As spring approaches in Florida, male Great Egrets are practicing showing off their snowy white plumage for mates. Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence, Mark Seth Lender, bears witness

For this week's trip beyond the headlines, Peter Dykstra joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the growing waste crisis that’s been worsened by China’s decision to no longer accept recycling from the U.S. Then, they talk about the generational impacts DDT and other endocrine disrupting chemicals may have in relation to breast cancer. And in the history vault, they look back to the uncanny timing of the Three-Mile Island atomic power plant crisis and the release of the film “The China Syndrome”, which focused on the impacts of a fictional nuclear power plant disaster.

The citizens of Toledo, Ohio have taken a major step to protect Lake Erie, which provides their drinking water. They voted by a wide margin to grant the lake and its watershed legal rights, so that people can bring lawsuits to court on behalf of the lake itself. Tish O'Dell, from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which helped draft Toledo’s charter amendment, joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the Lake Erie rights and other places that have been granted legal “rights of nature”.

In 1991 Richard Wheeler fulfilled a lifelong dream and paddled his kayak along the migratory route of the now-extinct Great Auk from Newfoundland to Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts. He dedicated much of his later years to supporting local conservation efforts and paddling through new adventures. Living on Earth pays a tribute to the late Wheeler, who died in February 2019, with a reprise of the story of his journey tracing the migration route of the Great Auk. Dick Wheeler teamed up with famed storyteller Jay O'Callahan to help him tell the story, and both men joined host Steve Curwood in the studio to recount the remarkable journey.

A single Varroa mite can bring down an entire honeybee hive by infecting an individual bee with the Deformed Wing Virus. But researchers are now seeing that certain mushroom extracts can be used to treat these infected bees, as Aynsley O’Neill reports in this week’s Note on Emerging Science.

After its 2015 diesel emissions scandal, Volkswagen has announced an all-electric car factory in the United States, with manufacturing to begin in 2022. This is all part of the German car manufacturer’s plan to stop making gas and diesel-powered cars by 2026. Jim Motavalli, freelance writer and blogger for NPR's Car Talk, joins host Steve Curwood to talk about the future of electric cars and the new Volkswagen--“people’s car”.