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In West Texas, the discovery of the 'Texas Mystery Spider' two decades ago launched an international scientific journey. And now researches are gaining surprising, if grisly, insights into this tiny desert creature.

Órale, today’s featured word is muino. It means to be fidgety or restless. The general idea that’s communicated when it’s said that somebody is muino is that of a teething inconsolable child with itchy, achy gums. The word comes from Iberian Romani’s word for mouth, muí. Of course, muino can also refer to unsettled adults and adolescent children, not just babies who are teething. An agitated adult can be as muino as a child whose teeth are coming in.

The West Texas mountains host a wonderous diversity of birds — from colorful full-time residents to migrating hummingbirds. But this winter has been something special. From Alpine to the Guadalupe Mountains, birds rarely seen in Texas have made their winter abodes here.

Today’s featured Caló word is cruda. It means hangover. A common Indo-European word, it’s the feminine term for crude — unrefined, and raw. The biggest influence on how this word is used in Caló today is likely the Kaló spoken in Spain, Portugal and Latin America among the Romani. Their lexicon includes a very similar-sounding and related word, curda, which means drunkeness. In Caló, cruda is simply the next state one enters after being drunk. It’s also used as an adjective, as in, she’s quite cruda after drinking bad wine last night.

As scientists look more closely at the lesser earless lizards found in West Texas, they're gaining insight into the mechanisms that drive the diversity of life on Earth.

Órale, we’re going to continue focusing on words that come from the Romaní of Spain, Portugal, France and Latin America. This episode’s feature is chalado. It means to be crazy in both Iberian Romani and Rio Grande Caló. Chalado is both an adjective and a noun. So you can be chalado and a chalado. No problem liking or even befriending a chalado. But you better be en garde should you find yourself navigating a complex or delicate situation with them in the picture. That quirk could lead to a bad result if you’re not careful.

“The past,” it's famously been said, “is a foreign country.” But the deep human past is better described as another continent. We humans have had the same…

In 1894, a 22-year-old Texas Ranger named Everett Townsend was tracking stolen mules when he arrived at the South Rim of the Chisos Mountains. He looked…

The return of desert bighorn sheep to West Texas is one of the state's marquee conservation stories. These majestic animals had been eradicated here by…

Órale, the Caló word of today is sonsear. It’s a verb meaning to act dumb or wonder about aimlessly. It comes from the Iberian adjective zonzo, or sonso.…