Exploring The Canopy With 'TreeTop Barbie'

Have you ever wanted to be an astronaut without risking your life in space? If so, we have the perfect opportunity for you. NASA is calling for people with a science background to apply for a simulated mission to the Moon and Mars. Four adults will spend a year isolated in two en ...  Show more

With parts of the U.S, Canada, Spain and France all ablaze with wildfires, you might be wondering: Are wildfires on the rise? If so, know that you mind-melded with the entire Short Wave staff. We had the exact same thought – and then went down some reporting rabbit holes and turn ...  Show more

Ecologist Nalini Nadkarni – known as the "Queen of the Forest Canopy” – has spent a career clambering around tree tops, studying the interdependence of plants and animals in an ecosystem. But when an accident in the canopy brings Nalini's work to an abrupt halt, she is forced to ...  Show more

For much of history, tree canopies were pretty much completely ignored by science. It was as if researchers said collectively, "It's just going to be empty up there, and we've got our hands full studying the trees down here! So why bother?!"

But then, around the mid-198 ...

How do you capture the image of a 150-foot-tall tree in the middle of a dense rainforest? If you’re National Geographic Explorer Nirupa Rao, you pull out your paints. Rao draws from the centuries-old practice of botanical illustration to catalog and celebrate native plant life of ...  Show more

Researchers planted microphones in a forest and walked away. Listening back could help heal rainforest ecosystems. For show transcripts, go to bit.ly/unx-transcripts For more, go to http://vox.com/unexplainable It’s a great place to view show transcripts and read more about the t ...  Show more