You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Maddie Sifai here with NPR Science correspondent Nell Greenfield Boys.

Hey, now.

Hello.

So, now, you've been working on this story for months.

You were joking with me recently that you knew everything there is to know about this topic

and that topic is countertops.

That's right.

Specifically, like, sort of, stone and engineered stone countertops, which is really

strange because my personal countertops at home are wood.

They're like, I didn't know anything about this subject before I started looking into

it.

But increasingly, people have turned to this product known as quartz.

So, if you go to any sort of, like, TV show with remodeling and they update the kitchen,

they have these new white countertops that sort of look like marble.

I know about it.

I watch HGTV all the time.

But they're often not marble.

It's often quartz, which is a composite material.

And it's thought to be a little more advantageous than granite or marble because it doesn't

chip or stain as easily.

That's what the manufacturers say.

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