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According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as many as one billion birds die each year in collisions with man-made structures. Recently, lawmakers have started to do something about this problem.

One of the most ambitious wetland restoration projects in the country is underway in San Francisco Bay. Thousands of acres of those ponds are being restored for shorebirds and wildlife. But that is creating an opportunity for a very problematic bird.

Until very recently Philadelphians recycled a dismal five-percent of their trash. Now residents are diverting nearly 20-percent of their trash – and that’s saving the city fees from expensive landfills. In our continuing series on Recycling in America, Kerry Grens, from WHYY, reports on how a little consequence can go a long way to changing behavior.

Here's one silver lining to a slow economy: High recycling rates. Americans are wasting far less, and recycling far more. Nowhere is the trend as strong as in California. As Amy Standen reports for our Recycling in America series, this change is sending ripple effects throughout the economy.

Supercomputers are becoming increasingly key to modeling complex scientific problems. As they get bigger, they're becoming massive energy hogs, using as much power as a small city. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab are hoping reduce that energy load by using technology developed for cell phones.

At the end of this month, some hybrid drivers will lose their solo carpool privileges. Beginning July 1st, only drivers of all-electric and natural gas powered cars will be allowed to drive alone in the carpool lane. How effective was the hybrid perk and what will be the new wave of fuel efficient hybrids that gets this special benefit?.

At one hospital in San Francisco, more than half of the patients in an alcohol abuse program refuse medications that could help them stop drinking. So scientists here in the Bay Area find themselves waging two campaigns: to develop drugs that work, and to convince alcoholics to take them.

Pain is the most common reason for trips to the doctor’s office. So it makes sense that pain treatment is a huge part of our health care system, costing more than 100 billion dollars a year. But how exactly pain works is still a mystery in many ways. As Lauren Sommer reports, some researchers are trying to understand it better by looking at a very unusual creature.

Blind people are consistently underrepresented in the workforce, but especially in the sciences. Experts say that’s partly due to the fact that so much of early science education is learned through visual-spatial lessons. The Lighthouse for the Blind recently held its first ever chemistry camp for blind kids. The goal is to engage blind kids in the sciences by teaching chemistry through other senses, like touch and smell.

The severe flooding on the Mississippi River has left a lot of damage in its wake. It’s an extreme event that government and insurance companies try to plan for by predicting the risk. But as Lauren Sommer reports, climate change is throwing a wrench in those calculations.