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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Now picture this: You're one of the many graduate students working round the clock in a university lab on a series of seemingly dead-end experiments, until one day, you strike gold. It turns out, you've discovered the cure to a mysterious disease which will save the lives of millions around the world.

In an unscientific survey of Times Square, Science Friday found that not one passerby could explain how sunscreen works. Dermatologist Jennifer Linder explains that and other basics of sun protection, including the meaning of SPF, and whether sunscreen blocks vitamin D production.

If you pay any attention at all to ads for vitamins, you'd be forgiven for thinking they're good for just about anything that could ever ail you.

The biggest scandal in the world right now has nothing to do with sex or celebrities. It's about an interest rate called LIBOR, or the London Interbank Offered Rate.

Most Americans probably never heard of LIBOR. When I first moved to New York, I hadn't. Back then, I could barely afford my apartment and got an adjustable rate mortgage. And so I wondered: When my rate adjusts, how will I know how much I'll be paying?

I searched through all the documents and it was right there — LIBOR. I would be paying a few percentage points above whatever LIBOR was.

If the Supreme Court says President Obama's Affordable Care Act includes a tax, then why is his rival Mitt Romney paying a political price? And who would have guessed in the aftermath of the ruling the right would attack Chief Justice John Roberts. Plus: It's getting nerve-wracking for Charlie Rangel.

NPR's Ron Elving and Ken Rudin have the latest political news in this week's roundup.

Presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney calls the June employment report that showed 80,000 jobs created "another kick in the gut to middle class families." Host Michel Martin speaks with two of Tell Me More's regular politicos, Democrat Corey Ealons and Republican Ron Christie, about how these figures could affect the race for the White House.

Often I'm asked, "What's the worst movie ever made?" and I say, "I don't know, but my own least favorite is Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers." The early script by Quentin Tarantino was heavily revised, and the final film became a celebration of serial killers, now existential heroes with absolute freedom. Beyond the bombardment that was Stone's direction, the worldview was abominable.

This interview was originally broadcast on June 21, 2012. The new film Shut Up and Play the Hits documents LCD's Soundsystem's farewell concert at Madison Square Garden.

When LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy attended live concerts, he says he always felt like there was something missing.

Losing your job is rarely good. Not being able to find one for months can be disastrous for individuals, and bad for society as well. Yet during the recent recession and the current anemic recovery, more people in the U.S. have been unemployed for longer than at any time since 1948.

Of all Americans who were unemployed in June, almost half had been without a job for 27 weeks or longer. In other words, 5.4 million people have been jobless for more than half a year.

Nearly four decades later, there's some solace for the families of young women in Argentina who were killed after giving birth under orders from the country's then-dictators. The women's babies — Argentina's "stolen children" — were then handed over to loyal members of the military.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.

It is definitely wrong to hit and run, but it's a little impressive that a high school student was hit and kept running. Anaheim, California police say a high school cross country team was running when a turning car whacked one of the runners. The young woman was apparently determined, because she got backed up and ran away. The driver called after her to stop, stayed where he was and called police. The runner was eventually treated and suffered only minor injuries.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. To kick her 10-year habit, Tori is leaving home for a small island - theoretically, a no-smoking island. Home is an Indonesian zoo. Tori is an orangutan. The Guardian reports she learned to smoke imitating visitors who tossed cigarette butts into her cage. Her non-smoking orangutan roommate does what he can, stamping out burning butts before she can get to them. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Job growth was even weaker than economists feared in June as public and private employers added just 80,000 jobs to their payrolls, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning. They had been expecting BLS would say there were closer to 100,000 more jobs in June than in May.

A separate BLS survey showed the nation's jobless rate remained stuck at 8.2 percent. It's been above 8 percent since February 2009.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Three weeks from today, the 2012 London Summer Olympics begin. London will show off its cathedrals and castles, it's parliament and palaces, all that is splendid in one of the world's greatest cities. There is a seedy side of London, however, one that Olympic organizers presumably will not present. That is where we'll be going today with this encore presentation from our Crime in the City series.

Mystery writer Mark Billingham took reporter Vicki Barker to some of the places that inspired his dark twisted thrillers.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

On to some lighter fare, it's been fun, but this is it: the end of Pie Week here on MORNING EDITION.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Aw. Go on, go on, go on.

WERTHEIMER: Along with a lot of cravings, the series has evoked thoughtful memories from listeners around the country.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And today's last word in business takes us to London, where Europe's new tallest building has been inaugurated. It's called the Shard. Maybe that's because it sort of looks like a giant shard of glass, 1,016 feet tall. It stands out in a city with a relatively low skyline. It towers over the Tower of London, and the Shard brings many metaphors to mind.

A growing number of cities want to tackle the problem of homelessness by outlawing what are known as "acts of daily living" — sleeping, eating and panhandling in public. In Philadelphia, a new rule is targeting not the homeless but those who feed them.

When Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter announced the ban on serving food in public parks last March, he said moving such services indoors was part of an effort to raise standards for the homeless.

Pools open to the public were supposed to have chair lifts installed for people with disabilities in time for this summer, but after a wave of protests, the federal order was delayed until January.

Still, some of the country's 300,000 or so pools at hotels, parks and gyms continue to fight the requirement.

Vestavia Hills pool near Birmingham, Ala., is one of thousands of pools that scrambled to get a chair lift installed by May.

Health officials in Kenya say reducing the transmission of HIV among gay men is a central part of their national AIDS strategy. But they face serious challenges, including the fact that homosexuality is still a crime in the East African nation.

HIV rates among gay and bisexual men in Kenya are far higher than the national average.

Groupon and Living Social have sold tens of millions of daily deals and are now a major force in retail. But they rely heavily on getting businesses to offer their goods and services at deep discounts. In exchange, businesses hope for payoff in the form of return customers.

Sometimes, though, the flood of extra business causes more problems than it solves.

Deal-Hungry Crowd

Ailie Ham had just opened Creative Hands Massage in Washington, D.C., when she decided to offer deals through Living Social and Groupon last year.

Judge Richard Posner, a conservative on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, has long been one of the nation's most respected and admired legal thinkers on the right. But in an interview with NPR, he expressed exasperation at the modern Republican Party, and confessed that he has become "less conservative" as a result.

President Obama began a two-day bus tour of swing states Ohio and Pennsylvania on Thursday and spent part of the time campaigning on his bailout of U.S. automakers.

"My experience has been in saving the American auto industry. And as long as I'm president that's what I'm going to be doing, waking up every single day thinking about how we can create more jobs for your families," Obama said at a rally in Maumee, Ohio.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel. Demand is up in the car industry. That's great news for U.S. automakers. They're on track to have their best year since 2008 and it's a success that President Obama is seizing on as he campaigns across northern Ohio today. The president began a two-day bus tour that will also take him into western Pennsylvania.