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Thursday October 31, 2002

Letters from the Field: Melissa Groo

October 31, 2002 • Melissa Groo's observations while researching elephants.

Letters from the Field: Mya Thompson

October 31, 2002 • Mya Thompson's letters home from the Elephant bai.

Meteorologists Predict Mild El Nino Effect

October 31, 2002 • As the El Nino weather phenomenon returns, scientists, farmers and business people brace for its possible effects. But meteorologists say El Nino will be mild this year. NPR's Christopher Joyce reports.

Meteorologists Predict Mild El Nino Effect

Listen · 4:32 4:32

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Study Ties Heart Drug to Higher Death Rate in Women

October 31, 2002 • A study raises questions about the effect of the heart medication Digoxin on women. Researchers say women who take the drug have a higher death rate than men who take it. NPR's Patricia Neighmond reports.

Study Ties Heart Drug to Higher Death Rate in Women

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Listening to Elephants

October 31, 2002 • At a rare forest clearing in central Africa, elephants gather to munch on mineral-rich soil. And researchers gather there to learn more about the social lives of the threatened animals — and how to save them. For Morning Edition, NPR's Alex Chadwick reports. (8:07)

Listening to Elephants

Listen · 8:34 8:34

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Wednesday October 30, 2002

WHO Study on Health Risks

October 30, 2002 • A new study by the World Health Organization examines 26 risks to human health and suggests that the average lifespan can be increased by five to 10 years if countries take steps to battle major health risks in each region. NPR's Joanne Silberner reports.

WHO Study on Health Risks

Listen · 3:42 3:42

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Tuesday October 29, 2002

Parties Spar over Ads for Medicare Drug Benefit

October 29, 2002 • A controversial election-season ad campaign -- substantially underwritten by drug companies -- advocates the much-debated proposal to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. NPR's Julie Rovner reports.

Parties Spar over Ads for Medicare Drug Benefit

Listen · 4:51 4:51

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Thursday September 5, 2002

The Frog Man of the Sonoran Desert

September 5, 2002 • One of America's most arid regions, the great Sonoran Desert, turns into an amphibian wonderland during the brief summer rainy season. For Morning Edition and Radio Expeditions, NPR's John Burnett follows biologist Cecil Schwalbe on his annual trek to observe the frenzied courtship of native frogs and toads.

Friday May 26, 2000

Lost And Found Sound: Numbers

May 26, 2000 • Producer David Goren has the story of a mystery on shortwave radio. There are a number of stations which transmit nothing but numbers -- a series of numbers, read by an unidentified voice, all day, every day. We hear from several shortwave enthusiasts, and experts on international espionage, who believe that the numbers are encrypted code, delivered by government intelligence agencies to spies around the world. It is a mystery where the transmission come from, and who they are meant for. We hear the transmission of these "number stations" from the CIA , western European countries, and Russia. After the Cold War, many of the transmissions that were originating from Communist countries stopped. Many number stations today can be linked with Cuba, China, and Taiwan. Shortwave experts and code experts continue to be fascinated by the number stations -- the notion that what is coming out of your radio is meant for one person only, in a coded language only he can understand.

Lost And Found Sound: Numbers

Audio will be available later today.

Friday September 10, 1999

Lost & Found Sound: Downloading the Repertoire

September 10, 1999 • In this week's installment of Lost and Found Sound, "Quest for Sound" Curator Jay Allison introduces David Greenberger. Greenberger made a strange tape recording back in 1981 of a man who sang 129 songs in 45-minutes. The singer was a gentleman named Jack Murdurian, who renders popular music items one after another in the same careless, toneless cadences. The recording and Jack's memory are both "lost and found."

Lost & Found Sound: Downloading the Repertoire

Audio will be available later today.

Friday June 11, 1999

Lost & Found Sound: Losing Languages

June 11, 1999 • As part of NPR's year-long collaboration with independent producers, NPR's Dean Olsher tells us about the increasing common extinction of the world's languages. Fifty percent of the world's languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people. Some languages are spoken by just a handful of people. In a century, 95-percent of the language that exists today will be gone -- the result of the commercial and technical advantages of Chinese, English, French and a few others. Linguists are split on whether extraordinary efforts should be made to SAVE languages, versus allowing them to die naturally.

Lost & Found Sound: Losing Languages

Audio will be available later today.

Friday March 26, 1999

Lost and Found Sound: Listening to the Northern Lights

March 26, 1999 • We experience the sounds of the Aurora Borealis through the ears of sound recorder Steve McGreevy. Very low radio frequencies accompany the Northern Lights and at the equinoxes, when the signals are strongest, McGreevy heads north to listen. He hears the chirps, pops and choruses that play out when the Earth's Magnetic Field interacts with the Sun.

Lost and Found Sound: Listening to the Northern Lights

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Friday February 12, 1999

February 12, 1999 • As our Friday feature, Lost and Found Sounds continues, NPR's Dan Charles visits Dave Morton, a New Jersey man who saves technology for sound recording that came .. and went. We learn about the dictabelts, the wire recorders, the other odd devices that captured sound besides phonographs and tape. We hear Oscar Hammerstein dictating notes on a show, soldiers in the Pacific singing, and samples of eight-track tapes.

Dead Media

Audio will be available later today.

Friday January 29, 1999

Lost & Found Sound

Thomas Alva Edison, Part I

January 29, 1999 • Thomas Alva Edison founded recorded sound. He invented the repeating telegraph and the phonograph, among others. He was known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," his hometown in New Jersey.

Thomas Alva Edison, Part I

21:33

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Saturday June 27, 1998

China Visit

June 27, 1998 • As President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin concluded a summit today in Beijing, their dialogue entered a new dimension. In a news conference that followed their formal meeting, the two leaders not only talked; they engaged in a very lively debate as American and Chinese television broadcast the event. NPR's Vicky O'Hara reports from Beijing.

China Visit

Audio will be available later today.