Amy Held

The ruling sent providers and patients scrambling to understand what it means for access.

Amy Held, NPR News.

If you have a flight scheduled with Spirit Airlines, don't show up at the airport.

There will be no one here to assist you.

Spirit's not the only one who's having financial issues right now.

There could be more.

Spirit said early Saturday it had started a, quote, orderly wind down of operations.

A few hours earlier at Burbank Airport, orderly may not have been the word choice for ticket holders.

Here's Amari Kroon.

Not a Spirit flight.

It's booked 11 million seats this summer, fewer than half from the year before.

In its 34 years in business, Spirit made air travel more accessible.

Its cheap seats and charges for extras prompted other companies to lower their prices to stay competitive.

Data show when Spirit exited a route, airfare rose on average by a quarter.

Now, with fewer flights and increased demand across the board, analysts say airfare has nowhere to go but up.

Amy Held, NPR News.

As those who sing to their plants may suspect, they really can pick up on sound.

MIT engineers experimented with rice seeds in water, finding those exposed to rain sound germinated 30 to 40 percent faster than others in identical conditions with no drips.

Whether in water or on the ground, raindrops generate a sound wave.

That vibration, researchers hypothesize, could shake seeds out of a dormant state, stimulating them to germinate.