Serri Graslie

Our friends at the WNYC podcast New Tech City recently challenged you to put down the smartphone to see what sort of brilliance beckoned. We check in on the results.

Millennials are the largest and most diverse generation in American history. Some 18- to 34-year-olds say the act of taking a selfie for the #NPRCensus taught them more about themselves — and others.

Especially at Thanksgiving, saying grace is a family ritual for many Americans. We asked you to share your stories and traditions — and they ran the gamut, from heartwarming to horrifying.

The rural Texas town was established as a "freedom colony" with land given to former slaves after the Civil War. O. Rufus Lovett photographed Weeping Mary and its residents for 11 years.

Organizers of the Winter Games are preparing to serve up quite a bit of the hearty, deep-red Russian soup. Which is kind of ironic, says Russian food writer Anya von Bremzen, since borscht carries with it complicated political implications. And not all borschts are created equal, she warns.

Dish Network announced this week that it will shutter the 300 or so remaining Blockbuster stores it owns across the country. But in some places, dozens of the video stores will have an unlikely afterlife.

Hungry bugs and warmer temperatures mean pine trees aren't producing as many seeds as they once did, driving up the cost of Italian pine nuts to $120 per pound in some cases. Cookbook author Julia della Croce found a colorful — and delicious — alternative in pistachios.

Homemade sodas are hot these days: Americans bought more than 1.2 million home carbonators last year. For the Fourth of July, we asked mixologist Gina Chersevani to help us tap into the trend with a soda float inspired by Independence Day.

Postwar marketing of convenience foods pushed our grandmothers to take many shortcuts in the kitchen that modern foodies might find unpalatable. Many involved Jell-O. Cookbook author Jeremy Jackson updated his grandma Mildred's famous strawberry cake recipe to remove this old-school secret ingredient.

Wojciech Inglot was a chemist and entrepreneur who tried to come up with a more healthful alternative to traditional nail polish. He died Feb. 23.