The Age of Miracles Considers Earth's Fragility

"The Age of Miracles is literary fiction, but it spins out the same kind of "what if?" disaster plot that distinguishes many a classic sci-fi movie. Too bad the title The Day the Earth Stood Still was already taken, because it really would have been the perfect title for Thompson's novel."

"Our main character here is named Julia and, though she's now in her 20s, most of her narration is retrospective, taking us back to her 11-year-old self — the year everyday life fell apart. At first, Julia tells us, nobody noticed "the extra time, bulging from the smooth edge of each day like a tumor blooming beneath skin." That so-called extra time is caused by the fact that the Earth's rotation is growing more and more sluggish. When scientific experts finally do go public to acknowledge the mysterious change, they call it "the slowing." Daytime stretches first by minutes, then hours, and, then, days; so, too, does nighttime. After "the slowing" is officially acknowledged, there's an immediate run on canned food and water, and people begin building underground survival shelters. Birds fall from the sky, and whales wash up on beaches — their navigation systems all messed up by the changes in gravity and temperature. Apocalyptic cults flourish, and a rift widens between those folks called "real timers," who stubbornly decide to live by the extended rhythms of sunrise and sunset, and the majority of Americans, who obey the president's orders to carry on in semi-denial and stick to the 24-hour clock. As Julia recalls, "We would fall out of sync with the sun almost immediately. Light would be unhooked from day, darkness unchained from night."

Is the Hunt For the God Particle Finally Over?

"Before we get to the fireworks on the Fourth of July, we might see some pyrotechnics from a giant physics experiment near Geneva, Switzerland."

"Scientists there are planning to gather that morning to hear the latest about the decades-long search for a subatomic particle that could help explain why objects in our universe actually weigh anything."

"The buzz is that they're closing in on the elusive Higgs particle. That would be a major milestone in the quest to understand the most basic nature of the universe."

"King Arthur had his quest for the Holy Grail. Physicists hope they are hot on the trail of the Higgs particle. You might call it the final puzzle piece, needed to complete the picture of how all the fundamental particles make up the universe."

Obama's Supreme Court Health Care Victory Hard to Overstate

"Even in Washington, a city where hyperbole rules, it still seems difficult to overstate how big a win the Supreme Court's decision on President Obama's signature piece of domestic legislation is for the man in the Oval Office."

"The Affordable Care Act is so identified with him, after all, that its opponents quickly dubbed it "Obamacare," a term supporters at first eschewed but later came to embrace."

"Though it was only the narrowest of victories, a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority, a win is a win. And it was a victory the president needed badly though it could boomerang if Roberts' interpretation of the individual mandate as a tax becomes a liability for Obama."

We Evolved To Eat Meat But How Much Is Too Much?

"You won't catch John Durant in a tie. Shoes are optional, too. He has traded cubicle life for something a little wild: Promoting the diet and lifestyle of our ancestors from the paleolithic era. He's blogging and writing a book about his approach."

"'For millions of years, we didn't have an obesity problem because we ate foods that our metabolism was adapted to,' Durant says — foods such as root vegetables, tubers, fish and, of course, red meat."

"'We were active and lived a healthy lifestyle,' he says. Durant is one of many folks following the popular meat-laden paleo diet. He packs his freezer with deer meat and has found lots of places near his home in Manhattan to buy marrow bones and organ meats, as well as paleo-friendly barbecue joints for a meal out."

Lessons For Europe From the Second World War

"For most people, the start of World War II means German soldiers marching into Poland. Historian Antony Beevor begins and ends his new book, The Second World War with something different: the story of a German soldier who was actually Korean, was captured in Normandy, and wound up living in Illinois."

"In 1938, 18-year-old Yang Kyoungjong was conscripted by the Japanese — who then controlled Korea — and was sent to fight in Manchuria. "He was taken prisoner, put in a labor camp, then forced into the Red Army, captured again by the Germans, and then forced into the German Army, when he was finally captured by American paratroopers," Beevor tells NPR's Scott Simon. Yang's story "emphasized the global nature of the war," he adds. 'And it underlined how the average individual had no control over their own fate.'"

"Combat was grueling on the ground and in the air. Gunners in particular often suffered frostbite when their plug-in flight suit heaters failed — and there was almost no way to relieve yourself while in flight. "Then there was the problem of anoxia, of actually passing out through lack of oxygen, because quite often the oxygen pumping wasn't working properly," Beevor says. 'It certainly caused sort of mental problems in some of them because of oxygen to the brain. It was a terrible life for all of them.'"

Famous Cave Paintings Might Not Be From Humans

"The famous paintings on the walls of caves in Europe mark the beginning of figurative art and a great leap forward for human culture."

"But now a novel method of determining the age of some of those cave paintings questions their provenance. Not that they're fakes — only that it might not have been modern humans who made them."

