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The few female scientists at MIT in the late 20th century found themselves faced with hurdles related to their gender rather than their research. So they did what scientists do: they quantified it.

On the deck of a 27-foot boat off the shore of Long Island, researchers are using sonar to study the sand and sediment that washed away from the system of protective barrier islands and beaches by Hurricane Sandy.

The agency says the so-called Wolfcamp shale in Texas contains 20 billion barrels of oil and 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are recoverable by hydraulic fracturing and other means.

When deadly flooding rains swamped southern Louisiana last month, it destroyed lives and property. And it also caused millions of dollars of damage to the state's agriculture industry.

Ai Weiwei, the world-renowned Chinese artist and dissident, has created a deeply autobiographical work for the Venice Biennale exhibit. It is a series of dioramas about his life as a political prisoner, when he was jailed for criticizing the corruption and shoddy construction that caused the deaths of 5,000 children when schools collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

When New England experiences severe cold weather, rural homes quickly burn through a precious wintertime commodity: firewood. After the latest cold spell, NPR looks at how Vermonters' woodpiles are faring, and what the rest of the the winter will hold.

In 1970, India built a huge dam called the Farakka Barrage to protect the port of Calcutta from silt flowing in the Ganges River. But the dam has had widespread and devastating effects for people living along the Ganges.

The mission found tell-tale signs that the asteroid was a planet in the making.

Numbers crunching has become a big deal in sports. Analytics have been slower to take hold in the tradition-bound game of golf, but it is happening. NPR's Tom Goldman reports on the phenomenon from the tournament most steeped in tradition, the Masters.

Poet Kwame Alexander creates a poem from submissions about tennis, baseball, ballet, track, football, basketball and hockey, as well as themes of winning and losing and technique and talent.