Talk of The Nation on WRVO-1: NPR News

For years, Steve Jobs courted biographer Walter Isaacson to write the definitive story of his life. When Isaacson learned how sick Jobs really was, he accepted. Here he discusses profiling the tech visionary, a task that often involved reconciling Jobs' recollections with those of his friends, family and colleagues.

In 1956, dentist and amateur ornithologist William Rhein captured the rare Imperial woodpecker on 16 mm color film. Although this 85 second clip is the only known photographic record of the bird, Rhein kept the film to himself until after he died. Writer and bird fanatic Tim Gallagher tells the story of Rhein's expedition to look for the bird, and his own trip to the same mountains over 50 years later.

When the Herman Cain harassment story broke, the accusers' names and their stories were blocked by confidentiality agreements. But one of those women has gone public, which raises questions about the purpose of confidentiality agreements, and how well they work.

Dominic Fredianelli and his buddies signed up for the National Guard in exchange for a signing bonus and help with college tuition. A new documentary, Where Soldiers Come From by Heather Courtney, follows their path from carefree teens in Michigan to combat veterans facing battle in Afghanistan.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has offered its strongest evidence yet that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Iran condemned the report, and maintains that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.

A storm one National Weather Service meteorologist described as of "epic proportions" hammered the coast of Alaska Wednesday, knocking out power and forcing residents out of flooded areas. Carven Scott of the NWS talks about the storm and how residents are coping.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, many fear the rates of homeless vets could grow much worse. They tend to remain homeless longer than non-veterans and they're more likely to suffer from health conditions linked to early death, according to a recent survey by the 100,000 Homes Campaign.

While DVD sales plummet in the U.S. and book publishers fear for their futures, pre-orders for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 totaled some nine million copies. Jamin Warrren of Kill Screen Magazine talks about how Modern Warfare 3 is extending an invitation to non-gamers to belly up to the console.

In Ohio, voters overturned a controversial bill limiting union rights. With one race still too close to call in Virginia, Republicans in that state can still seize the senate. Mississippians elected a new governor and voted down an amendment on "personhood."

Allegations of sexual abuse have shaken institutions from the Catholic Church to public schools to Penn State's football program. In many cases, victims and their families say they reported the abuse to the people in charge, and for any number of reasons, those people didn't do enough to stop it.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz is famous for her portraits of celebrities. From John Lennon curled around Yoko Ono to a pregnant Demi Moore, she's made a career out of capturing people. But for her latest collection, Pilgrimage, she instead turns the camera on places that have special meaning for her.

Many of those meaningful sites are the homes and landscapes that prominent people once inhabited, such as Georgia O'Keefe's homes in Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico and Ansel Adams' darkroom in Carmel, California.

The U.N. says more than 3,500 people have died in Syria's eight-month cycle of protests and government crackdowns. Residents of Homs, the third largest city in the country, report fierce fighting as government forces try to regain control of the city.

Former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier died Monday night at the age of 67, just a month after being diagnosed with liver cancer. "Smokin' Joe," as he was called, was known for his powerful left hook that knocked down Muhammad Ali in 1971 at Madison Square Garden.

United States vs. Jones raises questions about the limits of police searches, personal privacy and the use of new technology in law enforcement. At issue is whether police need warrants to attach GPS tracking devices to a cars to monitor suspects' movements for indefinite periods of time.

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on previous show topics, including ways to reduce student loan debt, finding the humor in life as a stay-at-home dad, and what schools teach students about sex.

After retiring as a war correspondent, P.J. O'Rourke decided to travel for pleasure, often with his family.

He went to some dream destinations — Disneyland with the family, Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, Italy's famed modern art exhibit Venice Biennale.

He also took some less conventional journeys — a horseback trek across a mountain in Kyrgyzstan, a voyage down China's Yangzte river, a couple's bird hunting trip.

For the first time in history two black candidates, President Barack Obama and Herman Cain, may run against each other for the presidency. As it did three years ago, discussions of race and racism continue to play out around both campaigns.

All U.S. troops are set to withdraw from Iraq by the end of this 2011, and many believe Iran will move to assert more influence over Baghdad. But Ray Takeyh, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that Iran has already lost Iraq.

Transcript

Like chimpanzees, dolphins are large-brained and highly social animals, but can they recognize themselves in a mirror? Psychologist and dolphin researcher Diana Reiss discusses her work with dolphin communication and cognition.

What if the laws of physics aren't the same all over the universe, but vary from place to place? Michael Murphy of the Swinburne University of Technology discusses research published in the journal Physical Review Letters indicating that the value of one basic physical property, the fine structure constant, may vary with location in interstellar space.

To feed, the hawk moth unrolls a long proboscis, sticks it in a flower like a straw, and slurps up nectar. It looks like a hummingbird feeding. Like the hummingbird, the moth has to be stable in the air to get a drink. Biologist Ty Hedrick filmed the moths with high-speed video to try to understand how they hold steady.

Reporting in Nature Biotechnology, researchers write of genetically engineering mosquitoes to pass lethal genes to their offspring, in hopes of crashing populations of one dengue-transmitting species. Science writer Bijal Trivedi talks about recent tests of the bugs, and the concerns of critics.

A hundred years ago, two teams were racing to the South Pole. The Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen made it first, beating British explorer Robert Scott. But only Scott did pioneering science--and photography--along the way. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the achievements of the first Antarctic expeditions.

Modern brain-imaging techniques have given researchers an unprecedented level of detail about the structure of the brain, but are they any closer to puzzling out how the brain really works? Harvard neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman talks about the limitations of brain imaging, and the challenges of trying to use imaging techniques to decode the brain's behavior.

The best sports writing forces us to confront wonder, horror, disappointment and joy. These days, those stories are found not on the sports pages, but in magazines and on the Web.

Jane Leavy, editor of The Best Sports Writing 2011, shares her favorites, including Jake Bogoch's piece on hockey, "School of Fight: Learning to Brawl with the Hockey Goons of Tomorrow."

Politicians and law enforcement officials have long focused on reducing crime by putting criminals behind bars. Now, some have challenged the effectiveness of that approach, arguing that the best way to reduce crime is to offer second chances to low-level, non-violent offenders.

In recent days, demonstrators in Oakland have been forced to adapt as police pushed them out of their encampment near city hall. Protesters called for a general strike Wednesday, prompting many downtown businesses to close and teachers and city workers to march, rather than report to work.

As international forces prepare to leave Afghanistan, deep questions remain about the country's security and its government. Former NPR reporter Sarah Chayes lives part of the year there. She has served as special adviser to two commanders of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Adm. Mike Mullen.

Historians have long struggled to explain how the West became the preeminent political and economic force in the modern world, and why so many people aspire to emulate the lifestyles, fashions and popular culture of America and Western Europe.

Now, historian Niall Ferguson says he has the answer. In his new book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, Ferguson credits six "killer apps," or social developments: competition, science, property, medicine, consumption and work.