Category: DailyShorts

Parks and Rec actor Nick Offerman is famous for playing an outdoorsman on TV, but it turns out he actually is one in real life, too — albeit considerably less gruff than his character Ron Swanson. NPR's Scott Simon met up with him in the wilds of Central Park to discuss Offerman's new book Where the Deer and the Antelope Play. A testament to the pastoral takes a philosophical look at the vast wilderness of America and how open lands affect our approach to recreation, conservation, farming, and more.

In 2008, researchers searching for fossils in the Denisova cave in Siberia came across something interesting. It appeared to be the bone from an ancient hominid species. Subsequent DNA analysis on this bone has revolutionized everything we know about the origin of humanity. Had this bone been discovered a few decades beforehand, we might never have known about it. Learn more about the Denisovans and how they affect humanity today, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Poet Laureate Joy Harjo says she loved poetry as a kid, but didn't feel like it belonged to her. "It wasn't until I heard Native poets," she tells NPR's Michel Martin, "that I realized that, wow, this is a powerful tool of understanding and affirmation. And I don't know, I just started writing." Harjo had been studying medicine, she says, and she knew her people needed doctors — but what about poets? Her new memoir Poet Warrior is a chronicle of pain and injustice, of growing up poor with an abusive stepfather — but also of poetry and discovery, of taking that pain and using it to make art.

In 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, a 24-year-old woman in Ukraine volunteered to join the Red Army. She was initially pressured to become a nurse like most women who volunteered, however, that wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to be on the front lines. Within a year, she was to become one of the most lethal soldiers in all of the second world war. Learn more about Lyudmila Pavlichenko, aka Lady Death, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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The Queen of Tejano music is having a moment in pop culture once again, even 26 years after her murder. Selena Quintanilla's face not only adorns T-shirts and hoodies, but she's also the subject of a Netflix series, a podcast and a new novel by poet Melissa Lozada-Oliva. It's called Dreaming of You, and imagines what would have happened if Selena hadn't been killed when she was 23. Lozada-Oliva tells us about the story, which is written in verse, and the pop star's impact on her life since she was a child.

At the start of the American Revolution, a young American major general was one of the brightest stars of the war. He was responsible for several major campaigns and he had a great future ahead of him in his new country. By the end of the war, he was a British General fighting against the United States and his name would forever be spoken by Americans as a synonym for traitor. Learn more about Benedict Arnold and why he decided to turn on his country, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Amidst all the bad news (like, really bad news), it can be hard to hold on to hope — especially with the looming threat of climate change. But renowned scientist and chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall says that, despite the dire state of the world, it's too early to give up on our planet. Her new book with co-author Douglas Abrams is all about the state of our planet and how to save it from looming catastrophe for future generations.

Vampires have been been a part of folklore for centuries. Perhaps no mythical vampire is more famous than Count Dracula. While Count Dracula might be fictional, believe it or not, he was based and named on a real person who lived in 15th century Romania. While he might not have been a vampire, he was still plenty deadly. Learn more about Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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On October 31 every year, we celebrate Halloween. It is especially popular in the United States where we use the holiday as an excuse for kids to dress up and ask for candy, and for adults to dress up and drink. But why do we dress up, and what’s the deal with pumpkins, how does this have anything to do with monsters and bats? Learn more about the history of Halloween and how so many unrelated things got lumped together on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily

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