President Obama reading mean tweets about himself. The husband who surprised his wife by turning their home into a giant ball pit. The "nae nae" dance.

These are the videos that made Americans laugh, gawk and shake a leg in 2015.

And what about the rest of ...

Tampon or pad? That's all you get when you stroll through the feminine care aisle of any big supermarket chain.

But times are a changin'.

This year has been epic for menstruation, with news and social media catapulting the once hush-hush topic into the open.

There's the woman who ran ...

What if a cow's manure could help refrigerate her own milk?

That's one of this year's winning ideas for Powering Agriculture, a program started in 2012 to identify innovators who are creating Earth-friendly ways to increase food production in low-income countries. A partnership between USAID, the governments of ...

You hit the mall on #BlackFriday. You patronize local businesses on #SmallBizSaturday. You surf the web for deals on #CyberMonday. And if you're feeling a little guilty for how much cash you've dropped — along comes #GivingTuesday.

#GivingTuesday was born four years ago to encourage people to open their wallets ...

As the U.S. chowed down on turkey, stuffing and leftovers, Pope Francis visited Uganda, Kenya and the Central African Republic for a six-day trip, continuing his focus on the developing world.

The trip brought many firsts. He had never before been to Africa. His visit to the Central African Republic ...

The Pentagon has completed its investigation into the deadly U.S. airstrike that destroyed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan on Oct. 3, killing at least 30 patients and staff members.

But Jason Cone, the executive director of the group, says the report raises more questions than it answers. ...

You'd think that everyone on the planet would know how to use a flush toilet: Flip open the cover, assume the position and go.

But for many people, the flush toilet is a UFO — an unfamiliar flowing object.

Nearly 2 billion people in the world use

The terrorist attack in Paris has many victims — and some of them may be Syrian refugees.

That's the concern in the international aid community. Aid groups have been struggling to get the public to donate to help the refugees. This year's heart-breaking photos of refugees trying to cross the ...

What can we do to help?

Of all the questions from our audience about NPR's #15Girls series, that was the most common.

It's a simple question. "I wish I had an easy answer," says Rebecca Hersher, who reported on girls trying to get straight A's in Afghanistan.

Consider ...

What does it feel like to kick out Ebola?

A music video from Sierra Leone makes it clear: pretty darn amazing. One South African publication calls it the "feel-good video of the year."

Sierra Leonean rappers Block Jones and the Freetown Uncut Collective have captured people's exuberance and relief ...

When Rosa Coj Bocel was in sixth grade, her parents told her she had to drop out of school so she could help take care of her four brothers. Rosa didn't put up a fight.

"What else can be said? No woman was studying at the middle school level," she ...

In a video interview, actress and U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson gets education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai to do something she's never done before: call herself a feminist.

The moment came in a live Q&A posted on Watson's Facebook page. The video, which was promoting ...

"I was 'smart' but I wanted to be 'cool.' "

"Hurricane Katrina hit."

"I was alone and homeless."

These are a few of the more than 1,000 thoughts that our audience shared when we asked them, "What was the hardest thing about being 15?"

The question came as we ...

This month, we asked our audience to offer advice on how to make the best of a student program in the developing world. From dozens of tips, shared on Twitter using #NPRTravelHacks, we chose 13 of our favorites.

1. Get those Zzzs

2. Bring a Polaroid camera

"Make ...

Jane Goodall has learned a lot about chimpanzees in her 55 years of studying them. She has learned a lot from them, too.

And she's putting those lessons into practice.

That's what she explains after giving a lecture at the U.S. State Department.

"One thing I've learned from the chimpanzees ...

Girls just wanna get ahead. But society won't always let them.

In different parts of the world, girls might not be able to go to school, hold a political position — or even be born.

How much do you know about the state of the world's girls? Take this quiz, ...

This month, NPR is shining a spotlight on 15-year-old girls — and we've invited our audience members to share their own stories about being 15.

The girls in our #15Girls series face big challenges and have big dreams. We've met girls so intimidated by the gang violence in El ...

When you think of daily life in the developing world, what do you see?

Do you see the fierceness of a buffalo race in the jungles of Bali? Children climbing up a clay minaret in Burkina Faso? Families laid out like jewels across rooftops in India, searching for a respite ...

If you've checked social media today, then you probably know already — it's the International Day of the Girl.

It's a day sanctioned by the United Nations and chaired by UNICEF. It began in 2011, and this year, with a theme of "the power of the adolescent girls," it ...

No matter where you live, being a 15-year-old girl can be tough. For some girls, it's a fight for independence, the fight to be first in class, or even the fight to win a boy's heart.

For others, it's a fight to stay safe from deadly gang violence, the fight ...