Environment

Conservation groups are renewing calls for tighter environmental regulations to protect the Upper Colorado River, which supplies water for millions and also generates millions of dollars for western Colorado’s tourism-based economy. 

If you head to Yosemite National Park this time of year and stop by Horsetail Fall at just the right time, you might see something spectacular: As the sun sinks low in the sky, the waterfall glows with streaks of gold and yellow — and it looks just like molten lava.

Photographers like Michael Frye flock to the park every February to try to capture the phenomenon. Frye, author of The Photographer's Guide to Yosemite, describes the sight to NPR's Audie Cornish.

As humans, we sometimes pay a price for drinking alcohol — in hangovers, or worse. But if you happen to be a young fruit fly, it turns out that alcohol can be just what the doctor ordered.

The pesky little fruit flies often show up when apples or bananas are left sitting around for too long on the kitchen counter. Most folks find them annoying, but Todd Schlenke can't get enough of them.

"I've been collecting flies in my backyard for a long time, sort of as a hobby," says Schlenke, an evolutionary geneticist at Emory University. He studies fruit flies and their mortal enemy: tiny parasitic wasps.