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Herman Heyn has stood on a Baltimore street corner with a telescope almost nightly for 27 years. He does it for tips, for love of the stars — and for the hope he may inspire the same love in others.

Barbara Moore was the only woman bricklayer in Baltimore when she started the job in 1973. "A lot of the older guys didn't think I should be there," she tells her daughter on a visit to StoryCorps.

Thirteen years in the making, the Prison Rape Elimination Act is starting to have an impact. Texas Gov. Rick Perry says it's "ill-conceived," but many other states are adopting the law's standards.

Phosphorus is one of the nutrients that plants need to grow, and for most of human history, farmers always needed more of it. But excess phosphorus, either from manure or manufactured fertilizer, can run off into streams and lakes and become an ecological disaster.

Voters in 11 Colorado counties may approve secession resolutions next month. It's largely a symbolic gesture, but the idea of splitting off and creating new states is taking root all over the country.

About 800,000 "nonessential" federal employees went to work Tuesday morning for a mere four hours before heading home. Until Congress budges, that's where they'll stay.

Gun sellers in the state say they couldn't keep their shelves stocked in the days leading up to the implementation of the law, which takes effect Tuesday. The legislation requires gun buyers to be fingerprinted, limits bullet purchases and bans the sale of many assault weapons.

A decade ago, cranes that had never before migrated followed the lead of an ultralight plane to learn the route south. Several generations later, old cranes are teaching young birds to navigate that same route. It's a clue that migration is a combination of nature and nurture, researchers say.

This doesn't look like your trusty potato battery: a prototype device made by scientists at the University of Maryland uses wood fibers coated with carbon nanotubes to create an electric current.

Scientists and watermen have joined forces to plant underwater farms in the Chesapeake with a special oyster bred to be sterile. Instead of using energy to reproduce, these oysters use it all to grow — twice as fast as normal.