Talk of the Nation on WLRN

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Time for our monthly meeting of the SCIENCE FRIDAY Book Club. Here with me are SCIENCE FRIDAY's multimedia editor, Flora Lichtman, and our senior producer, Annette Heist. And this month we have the physics - physics on our to-do list, right? A classic book by Richard Feynman, Annette?

ANNETTE HEIST, BYLINE: That's right. It is called "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character."

FLATOW: How did we pick that one?

Social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, have been important parts of this year's presidential campaigns. As Americans prepare to head to the polls, experts discuss social media's influence on politics, and whether Twitter can predict who will win the election.

Earthquakes, terrorist attacks and muggings have all scared people to death. Sporting events, too, sometimes cause frenzied fans to drop dead. Neurologist Martin Samuels of Brigham and Women's Hospital explains how positive or negative excitement can lead to a heart-stopping surge of adrenaline.

Many scientists expressed outrage after an Italian court convicted six earthquake experts of manslaughter for not doing enough to warn the public before a 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people. NPR foreign correspondent Sylvia Poggioli talks about the trial and other recent events in Italy.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Most would describe the Middle East peace process as stuck somewhere between impasse and stalemate and not likely to budge anytime soon. Still, a delegation of respected world leaders is visiting Middle East capitals to see if moral power can effect change. They're members of The Elders, some of the most respected leaders of recent history. They look to restart dialogue on some of the world's most intractable disputes and call attention to violations of human rights.

Vaccination campaigns have erased polio in almost every country in the world, but the disease persists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Obstacles in each country, including religious extremism, difficult terrain and transient populations, make eradication efforts difficult.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Two dozen dead and hundreds sickened from contaminated drugs with probably more to come. The outbreak of fungal meningitis has scared many thousands more who received injections of what may have been tainted steroids from a now-closed facility in Massachusetts, which called itself a compounding pharmacy.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. As of Monday, the procedure of freezing women's eggs is no longer experimental. The announcement from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine should make the controversial practice more widely available and increase pressure on insurance companies to pay for it.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. First the Democratic debacle in the Denver debate, then a show of teeth in Tennessee, last week hells-a-poppin' at Hofstra, and this week a comparative Kumbaya in Boca. It's Wednesday and time for a...

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Horses and bayonets...

CONAN: Edition of the Political Junkie.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: There you go again.

Inspired by a fellow referee who was sick with cancer, high school football ref Mike Wilmoth dropped 25 pounds, ignored the naysayers, and was picked to officiate a total of six NFL games. Wilmoth talks about making it to the big leagues and the challenges of working as a replacement ref.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, foodborne illnesses kill some 3,000 people in the U.S. each year. Often, the job of keeping America's food supply safe falls to for-profit companies with connections to the food producers they're supposed to inspect.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Taking care of an ailing parent or grandparent can be an emotional and physical drain on anyone. Of course, millions of us take on those family responsibilities, but it's never easy, and there's a subset of family caregivers that often gets overlooked.

The American Psychiatric Association defines a psychiatrist as a medical doctor who conducts psychotherapy and prescribes medications and other medical treatments. With recent developments in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, the definition of the practice appears to be shifting.

Former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern died Sunday at the age of 90. A liberal icon, he made two failed bids for president, but remained active and worked for several organizations battling world hunger. NPR's Ron Elving and Jill Callison of The Argus Leader discuss McGovern's politics and legacy.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington. The Middle East presents a series of challenges for whomever wins on November 6th: immediate problems in Libya and Syria, a seemingly eternal problem with Israel and the Palestinians, but maybe the biggest problem: the looming crisis with Iran.

When Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich used the word "slacks" in a recent column, a reader commented: "Slacks? How old are you?"

"I was describing a young man, a college guy," Schmich tells NPR's Neal Conan. "I was trying to point out that he wasn't wearing jeans, that he wasn't sloppy, that he wasn't inordinately well-dressed for a guy in college," she says. "And so I used the word 'slacks.' "

Matthew Inman, creator of the humor site "The Oatmeal," led an online drive that raised over $1 million for a new museum to honor the inventor Nikola Tesla. Inman discusses how to build a successful crowdfunding campaign, and why Tesla is the greatest geek who ever lived.

A professor spends his off-time tracking the little things in life that bother us. Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, tells us what poor parking, long waits in the doctor's office, and the controversial brussel sprout tell us about science.

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FLORA LICHTMAN, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Flora Lichtman, filling in for Ira Flatow today. The moon, it's our nearest neighbor, but we don't know much about where our companion came from. In the 1800s, Charles Darwin's son, Sir George Darwin, proposed that maybe the moon just popped off from the Earth when the Earth was spinning much faster than it is today.

A NASA spacecraft captured the clearest recording yet of what space sounds like inside Earth's radiation belts. Craig Kletzing, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa, explains what causes these eerie chirping noises, and what we can learn from them.

Science Or Folklore? — The Old Farmer's Almanac predicts winter weather months in advance. Is that even scientifically possible? Meteorologist Jason Samenow, of The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang, talks about the science and art of seasonal forecasting, and why even the pros at NOAA sometimes get it wrong.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Almost exactly 33 years ago, Iranian activists stormed the American Embassy in Tehran and held 52 U.S. citizens hostage for well over a year. But six American diplomats escaped the embassy at the last minute and took refuge in the home of Canada's ambassador. A new movie called "Argo" tells the story of a CIA agent, played by Ben Affleck, who dreams up a plan to get them out of Iran, disguised as a film crew scouting locations for a science fiction movie. Here, he presents his idea to the secretary of state.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "ARGO")

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington. After a two-year battle in court, lawyers in Portland, Oregon, said - last hour - that they'd release hundreds of confidential files kept by the Boy Scouts of America, on men they suspected of sexual abuse. The files went public online, within the last few minutes.

Lance Armstrong has resigned from his charity and lost millions of dollars in endorsements, days after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released its report alleging a widespread doping conspiracy inside his cycling team. In the court of public opinion, at least, the verdict seems to be in on Armstrong.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

In many states, the tight presidential race isn't the only thing on people's minds: Ballot measures are putting some controversial social and political issues up for popular vote. Same-sex marriage and the death penalty are just two of the measures voters will weigh in on come election day.