on NPR's throughline.

We cannot function for 24 hours without COBOL,

because it's in our smartphone, our tablet, our laptop.

And as a consequence, the lives of the people living in that part of the Congo

descended into just a catastrophe.

Find NPR's Through Line, wherever you get your podcasts. you're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey everybody it's Mary L. Today's episode is about something super important

that a lot of us put off getting screened for colorectal cancer. Colorectal

cancer cases are on the rise among younger people folks under 50. For people

younger than 55 those rates have been ticking up by 1 to 2% a year since the mid

1990s. It's now considered one of the deadliest cancers

in this age group.

That was Allison Aubrey.

She's a health correspondent and NPR.

And she says researchers are still trying

to figure out the reason for this jump.

They're looking at factors like

diet and antibiotic use.

According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer is now the first cause of cancer

death in men and second in women.

Back in the late 90s it was only the fourth.

Now we're not telling you all this to scare you,

...