Top Stories from NCPR

(Dec 3, 2020) Unlike frogs, turtles don't hibernate through the winter. In fact, sometimes you can see snappers and other species moving around under the ice. While their metabolism runs at very low ebb in the cold, they remain alert to changes in light and temperature that signal the coming spring.

How do they survive without oxygen? As Paul Smith's College biologist Curt Stager tells Martha Foley, they get energy from their body tissues, and their shells neutralize the resulting lactic acid build-up.

(Dec 1, 2020) Schools have struggled to stay open for in-person learning since the fall. COVID-19 cases, understaffing, and quarantined teachers have all triggered a move to remote classes.

Balancing work and life during the pandemic has been hard on everyone. But for working families with younger children, it’s been particularly excruciating, and littered with sacrifice.

(Nov 26, 2020) Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about ochre. It’s more than just a color in the Crayola box.

(Nov 25, 2020) Heading into the winter, a big question for families is what school will look like. New York City closed all in-person learning in its K-12 schools last week. Here in the North Country, school districts have been riddled with short and extended closures since the beginning of the school year.

The Boquet Valley Central School District, which serves kids in Essex County, was one of the first - they went remote for the first five weeks of school. That was because of a COVID-19 outbreak at the Essex Center nursing home in Elizabethtown.

(Nov 19, 2020) Most college students in New York head home this weekend for Thanksgiving break, and many will stay there. Because of rising coronavirus cases, all SUNY schools are finishing the semester remotely. Many private schools are doing similarly shortened semesters.

So what was college like during this bizarre pandemic semester? Emma Vallelunga, a senior at SUNY Plattsburgh who has been recording her experiences this semester for NCPR, spoke with friends and classmates about how they’ve dealt with the last eight months.

(Nov 19, 2020) In the second in our series about the biological marketplace, Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager look into the beehive. Although some worker bees might try to "cheat" and introduce their own eggs into the genetic pool of the hive, other workers will detect and destroy them. The queen presides over a society that shares her DNA, but it is run more like a police state than a family.

(Nov 13, 2020) Across the country, elections officials are saying last week’s vote was secure, safe, and successful. They include Jude Seymour, the Republican election commissioner in Jefferson County.

Seymour says he and his colleagues worked furiously to prep for the 2020 general election. There were coronavirus rules to contend with, and early voting to organize (early voting began in New York in 2019).

(Nov 12, 2020) Symbiotes are species that must collaborate with another to survive. But some partners are more equal than others. Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about how organisms monitor cheaters in symbiotic relationships. This is the first of two conversations about the biological marketplace.

(Nov 11, 2020) On Saturday, major news outlets projected the presidential race for Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris. It came after days of tense waiting. For some, it was devastating news. For others, it was joyous.

Here in the North Country, republicans won big in almost all down-ballot races by significant margins. So here, conservative or liberal, the election results were a mixed bag.

(Nov 5, 2020) Horns and antlers are more than different variations on animal head gear. Antlers are temporary and contain no actual bone. Horns are for keeps. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss pointy-headed creatures.