On this week's trip beyond the headlines, Host Steve Curwood talks with Environmental Health News' Weekend Editor Peter Dykstra about a study that shows how the fibers in discarded face masks could potentially strengthen cement. They then chatted about a new honeybee, bred by the United States Department of Agriculture, that could potentially be resistant to varroa mites, a parasitic mite which causes disease and death in European honeybees, which are widely used in commercial agriculture as pollinators. And then from the history books, the two recount when an American right wing political commentator falsely accused eco-terrorists of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill after the British Petroleum Company had already apologized.

Biologists are encouraging homeowners to leave their lawnmower in the garage for a month this spring to create crucial habitat for pollinators. A proponent of the "No-Mow May" movement, Biology Professor Israel Del Toro from Lawrence University joins Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb to discuss why we should be rethinking our lawn care habits.

Falconry, also known as the practice of hunting with birds, can be traced back perhaps as far as the Ice Age. Many modern aficionados, like author Sy Montgomery, consider the sport to be more about the interaction with these hawks, falcons, and owls, rather than about the hunting itself. Sy’s newest book is The Hawk’s Way: Encounters with Fierce Beauty, where she talks about learning the art of falconry. Sy joined Host Steve Curwood for the latest Living on Earth Book Club Event to discuss the wondrous world of these birds of prey.

Five whistleblowers have exposed toxic working conditions within the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) New Chemicals Division. In their disclosure, they describe how scientists are forced to erase findings about cancer risk and other types of toxicity from safety reports and point to a huge revolving door between the EPA and the chemical industry. They also say the EPA is only slowly assessing some 80,000 legacy chemicals within daily household products like paint and pesticides that potentially contain hazards to human health and the environment. This week, host Steve Curwood is joined by Kyla Bennett, the director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, is a lawyer who works with the whistleblowers.