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Being able to throw stones with power and precision must have been fun for humans' early ancestors. It was essential, too, since we lack the the fangs and claws of other predators. A recent study suggests the ability to fire rocket fastballs depends on shoulder anatomy that chimps don't share.

Many people know how to buy things in cyberspace. But what about doing business in outer space? That's the question PayPal wants to answer. Citing the looming era of space tourism, the company is starting the Galactic project with the SETI Institute, to "make universal space payments a reality."

Secretary of State John Kerry returns to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this week to continue to press Israeli and Palestinian leaders to sit down at the negotiating table. But in the run-up to this visit, two Israeli ministers have come out against the two-state solution that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he supports.

At the turn of the 20th century, visiting a drug store meant going to a soda counter with a pharmacist. If you wanted to go shopping, you would go to a department store. Now that trend is reversing: drug stores are battling to keep consumers in the store for longer.

Like most airlines, Delta overbooks its flights. The Department of Transportation fined Delta $750,00 for violating rules on overbooking — specifically for complaints that it bumped passengers without first asking for volunteers, and also failed to offer compensation for those who got bumped.

New York City became the most populous place in the United States to require businesses to give employees paid sick leave. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had previously vetoed this requirement, but has now been overruled by the City Council.

NPR's Uri Berliner gets a taste of the commodities market with a $227 wager on coffee. The futures price for coffee has tumbled for more than three years. But as he learns from interviews with coffee roasters and a futures broker, trying to predict coffee prices is not for the faint of heart.

Cartoonist Guy Delisle turns his attention from places like Myanmar and North Korea to the more domestic struggle of child rearing in his wry new book, A User's Guide to Neglectful Parenting. Reviewer Glen Weldon says it's slighter than Delisle's travel books, but "brighter and funnier as well."

When the anti-apartheid leader emerged from 27 years of confinement, South Africans knew their country was undergoing a seismic change. But they didn't know where it would lead them.

Carl Sagan once wrote a mischievous paper called "A Search for Life on Earth from the Galileo Spacecraft". Being a living Earthling, he knew he'd find life here. So what was he really up to? The experiment he ran in 1990 is about to be repeated in a few weeks. Here's my closer look.