"The first European cave paintings are thought to have been made over 30,000 years ago. Most depict animals and hunters. Some of the eeriest are stencils of human hands, apparently made by blowing a spray of pigment over a hand held up to a wall."

"But now scientists are suggesting those aren't human hands, at least in some caves in Spain."

Finally A Map of All the Microbes On Your Body?

"Scientists Wednesday unveiled the first catalog of the bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms that populate every nook and cranny of the human body."

"Researchers hope the advance marks an important step towards understanding how microbes help make humans human."

"The human body contains about 100 trillion cells, but only maybe one in 10 of those cells is actually — human. The rest are from bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms."

"'The human we see in the mirror is made up of more microbes than human,'said Lita Proctor of the National Institutes of Health, who's leading the Human Microbiome Project."

Traces of Virus In Man Cured of HIV Trigger Scientific Debate

"Top AIDS scientists are scratching their heads about new data from the most famous HIV patient in the world — at least to people in the AIDS community."

"Timothy Ray Brown, known as the Berlin patient, is thought to be the first patient ever to be cured of HIV infection."

"Brown, 45, had two bone marrow transplants in Berlin in 2007 and 2008 to treat leukemia that is apparently unrelated to his HIV infection. The blood cells for the transplants came from a donor with a genetic mutation that makes his cells immune to HIV — they lack receptors the virus needs to gain entry to cells. Details about his case were published in the New England Journal of Medicine."

What Animals Can Teach Humans About Healing?

"When Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz was asked to treat an exotic little monkey with heart failure at the Los Angeles Zoo, she learned that monkeys can suffer heart attacks from extreme stress — just like humans. That's when the cardiologist realized she'd never thought to look beyond her own species for insights into disease."

"So Natterson-Horowitz teamed up with science journalist Kathryn Bowers to take a closer look at health and sickness in the animal kingdom. Their new book is called Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health And The Science of Healing. The book introduces us to fainting fish, koalas with chlamydia, depressed gorillas and grasshoppers who binge on sugar when frightened by a spider."

Health Care Decision Hinges on a Crucial Clause

"All of Washington is breathlessly awaiting the Supreme Court's imminent decision on the Obama health care overhaul. Rumors circulate almost daily that the decision is ready for release. As usual, those rumors are perpetrated by people who know nothing, but the decision is expected by the end of this month."

"The near hysteria is partially about politics: Congressional Republicans hate the bill, and some see President Obama's chance at a second term hinged to the fate of the law. But constitutional scholars know there is much more at stake here than an individual election. Just how much is illustrated by the legal history of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution."

"It gives Congress the power to "regulate commerce ... among the several States," and it authorizes Congress to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" for achieving that goal. The Founding Fathers' purpose was to put an end to the interstate rivalries that balkanized the country after the American Revolution. But the words of the Commerce Clause are pretty general, and it is the Supreme Court that for more than 200 years has interpreted what they mean."

NASA Fishes For Tools to Tackle Asteroid

"NASA may have retired its shuttles, but it has its sights on sending astronauts deeper into space than ever before."

"These voyages are years away but on Monday, astronauts are heading underwater to take part in a simulation that will help them figure out how they might explore one possible new destination: A near-Earth asteroid."

"Astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger flew on one of the last space shuttle missions. She even helped prepare Atlantis for its final launch."

"'It was a very bitter sweet time,' says Metcalf-Lindenburger, who really wants to get to space again. But in the meantime, she's commanding a four-person crew that's putting on scuba gear instead of space suits."

Growling With the Gorillas: A Rwanda Mountain Trek

"It's not easy shaking a bad reputation. Take the gorilla, for example: It's been saddled with a sketchy rep for as long as anyone can remember. Something along the lines of big, hairy, ferocious and superhuman in strength. A bit daunting, perhaps. And yet folks who work with and study gorillas say they are as much gentle as giant. I recently had the opportunity to find out for myself thanks to a trip organized by the International Reporting Project that took us to Rwanda."

"More than half of the world's mountain gorillas live in the Virunga mountains of East Africa, a volcanic chain that straddles Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. For years, a chunk of the Virungas has been protected from poachers and farmers, so unlike much of the land in this area that's been cleared for crops, the Virungas are still covered by lush rain forests."

Monet's Green Thumb: How Art Grew From a Garden

"Claude Monet's garden in Giverny, France, draws half a million visitors a year, but for the next several months, you won't have to travel farther than the Bronx to get a taste of the artist's green thumb. The New York Botanical Garden has recreated Monet's horticultural work for an exhibit that includes photographs, videos, rare documents and two of the impressionist's paintings."

"The New York garden is scaled down to be sure, but in some ways its abundance of flowers and colors makes it even more riotous than the original. You enter by stepping through a facade of Monet's house, with its salmon walls and green shutters, and out into a long corridor of flowers."

