of neurology at Newcastle University who is leading the research. These mitochondrial diseases are caused by hereditary defects in human cells."

Amazon Want To Put A Listening Speaker in Your Home

"What's in your home, always on, ready to listen to you and constantly adapting to the way you talk? Why, it's Amazon's Echo speaker. Think a less portable Siri or Google Now, but hands-free."

"Are you ready to bring an eavesdropping device that's connected to the cloud into the privacy of your abode?"

"Here's how Amazon describes Echo on its site:

'Amazon Echo is designed around your voice. It's always on—just ask for information, music, news, weather, and more. Echo begins working as soon as it hears you say the wake word, 'Alexa.' It's also an expertly-tuned speaker that can fill any room with immersive sound.'"

European Scientists Conclude That Distant Comet Smells Terrible

"A European spacecraft orbiting a distant comet has finally answered a question we've all been wondering: What does a comet smell like?"

"'It stinks,' says Kathrin Altwegg, a researcher at the University of Bern in Switzerland who runs an instrument called ROSINA that picked up the odor."

"The European Space Agency has posted a full rundown of the comet's BO on its website. The mix includes ammonia (NH3), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), formaldehyde (CH2O) and methanol (CH3OH)."

"Of course, anyone visiting the comet would be wearing a spacesuit (on top of that, the sense of smell is notoriously numb in space). Nevertheless, taking a whiff of this comet would be like sharing a horse barn with a drunk and a dozen rotten eggs."

The Slide Rule: A Computing Device That Put A Man On the Moon

"The protractor and the Bunsen burner. Playing the recorder in music class. Drawing arcs and circles with a compass in geometry. These tools of the education trade become part of our lives for a semester or two and then we move on."

"Today, NPR Ed begins a new series examining these icons of the classroom. We start off with a device that once was essential to higher-level math, in school and in the workplace, but now has all but disappeared:

The slide rule."

"'Take your batteries out,' Jim Hus says, watching his pre-calculus students remove the AA batteries that power their calculators. 'Let's do those multiplication problems again.'"

There's Never A Dull Moment On This Trans Siberian Adventure

"If a trip to Siberia in a third-class train cabin during the dead of winter sounds like your cup of tea, well, you might get along with Morning Edition's David Greene."

"And if you'd rather pass, don't worry. Greene has done it for you: He took the 6,000-mile ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway — all the way from Moscow to Vladivostok — twice, in fact."

From the shores of Lake Baikal in early 2012, Greene reported:

"'Some people on their way to exile would have to stop here along the shore and wait for the dead of winter, for the water to freeze, so they could cross the lake on horseback. It's this beautiful but also really unforgiving landscape.'"

Little Dancer Musical Imagines the Story Behind Degas Mysterious Muse

"A century-old teenager is the focus of a musical and an art exhibit in Washington right now. The National Gallery of Art is showing Edgar Degas' statue Little Dancer Aged Fourteen in conjunction with the Kennedy Center's Oct. 25 opening of Little Dancer, a new show inspired by the sculpture."

"Ballet students Brittany Yevoli and Ava Durant, both 14, see themselves in Degas' statue. Looking at her, they stand as she does — fourth position, weight on the left leg, right leg forward, foot turned out to the right. They recognize her tutu, her shoes and her perfect posture."

"'It looks like she's standing in rehearsal,' Yevoli says."

The Kissimmee: A River Recurved

"It sounds almost superhuman to try straighten a river and then recarve the curves."

"That's what federal and state officials did to the Kissimmee River in central Florida. They straightened the river in the 1960s into a canal to drain swampland and make way for the state's explosive growth. It worked — and it created an ecological disaster. So officials decided to restore the river's slow-flowing, meandering path."

"That billion-dollar restoration — the world's largest — is a few years from completion. And so far, it's bringing signs of new life, especially on a man-made canal that was dug through the heart of the river."

"'Birds are back, both wading birds and ducks. They're all over the place' says Paul Gray of Audubon Florida. 'The oxygen levels in the river are better. There's a lot more game fish in the river like bass and bluegill and stuff. Most of the biological perimeters, the goals of the restoration we've already met.'"

Why Won't the Fear of Airborne Ebola Go Away?

"How many times do top officials have to say that the Ebola virus is not airborne?"

"A lot, apparently."

"Here is President Obama Thursday: 'This is not an airborne disease. It is not easy to catch.'"

"And the day before: 'It is not like the flu. It is not airborne.'"

"And Friday, a reporter asked the inevitable question about airborne Ebola when Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, held a press briefing about nurse Nina Pham's transfer to the National Institute of Health."

Should Menus List Miles To Walk To Burn Off Your Meal or Soda?

"Is a society, we don't pay much attention to nutrition information when we eat out."

"A U.S. Department of Agriculture report estimates just 8 percent of Americans use nutritional information when deciding what to order."

"But that could change soon."

"As we've reported, the Affordable Care Act will require chain restaurants with 20 or more locations to post calorie information on menus or menu boards."

"And what might make us pay attention? Well, researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have a theory."

Embryonic Stem cells Restore Vision In Preliminary Human Test

"Scientists are reporting the first strong evidence that human embryonic stem cells may be helping patients."

"The cells appear to have improved the vision in more than half of the 18 patients who had become legally blind because of two progressive, currently incurable eye diseases."

"The researchers stress that the findings must be considered preliminary because the number of patients treated was relatively small and they have only been followed for an average of less than two years."

"But the findings are quite promising. The patients had lost so much vision that there was no expectation that they could benefit, the researchers say."

Key To Securing Online Accounts May Be Just A Squiggle Away

"We've come a long way in the information age. We know how to put data on the cloud. We hold mobile devices that can carry as much music as a record store. We've figured out how to send photos to friends with lightning speed — and make them self-destruct after 10 seconds. And yet we haven't quite figured out passwords."

"When security researchers announced earlier this year that the"Heartbleed" bug was making accounts on popular sites like Gmail vulnerable, we reset them. But with dozens of digital accounts — from e-banking and email to online shopping and social networking — who can remember all those characters on all those sites? Add to that the troublesome fact that many people still resort to terribly predictable passwords such as "123456," "abc123" or — the most ridiculous — "password." It's high time we rethink our security strategies in this digital age."

"But before you pull out a dictionary in search of complicated words that no one knows, it might just come down to a simple technique you probably mastered in preschool: drawing a squiggly line."