On Halloween 70 years ago, an iconic American monument was completed — Mount Rushmore. It took 14 years of blasting and chiseling granite to finish the work. And chief stone carver Luigi Del Bianco, an Italian immigrant, was there for most of them. Del Bianco was responsible for many of the finer details in Lincoln's face.
Del Bianco's daughter Gloria and her nephew, Lou, recently sat down at StoryCorps to share their memories of him and the work he did. The Mount Rushmore project began in 1927, when Del Bianco was 35. And it ended 14 years later.
An unpublished study by European scientists has found that the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant may have released much more radioactive active material than the Japanese government estimated.
NPR's Richard Harris filed this report for the Newscast unit:
Farming nowadays is risky business — it's not uncommon for a farmer to invest $500,000 in 1,000 acres of corn or soybeans, and run the risk of losing a chunk of their income to pests or fickle weather events like droughts and floods.
That's why farmers say crop insurance is "the most important safety net program" for them, says Joe Glauber, chief economist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As expected, King Abdullah of Egypt has appointed his half-brother, 78-year-old Nayef bin Abdulaziz, crown prince. The news comes, after the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz Al Saud died on Saturday.
There are some fresh insights from Australia that help explain why it's so difficult for dieters to keep off the weight they lose.
Willpower will only take you so far, in case you haven't run that experiment yourself. Turns out our bodies have a fuel gauge, not entirely unlike the gas gauge on our cars, that tell us when it's time to tank up on food.
Originally published on Thu October 27, 2011 3:28 pm
Based on a strong Yen and lower-than-expected sales of its 3DS system, Nintendo predicted it would post a yearly loss for the first time in its 30-year history.
What if you could time-travel back to Memphis' Sun Studios in the 1950s? Behind the console would be none other than producer Sam Phillips. You might hear such classic songs as "My Happiness," "Crazy Arms" or "Walk the Line," originally recorded at Sun Studio by Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, respectively.
There's no member of the Republican freshman class in Congress more outspoken than Florida Rep. Allen West.
Since he was elected last year, West has become a strong voice on Capitol Hill for fiscal restraint, socially conservative values — and responding to the threat posed by Islamic extremists.
On the topic of Islam, West has been particularly controversial. He calls it not a religion but a "theocratic political ideology" that's a threat to America.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel shakes hands with 'SpaceJustin', a humanoid space robot, at the International Aerospace Exhibition (ILA) on June 8, 2010 at the Schoenefeld airport in Berlin.
Credit
Adam Frank is the author of About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang.
Adam Frank is an astrophysicist at the University of Rochester. He is a regular contributor to the NPR blog, 13.7: Cosmos and Culture.
What is going to happen when our machines wake up? What will happen when all these computers which run our lives suddenly become intelligent and self-aware. It's a question which makes sense to today as the world marks the recent passage of John McCarthy.
