Adam Cole

Dessa is a singer and writer from Minneapolis who spent years trying to fall out of love and get over her ex. Nothing seemed to help — until she visited a research lab for a brain scan.

A Valentine's music video from Skunk Bear explores the ways your brain and body change when you fall in love — and change again as love deepens and matures.

Movies are full of loquacious chimps, but could nonhuman apes really use language? NPR's Skunk Bear sorts through the disturbing history of research on ape language to sort fact from wishful thinking.

There are hundreds of thousands of species of worms wriggling around the world. We made trading cards about six of them.

Almost all of the cells in a human body get replaced over the course of a life. NPR's Skunk Bear Team sets off on an imagined video tour inside the body to find out which body parts never change.

NPR's Skunk Bear blog received 300 nominations for our Golden Mole Award for Accidental Brilliance. We have a winner: Elizabeth Tibbetts found her luck, and scientific insight, in tiny insect faces.

You nominated 300 cool stories of scientific surprise for Skunk Bear's Golden Mole Award. Our shortlist has it all: circuits painted with light, imperceptible genitalia, and a terrifying frog.

German alchemist Hennig Brand started with about 1,500 gallons of urine in his 17th century hunt for gold. Discovering phosphorus was just a nice surprise. Know a modern tale of scientific luck?

Scientists need curiosity, determination — and luck. We're especially interested in that last bit, so tell us your stories of mistakes and surprises that led to discoveries in the past few years.

Less than 1 percent of applicants make the cut. But there's more than one way in. Passion helps. Be persistent. Oh, and be tops in what you're doing right now.