Killing Ancient Forests For Paper - Jan Vertefeuille

America's demands for paper products make the industry a money-maker. In this country alone, we use 80 million tons of paper every year. WWF's Jan Vertefeuille explains that this demand is being filled by companies that clear-cut Sumatra's forests, endangering rare tigers, orangutans and rhinos.

Life Under Da Sea - Sylvia Earle

Ever dreamed of living underwater? Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Explorer in Residence, spent a week living beneath the sea at the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory. Aquarius is a huge cylindrical tank with various rooms sitting 60 feet underwater that was designed for extended underwater reef research. Now part of the reef itself off of Key Largo, this station is critical to conserving the world's reefs which are now half gone. Unfortunately, the future of Aquarius is in question as the federal government has ceased funding. Earle explains her experience and how important it is to keep Aquarius in operation.

Chicago's Thriving Coyotes - Stanley Gehrt

There are coyotes running wild on the streets of Chicago. Initially when Stanley Gehrt started studying the urban coyotes, he thought there would be a few dozen of them, and that they would easily be deterred from making the city their home. But living close to large numbers of people means there are plenty of food sources for the canines, including the city's hundreds of thousands of rats. He was surprised when he discovered that hundreds of the canines make Chicago their home. Gehrt tells Boyd that every major North American city has a population of coyotes and, the animals being as opportunistic as they are, there is very little humans can do about it.

Did Drought Push Genghis Khan into Europe? - Amy Hessl

While studying petrified trees in Mongolia, Amy Hessl made an interesting discovery. It was once thought that Genghis Khan led his Mongolian army across the steppes and into Europe as a result of drought at home. Hessl’s discovery tells us the exact opposite.

Teaching Children To Calculate Risk - Mike Libecki

Mike Libecki was one of National Geographic's candidates for "Adventurer of the Year" in 2013, and it's easy to understand why: the experienced mountaineer led expeditions from places as disparate as Antarctica and the Philippines. Libecki is also a father. He tells Boyd what it's like to raise a child as a risk-taker, and how he handles his daughter wanting to follow in his footsteps, across frozen continents and through lush jungles.

Giving Sanctuary to Former Circus Cats - Eduardo Serio

Mexico City's 9-month old ban on circus animals has left Mexican officials with another issue: the glut of big cats, elephants and even bears that need to find new homes. Enter Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation's Eduardo Serio. The big cat sanctuary opened in September 2013, but already is home to 45 big cats and two grizzly bears. Serio took his first few cats into his home, but quickly realized that his garden was unfit to save these rambunctious young cats. He purchased 32 acres just outside of Mexico City and has built a large infrastructure of animal pens to quarantine new arrivals and house the cats in large areas with pools and toys to enrich them. But the only place to see Serio's big cat sanctuary is on Instagram, as they don't allow visitors in person.

Ebola is Wiping Out West Africa's Apes - Ken Cameron

The recent West African Ebola outbreak killed approximately 10,000 people, but it killed five to ten times that number of non-human apes. Ken Cameron, a Wildlife Conservation Society field veterinarian based in Congo, says that the virus that doctors and government have scrambled to contain has been running rampant in the region's forests, killing half of the apes in one national park, and bringing the western lowland gorilla to the brink of extinction. Cameron and his team have been looking for areas where bats, long considered to be an Ebola reservoir between outbreaks, apes and hogs all overlap. He says that certain fruit trees have multiple species feeding at them, which could be way to transmit the disease between species.