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Kinnovator, Fidgital, Bangst. This isn't gibberish. It's the language of Lizzie Skurnick. NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Skurnick about her new book, That Should Be a Word.

From the time of slavery, some light-skinned African-Americans escaped racism by passing as white. The new book, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, explores what they lost.

The art of letter writing is also an act of preserving history. The correspondences gathered in the book Letters Of Note tell stories of delight, hope and loss — and the nature of human connection.

Birds are everywhere, but the greatest concentration of different birds — the "bird mecca" of America — is not in our great parks, not in our forests, not where you'd suppose. Not at all.

Also: Radio Open Source finds an old interview with David Foster Wallace in the WBUR archives; elevator criticism.

The idea of using leeches to treat ailments is ancient — and no longer in favor. But now these blood-suckers are gaining new respect as a doctor's helper during surgery.

A new survey shows that the sound of cars and planes and other forms of noise pollution are rampant across the American wilderness. In many cases, man-made noise is drowning out the background sounds.

Geographic inequality in life span is growing in the United States, with people in some counties living more than 20 years longer than those in others.

U.S. health officials have warned pregnant women against traveling to Latin American and Caribbean countries with outbreaks of the tropical illness which may be causing microcephaly in newborns.

For people in prison, rules limiting access to technology make seeing video of their kids' first steps difficult. But a Colorado woman is using a 19th century solution for this 21st century problem.