Three skiers died in an avalanche over the weekend in Washington state. A fourth skier was caught in the snow slide, but survived thanks to an airbag she deployed from her backpack. Audie Cornish speaks with Doug Abromeit, former director of and now consultant for the US Forest Service National Avalanche Center, about how the air bag works.

Eric Gilbert, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, tells Audie Cornish about his latest study on work emails. He looked at how certain words or phrases used in work correspondence can reveal if the message is being sent by someone higher up or further below you on the corporate food chain.

Wildlife officials don't usually base hunting policy on the public's view about an animal. But the black bear seems to be different — it has bounced back from near-extinction to being a nuisance in some areas. Now the question is, would people rather live with bears, or keep their numbers in check?

As many of the nation's highways continue to deteriorate, the funds to fix them are dwindling. In California, researchers are developing next-generation pavements that are quieter, more durable and more fuel-efficient, all on a tight budget.

The number of deaths from breast cancer has gone down, but the rate of new cases remains about the same. One family has had three generations of women survive the disease. A two-time survivor in that family sometimes hears, "There's so much money that's given all the time, why can't they find a cure?"

Do-it-yourselfers have made everything from bamboo bicycles to 3-D printers, but nothing as ambitious as the Open Source Ecology project. On a farm in northwest Missouri, tractors and other industrial machines are made from scratch, with detailed plans on how to do it yourself shared online.

Fifty years ago, John Glenn was alone on top of a rocket waiting to blast into space and around Earth. In these times, when people can become suddenly famous for doing so little, Glenn's flight is a timeless reminder that the most amazing and marvelous inventions won't work without human skill and daring.

A new NASA satellite captured a massive tornado on the surface of the sun.