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The lowly sheep may be getting a bad rap -- thats the conclusion of a new study that finds the easily herded creatures may be smarter than originally thought.

Writer Steve Erickson assembled a list of the top 100 songs recorded in Los Angeles. He chats with Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday.

In theory, a beer poured at nearly 12,000 feet above sea level would have quite a head on it -- far more foam than at sea level. Intrepid NPR science reporter Joe Palca offers a Morning Edition report on the results of an experiment that began in the Andes Mountains and concluded in Washington, D.C.

In a series of reports for Morning Edition, NPR Beijing correspondent Rob Gifford profiles five people from across China who symbolize the massive changes the country is undergoing as it makes its transition away from communism. The latest segment features Wu Dongmei, a young woman who, in search of a better life, migrated 1,000 miles from her village to work at a clothing factory.

Novelist Chaim Potok died Tuesday at the age of 73. Potok was raised in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, was ordained as a rabbi, and later became a best-selling author of the novels The Chosen, The Promise and My Name is Asher Lev. Much of his writing explored the conflict between spiritual and secular worlds, a subject that earned him readers from all faiths. This interview first aired in 1986.

While working at a blueprint shop in Charleston, South Carolina, a customer brought in some Confederate money to order a blowup. The imagery shocked Jones. The money showed slaves. Jones began to collect the brown and gray money with slaves picking cotton, corn and tobacco and loading barrels cheerfully. He then created large scale full color paintings based on the images. The art is now on display at America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Security-minded lawmakers are turning their attention to the U.S. chemical industry, because chemicals from a sabotaged plant could threaten lives of millions of people in cities across the nation. NPR's Jack Speer travels to Freeport, Texas, where Dow Chemical operates one of the nation's biggest chemical plants.

Director Sam Mendes. He made his feature film debut in 1999 with American Beauty which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Mendes also won an Oscar for directing. Prior to that Mendes made his mark directing theatre productions in London (revival of Cabaret and The Rise and Fall of Little Voice)and on Broadway (The Blue Room). He directed the new film Road to Perdition starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law.

Aerospace consultant Nick Cook, author of the new book, The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology. (Broadway Books/ Random House) In the book, Cook tracks down the secret history of anti-gravity research. It*s technology that defies the laws of physics. Cook discovered that during WWII, the Nazis claimed to have been close to antigravity technology. The U.S. government allegedly conducted antigravity research in the 1950s and 60s. Cook is former Aviation Editor for the military affairs journal, Jane's Defense Weekly.

Clifford's new book is The Lost Fleet: The Discovery of a Sunken Armada from the Golden Age of Piracy. The lost fleet was a group of French ships that sank in 1678 on the reef of Las Aves island, 100 miles off the Venezuelan coast.