NPR News

You remember that fire on the Navy submarine that caused $400 million in damage in May? Last month, we told you that a preliminary investigation had found the fire was started by a vacuum cleaner.

Well, it gets weirder.

Today, we learn that a civilian employee has admitted to setting the fire because he wanted to get out of work early.

The Associated Press reports:

Over the weekend things have been very tense in Anaheim, Calif. For two days, people have protested the shooting death of an unarmed man by a police officer.

As the AP reports, last night protesters set fire to a dumpster after earlier having stormed the police headquarters lobby "as the police chief prepared to hold a news conference to discuss the case."

The AP adds:

There's enough DNA in the human body to stretch from the sun to Pluto and back. But don't confuse DNA with your genes, says writer Sam Kean.

"They are sort of conflated in most people's minds today but they really are distinct things," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "Genes are like the story and DNA is the language that the story is written in."

Hundreds of Muslim athletes are participating in the London Olympics, which officially begin Friday. But along with travel and other logistics, they're also adjusting to Ramadan, the holy month that requires them to fast.

Many athletes say they'll forego the ban on consuming food and drink, as Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports on Morning Edition. The daylong fast is a threat to a strong performance — and their hopes of bringing pride to their nation, they say.

As a child, astronomer Jill Tarter would walk along the beaches of western Florida with her father and look up at the stars.

"I assumed, at that time, that along some beach on some planet, there would be a small creature walking with its dad and they would see our sun in their sky, and they might wonder whether anyone was there," she tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "But I never thought about it professionally until graduate school."