The federal government is pushing new efforts to deal with an old problem – abandoned oil and gas wells. In Pennsylvania, there may be as many as 100,000 orphan wells. If the wells were not sealed properly, they could explode. As The Allegheny Front’s Kate Malongowski reports, the government is using high-tech helicopters to find out where these wells are located.

Cutting emissions might not keep the planet from heating up, but it would increase our odds of seeing less extreme temperature increases by the end of the century. MIT climate change researchers have worked those odds into a roulette wheel. Economist John Reilly let’s host Steve Curwood give it a spin to see what luck-- and different emissions paths-- might mean for our planet and its residents.

Producer Guy Hand tells the story of the much-maligned Magpie, the bird everyone loves to hate, and why the critter deserves a break.

Ambergris is a strange substance regurgitated from the stomachs of Sperm whales. It is a key ingredient in some perfumes, and can sell for as much as $10,000 a pound. But natural ambergris may soon be replaced by a synthetic alternative, and that’s a good thing for the whales.

The Pan American highway doesn’t go all the way from South America to Canada without interruption. The road breaks in the dense forest between Panama and Columbia known as the Darien Gap. New Yorker correspondent Jennie Erin Smith visited this beautifully inaccessible region and brought back tales of tamarins and paramilitaries.

Producer Guy Hand tells the story of the much-maligned Magpie, the bird everyone loves to hate, and why the critter deserves a break.