Talk of The Nation on WRVO-1: NPR News

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Murray, we're just hearing that film critic Roger Ebert has died. The Chicago Sun Times, Ebert's paper, tweeted the news a few moments ago. Ebert, of course, an icon of film criticism, a one-time filmmaker himself, best known perhaps for his days on TV with fellow critic Gene Siskel. Their thumbs up or thumbs down rating system now a de facto review method of critics and filmgoers alike.

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This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Some of you are sitting in traffic right now, muttering darkly about how it's possible to hit every single red light. Los Angeles, a city that suffers more congestion than most, tried to unclog traffic for years by synchronizing its lights. Earlier this year, it became the first major city to tie all its traffic lights to a computerized system that uses motion sensors and cameras to monitor flows of traffic. They report modest improvements, but do drivers notice any change?

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Like a lot of new movies, "Oz: The Great and Powerful" skips down some familiar pathways. Twenty years before Dorothy, Toto and friends followed the yellow brick road and a couple of witches consider the arrival of one Oscar Diggs who fancies himself a wizard.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL")

MILA KUNIS: (as Theodora) I simply want peace. That's all I ever wanted and the wizard can do that. He's a good man.

RACHEL WEISZ: (as Evanora) What do you know about goodness? Deep down you are wicked.

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This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. U.S. officials acknowledge that nearly a quarter of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are on hunger strike. Defense lawyers say the strike includes nearly all the detainees. The International Committee of the Red Cross believes the cause can be traced to uncertainty.

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This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. The president talks guns in Colorado. Hillary Clinton supporters talk 2016. And in New York City, six pols busted for talking turkey. It's Wednesday and time for a...

DAN HALLORAN: It's all about how much...

CONAN: ...edition of the political junkie.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: There you go again.

VICE PRESIDENT WALTER MONDALE: When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: Where's the beef?

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Researchers from University College London followed thousands of people over the age of 52 for seven to eight years to assess the effect of loneliness and isolation. Isolation, not loneliness, may actually shorten people's lives regardless of health or income.

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on previous show topics, including the epidemiology of gun violence, what it means to be a 'Southerner' and going off the map.

With rates of childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at alarming highs, a study confirms that, for many, the condition persists into adulthood. A study by the Boston Children's Hospital and the Mayo Clinic finds that the chronic form of ADHD can lead to depression and substance abuse.

Bees have been dying off in increasing numbers over the past few years. Experts say that habitat loss and disease are the biggest culprits, and some believe that pesticides are to blame. NPR science correspondent Dan Charles explains the possible causes and what is being done to stop this trend.

President Barack Obama named Julia Pierson as the head of the Secret Service, the first female director in the agency's history. At least one woman is said to be on the shortlist for FBI director. Women are also climbing the ranks on local police forces as well.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO agreed on a plan for a new system to import temporary workers. NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving discusses the politics of the business-labor immigration deal. Rusty Barr, owner of Barr Evergreens, shares how he uses the guest-worker program.

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And now Syria and Iraq on the Opinion Page this week. As we reconsider the 10 years since the invasion of Iraq, Washington Post editor Jackson Diehl says we should learn from that costly experience as we consider the civil war in Syria. About absent U.S. intervention, he argues, Syria could produce a much worse humanitarian disaster than Iraq. The tragedy of the post-Iraq logic embraced by President Obama, writes Diehl, is that it has ruled out not just George W. Bush-style invasions, but also more modest interventions.

In Sunday night's NCAA men's basketball tournament, Louisville guard Kevin Ware suffered a gruesome injury. Coach Rick Pitino rallied the team and led them to a victory over Duke. When accidents like this happen, coaches are tasked with rallying team members and keeping them focused.

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For the rest of the hour, we're going to talk about meteorites. They are more than just a chunk of rock. They can be a time capsule, or ancient secrets of our solar system may be locked up in its core. And it turns out - I didn't know this - that one of the largest meteorite collections, the largest one, the largest collection held by any university is just up the road from us in Tempe. And joining us now to talk about the collection is Meenakshi Wadhwa.

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You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. And for the rest of the hour we're going to talk about collisions, space collisions, space impacts, with Erik Asphaug, who's Ronald Greeley chair of planetary geology, School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

ERIK ASPHAUG: Thanks very much, Ira.

FLATOW: You must be very busy since this last collision in Russia of this asteroid.

When does a story about science become science fiction? Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss and theoretical physicist Brian Greene discuss how to spin a yarn about string theory or the Big Bang, without hyping the science. And novelist Ian McEwan, whose books touch on neurosurgery and quantum field theory, talks about what science offers to fiction.

The Sonoran Desert, which spans some 100,000 square miles in southwestern North America, is one of the most diverse desert ecosystems in the world. Host Ira Flatow and guests discuss some lesser known desert creatures, and explore the secret life of that American southwest icon, the saguaro cactus.

Elliana Grace Hentoff-Killian grew up in the circus.

She made her circus debut at age 2 and mastered her first circus act at 6, when she learned the Spanish web — an aerial act performed on a rope. Now, at 20, she is currently the youngest female human cannonball in the world.

"I never thought I was going to be doing the cannon. I was always the one sitting there saying, 'You've got to be insane to get shot out of a cannon,' " she tells NPR's Celeste Headlee. "And, of course, that's what I'm doing now."

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This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Celeste Headlee in Washington. Yesterday the Supreme Court heard the last of two cases involving the issue of same-sex marriage, one case on the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8. That proposition banned same-sex marriage in the state of California. The other case is on the Defense of Marriage Act.

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Repeated American attempts to work with Russia on Syria have foundered on a fundamental difference. Vladimir Putin insists on a deal that includes Bashar al-Assad as part of Syria's future. So the civil war grinds on and the situation of civilians there grows ever more dire. So why? Arms exports? Access to the port of Tartus? Standing up for old allies?

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This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington. Another Democrat steps away from the Senate, the price of previous presidents, and the present president calls out Congress on immigration. It's Wednesday and time for a...

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Political courage...

CONAN: Edition of the Political Junkie.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: There you go again.

VICE PRESIDENT WALTER MONDALE: When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: Where's the beef?

The Italian Supreme Court ordered that Amanda Knox be retried for the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher. This decision overturned her acquittal from 2011. If she's found guilty this time around, she could face extradition.

A Washington Post analysis of statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds a correlation between gun deaths, and race and geographic location. African Americans are much more likely to be victims of gun-related homicide, whereas whites are more likely to commit suicide.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. It's day one in the debate over same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court. This morning the court heard arguments on California's ban on same-sex marriage, which was approved by voters in a ballot measure called Proposition 8. Tomorrow they'll hear a constitutional challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act.

Anthony Lewis, former reporter and columnist for The New York Times, died Monday at the age of 85. NPR's Neal Conan remembers the Pulitzer Prize winner, and listens back to a conversation with Lewis about his career and the stories he covered, just after his retirement in 2002.

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This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. More than 1 million people have fled to safety across Syria's borders. Many live in camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, which too often struggle to meet basic needs such as shelter, food and clean water. Some arrive wounded, and need medical care. Many suffer from the invisible wounds of trauma - everything from shelling or crossfire to the loss of a loved one, even torture. All of them have lost their homes.

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