Robert Krulwich

One man is facing a few hundred sheep. He has questions. When he shouts to them, the sheep — surprisingly — answer back. It's a very lively back and forth, with one obvious problem. I don't trust these sheep. Their answer to his "Are you happy?" question seemed oddly, even ...

They don't have eyes. Or ears. Or what we would call a nervous system. But plants can talk. And they listen. Let me show you how.

First, we'll need a plant eater. This one's perfect: It's an aphid, a hungry little critter who loves to munch on fresh, green leaves ...

They don't have eyes. Or ears. Or what we would call a nervous system. But plants can talk. And they listen. Let me show you how.

First, we'll need a plant eater. This one's perfect: It's an aphid, a hungry little critter who loves to munch on fresh, green leaves ...

CBS is losing yet another late-night host. After a 10-year stretch with “The Late Late Show,” Craig Ferguson has announced his plans to step down as host.

Ferguson’s announcement comes less than a month after David Letterman broke the news to his studio audience that he would be retiring from ...

At the end, shoes fly. This must be a dancers' thing. You go to Urban Dance Camp, Keone and Mari step out onto the gym floor. C2C's "Happy" is in the air, and the pair just ... they just go perfectly crazy. I know this is a sciencey site, and ...

Canada and the USA agreed to create a 20-foot-wide corridor between them that runs for 5,500 continuous miles. Cartographers drew the line straight, but engineers built it crooked. Take a look.

The U.S. and Canada may be as lovey-dovey as two neighbors can get, but according to this charming video history by CGP Grey, both countries agreed to tuck themselves a little bit in, 10 feet back for America, 10 feet back for Canada, creating a corridor of open, ...

Take Beyonce. Take Sinatra. Take whomever you love and set them on fire — with a "Pyro Board." It plays music by pulsing the beats in flame, and when the singer hits a high note — stand back.

Those speakers in your living room, sitting there, like dull hunks of furniture? What if instead of just playing music, they became a pair of fire-spewing dragons? You'd play a tune, and the pulsing sound waves, usually invisible, would become bursts (or absences) of flame. Walk around the speakers, and ...

There is love. And then there's albatross love.

In his new book, The Thing With Feathers, Noah Strycker says albatrosses have a knack for coupling. "These globe trotters, who mate for life and are incredibly faithful to their partners, just might have the most intense love affairs of ...

Correction: April 22, 2014

How did it happen? How'd the zebra get its stripes?

In Rudyard Kipling's version, a gray, horsey-looking beast went into "a great forest 'sclusively full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-batchy shadows," stayed there awhile, and after a "long time"... got stripy.

OK. Not ...

How did it happen? How'd the zebra get its stripes?

In Rudyard Kipling's version, a gray, horsey-looking beast went into "a great forest 'sclusively full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-batchy shadows," stayed there awhile, and after a "long time"... got stripy.

OK. Not bad.

Shara Yurkiewicz is a med student. She's doing rounds now, moving from department to department. Much of what she sees, she's seeing for the first time. Not yet a doctor, there are moments, many moments when she has the eyes of a patient. She gets scared. She feels helpless. She's ...

Robert Krulwich/NPR

Shara Yurkiewicz is a med student. She's doing rounds now, moving from department to department. Much of what she sees, she's seeing for the first time. Not yet a doctor, there are moments, many moments when she has the eyes of a ...

Time to be embarrassed. You're about to be bested by a young chimpanzee in a memory test.

Many have tried to outperform Ayumu (that's the chimp's name), but when you see how easy it is for him, how matter-of-factly he gets things right, it's clear he's got a talent that's ...

Time to be embarrassed. You're about to be bested by a young chimpanzee in a memory test.

Many have tried to outperform Ayumu (that's the chimp's name), but when you see how easy it is for him, how matter-of-factly he gets things right, it's clear he's got a talent that's ...

"Oh Romeo, oh Romeo," cried Juliet. Being human, she and her boyfriend had names. Is there any other animal that does this? Has names for each other? Oddly enough, yes!

I'm walking down a street. I see a friend. The friend doesn't see me, so I yell, "Hi, Ralph!" Ralph turns. This is what we humans do — we all have names. We learn each other's. If the guy I spotted is indeed Ralph (not always a safe assumption in ...

Remember Snowball, the dancing cockatoo? The parrot-like bird who became famous nodding and stamping to the Backstreet Boys tune, "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" ? This is him ...

BirdLoversOnly/YouTube

More than 5.6 million people have watched Snowball dance, but only one, Aniruddh Patel, made ...