here's ali rogin. s, brake pads, racing sales, spacesuits, and perhaps most famously, the bullet-proof vest. these products and many others are made with kevlar, a strong, lightweight fiber invented by researcher stephanie kwolek in 1965. it all began when dupont chemicals asked researchers to ke a fiber that could withstand extreme conditions. >> the solution was very, very fluid. i mean, it was almost like had the consistency of water. ali: synthetic fibers start in liquid form and are spun into a strand. stephanie: so when i asked the technologist to, you know, help me with the spinning, he refused. because he said, this will never spin. it's too fluid. it probably has particulate matter in it because it's cloudy and so forth. ali: but kwolek was convinced it would work and persuaded him to givet a try. stephanie: well, the results came back and they were sort of unbelievable. ali: the fiber was lightweight, heat resistant, and five times stronger than steel. stephanie: there of course was immediate

ali rogin looks at the often unseen costs of caregiving. the united states, women make up almost 60% of unpaid caregivers and over 80% of paid in-home caregivers for seniors, according to a recent wells fargo report. taking care of loved ones often takes a financial, physical and emotional toll. we spoke to some women about their caregiving experience. >> my name is ruth, and i'm in virginia, and i take care of my 82-year-old dad. it started about 12 years ago when he had prostate cancer. >> kenya servia, i'm from vaporeon, north carolina, and i'm caring for my mom. i've been a caregiver since i was eight years old. i started taking care of my great grandma, and, then i was taking care of my grandma. and now i take care of my mom. >> i'm deanza valencia. i live in albuquerque, new mexico, and i am a family caregiver from my mother, linda valencia, who is set is 75 years old. one day, our family learned that she was going to need a liver transplant, and she wasn't going to live much longer without it. so at a moment's notice, this responsibil

ali rogin tells us about this growing phenomenon in the search for companionship. some users, they are a friend to talk to. for others, and for a fee, they will even become your boyfriend or girlfriend. computerized companions, generatecompletely by artificial intelligence, are becoming more common. and the bots are sophisticated enough to learn from prior conversations, mimic human language, flirt, and build personal connections. but the rise in ai companionship also raises ethical concerns, and questions about the role these apps can play in an increasingly disconnected and online world. haleluya hadero covers technology and internet culture for the associated press. thank you so much for joining us. tell us about these ai companions. how do they work and what sort of services do they provide? haleluya: like any app, you can download them on your phone and once it's on your phone, you can start to have initial conversations with a lot of the characters that are offered on these apps. some apps let you do it for free. some apps you have to pay subscriptions. for t

ali rogin digs into a new report uncovering the plastic industry's tactics to push recycling and avoidulation. ali: a new report by the center for climate integrity and environmentalist group says newly-uncovered statements from oil and plastics executives underscore the industry's decades-long secret skepticism about the viability and efficacy of recycling. the authors of the report reviewed old investigations and new documents, including previously unknown assertions from indtry executives. in 1994, one exxon chemical executive put the industry support for plasticsecycling in blunt terms, saying, "we are committed to the activities but not committed to the results." another representative from dupont noted in 1992 that recycling als were set knowing full well "they were unlikely to meet them." michael copley is a correspondent covering climate issues for npr. michael, thank you so much for joining us. some of these quotes that are in this report are very blunt. they might be shocking to some, but you've been covering these issues for a long time. were you surprised by anything that's