"When I walked in here, I thought, 'Wow,' " says 9-year-old Vanessa Calvo, who visited with her family. "I was speechless."

A Scientist's 20-Year Quest to Defeat Dengue Fever

"This summer, my big idea is to explore the big ideas of science. Instead of just reporting science as results — the stuff that's published in scientific journals and covered as news — I want to take you inside the world of science. I hope I'll make it easier to understand how science works, and just how cool the process of discovery and innovation really is."

"A lot of science involves failure, but there are also the brilliant successes, successes that can lead to new inventions, new tools, new drugs — things that can change the world."

"That got me thinking that I wanted to dive deeper into the story of an Australian scientist named Scott O'Neill. Scott had come up with what I thought was a clever new way for combating a disease called dengue fever."

Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451 and Other Classics, Dies

"Author Ray Bradbury has died, his daughter tells The Associated Press. The wire service says Bradbury passed away Tuesday night."

"The website io9.com, which appears to have broken the news, says the 91-year-old author of "The Martian Chronicles,Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked this Way Comes, and many more literary classics" died in Los Angeles, possibly early this morning. "We've got confirmation from the family as well as his biographer, Sam Weller," io9 adds."

Splish Splash: Why Raindrops Don't Kill Mosquitoes

"Imagine how tough life would be if raindrops weighed 3 tons apiece as they fell out of the sky at 20 mph. That's how raindrops look to a mosquito, yet a raindrop weighing 50 times more than one can hit the insect and the mosquito will survive."

"How?"

"Put yourself in a mosquito's shoes — or rain boots — for a moment and step outside into a downpour of seemingly gigantic raindrops."

"'They're basically plummeting comets falling all around you,' says David Hu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech. You'd think a mosquito wouldn't stand a chance. 'We expected the similar thing to happen as when you drive your car through bugs — you see this bug just splattering.'"

What's Different About the Brains of People With Autism

"Like a lot of people with autism, Jeff Hudale has a brain that's really good at some things."

"'I have an unusual aptitude for numbers, namely math computations,' he says."

"Hudale can do triple-digit multiplication in his head. That sort of ability helped him get a degree in engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. But he says his brain struggles with other subjects like literature and philosophy."

"'I like working with things that are rather concrete and structured,' he says. 'Yeah, I like things with some logic and some rules to it.'"

"So Hudale, who is 40, does fine at his job at a bank. But he doesn't do so well with social interactions, where logic and rules aren't so obvious."

Look Up Stargazers: June 5 Is the Transit of Venus

"It's been a good season for stargazers, a veritable meteor shower of astronomical goodies, from a supermoon to a solar eclipse. Next up? On Tuesday, June 5, astronomy enthusiasts can witness the Transit of Venus — one of the rarest astronomical events."

"During the six-hour transit, Venus moves in between the Earth and the sun. It's a daytime phenomenon: "Instead of seeing Venus as the brightest object in the night sky, you see Venus as a tiny black dot crossing the burning disc of the sun," explains Andrea Wulf, author of Chasing Venus."

"It's an event that happens in pairs eight years apart — and then not again for more than a century. "I think we will be the last living people to see one because the next one is going to be in 2117," Wulf tells NPR's Rachel Martin."

Americas Gone Bananas: Here Is How It Happened

"Today, Americans take bananas for granted. They're cheap, they're ripe, they're everywhere. But take a moment and consider: How did a pale, fragile tropical fruit become so commonplace in America? Immigrants arriving at the South Ferry terminal, where the Ellis Island ferry landed, were once handed bananas and told, 'Welcome to America.'"

"The man who made the banana an exotic emblem of affluence for mass consumption was himself a poor immigrant. Samuel Zemurray came to America as a teenager, amassed a fortune to rival the Rockefellers and built great cultural institutions. But Zemurray would also help foment coups, rip up countrysides and impose his will, wiles and schemes all over Central America. Zemurray is the subject of Rich Cohen's new book, The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King."

"Zemurray was a Jewish immigrant who grew up on a wheat farm in western Russia and was sent to the U.S. alone in his early teens. Unlike a lot of his compatriots, he was a giant man," Cohen tells NPR's Scott Simon. "At the time he was like 6 feet 3 inches and he was a big, tough guy.'"

Antibiotic Free Meat Business is Booming Thanks to Chipotle

"It's no longer just foodies at farm markets or Whole Foods buying antibiotic-free, pasture-raised meats."

"Increased demand is coming from lots of big players, includingHyatt Hotels; institutional food providers such as Bon Appetit Management Co., which caters to schools and companies; and the fast-food chain Chipotle Mexican Grill. And it's changing the game."

"In fact, this year, Chipotle, which is growing so quickly that it's opening about three new locations each week, will slowly braise and sell about 120 million pounds of naturally raised pork, chicken and beef that meets its antibiotic-free standards."