Talk of the Nation on KUER 1

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan.

It may be months before we know the details of exactly what happened inside the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, a week ago. But with the benefit of time, GQ correspondent Sean Flynn has given us new perspectives on the massacre in Norway, where Anders Breivik murdered 77 people and wounded many more almost exactly a year ago. After he set off a bomb outside government offices in downtown Oslo, Breivik shot dozens, mostly teenagers at a summer camp on an isolated island named Utoya.

As drought and high temperatures continue to devastate much of the country's corn and soybean crops, the USDA reports that food prices will continue to rise at least into 2013. NPR senior business editor Marilyn Geewax and The Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown discuss the rising cost of food.

After their victories in 2010, the prominence and influence of the Tea Party waned, and the future of the movement remains unclear. NPR's Political Junkie columnist Ken Rudin and Bruce Buchanan, professor at the University of Texas at Austin, talk about the influence of the Tea Party in Texas.

Like many high school students, Thomas Martinez and Tamara Hardy dreamed of leaving for college and finding their futures away from home. But both grew up on a Navajo reservation and were torn, between those aspirations and their strong ties to their poverty-stricken community.

Martinez struggles to balance the needs of his family with plans to run track in college. Hardy wants to earn an engineering degree away from home, yet like many Native parents, her mother and father are reluctant to see her leave.

The Boy Scouts of America recently reaffirmed its longtime policy of excluding openly gay members. While some praised the group, a growing number of adult Eagle Scouts are returning their badges in protest of the policy, including Kelsey Timmerman, who worries about the moral integrity of the BSA.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

It's Tuesday, and time to read from your comments. Last week, we spoke with Sally Koslow about the difficulties many young people experience as try to leave home and why the lack of jobs and enormous student loan debt can soon send them back to live with mom and dad. Chris Mall(ph) in Bradford, New Hampshire, responded: I don't know a single boomerang child who doesn't want to be self-sufficient. Ms. Koslow fails to recognize that young people are not letting opportunities pass by, he wrote. Those opportunities are no longer available.

Spain's recession has deepened and Spanish borrowing rates are at the highest level since the euro was introduced in 1999. Walter Russell Mead of The American Interest and Steven Erlanger of the New York Times talk about the long-term political effects of the euro crisis.

Now is not the time to pull back on military and foreign engagement, according to former Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy. In Foreign Affairs, she argues that strategic military deployments abroad, a policy of "forward engagement," help preserve the United States' standing in the world.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Since the early years of the AIDS epidemic, talk of a cure became almost taboo. In the past few years, advances in prevention and treatment became increasingly effective. Now some researchers say it's time to shift focus and resources to finding a cure. So why now, what's changed, and how close are we? If you have questions about the search for a cure for HIV/AIDS, give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can join the conversation on our website as well. That's at npr.org.

Events like the mass shooting that killed 12 people and wounded dozes more in Aurora, Colorado can remind survivors of past massacres about their experiences. Edward Smith, a reporter with the Denver Post at the time of the Columbine shooting, and callers talk about what's been learned.

Pointing to an "unprecedented failure" at the top levels of Penn State leadership, the NCAA announced wide-ranging sanctions against the football program. NPR sports correspondent Mike Pesca talks about public reaction and what it could mean for the future of Penn State football.

People diagnosed with conditions including autism, Alzheimer's and dementia often wander. Dean King of Outside Magazine, Robert Koester of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, and Dr. James Harris talk about why, and the challenges of search and rescue missions to find them.

Before the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, U.S. sprinter Lauryn Williams accepted that her father, who was suffering from leukemia, wouldn't be there to see her compete in the 100-meter dash. But when residents of her hometown in Rochester, Pa., heard about it, they raised enough money to send her father and several other family members to Athens.

"I was very surprised," Williams tells NPR's Neal Conan. "It was really a great experience just to see everyone rally together."

The world record for high jump — the event in which a person hurdles himself over a horizontal bar — is just over 8 feet. That's like leaping over a stop sign, and clearing it by a foot. Jesus Dapena, of Indiana University, has studied the high jump for 30 years, filming athletes to understand exactly how they produce the force required to clear the bar.

Florida's Aquarius Reef Base is the only working undersea lab left today. But now that federal funds have dried up, it may be forced to surface. Oceanographer Sylvia Earle joins Science Friday from inside Aquarius, 60 feet underwater, to talk about sponges, corals and other life she's observed on the reef.

Antarctica has 90 percent of the world's ice--and it's melting. Ice sheet guru Bob Bindschadler talks about climate change in Antarctica, and rising sea levels across the globe. Plus, biologist Diana Wall talks about hidden life in the barren Dry Valleys, and microbe hunter John Priscu talks about "bugs in the ice."

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(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PERCEPTION)

ERIC MCCORMACK: (As Doctor Daniel Pierce) In this class, we're interested in what goes on in the brain. And if we were to put someone in an FMRI machine and watch what happens when they make up a lie, we'd see their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex light up like a Christmas tree...

(LAUGHTER)

MCCORMACK: (As Doctor Daniel Pierce) ...because we use our brains when we lie. We use our brains when we're being lied to. But can the brain ever lie to itself?

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Engineers say technologies like spray-on clothing and 3D-printed shoes could help future Olympians break records. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers' Philippa Oldham discusses how technology impacts sporting performance and why engineers should work closely with regulators.

How does blood doping boost performance in events like the Tour de France? Do anabolic steroids help the world's fastest man run faster? In his book, Run, Swim, Throw, Cheat , Chris Cooper discusses how these banned drugs work, or don't — and how they are detected.

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JENNIFER LUDDEN, HOST:

The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that more than 80 percent of the continental U.S. is either in a drought or considered "abnormally dry". Farmers and ranchers in the corn and soybean belt are feeling the effects, and the impact is rippling through other economic sectors as well.

On a recent routine stop at his local dry cleaners, Keith Woods encountered a racist remark and he wrestled with how to respond. NPR's Vice President for Diversity in News and Operations talks about facing stereotypes and the difficult conversations precipitated by offensive remarks.

For a second time, attorneys for George Zimmerman, who is accused of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, have filed a complaint requesting that the judge presiding over his case be recused over concerns of bias. These objections raise questions about judge impartiality.

After 14 years with NPR and nearly a decade covering Congress, Andrea Seabrook is striking out on her own. She began her career in the marbled halls of Capitol Hill before Twitter, before the Tea Party, before the first female House speaker and before that institution's approval ratings sank to near single digits.

Seabrook is launching a blog and podcast called DecodeDC.

From record-breaking temperatures to long droughts, extreme weather events are on the rise. Many meteorologists and climatologists say it's only going to get worse. Many cities are putting plans in place to prepare for a range of costly and deadly weather disasters.

With the veepstakes underway, NPR's Jennifer Ludden and Political Junkie Ken Rudin talk with Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, about the strategy of selecting a vice-presidential candidate.

In the documentary Fixing the Future, reporter David Brancaccio traveled across America to talk to people who are working to reinvent the American economy. Through innovative approaches to creating jobs and wealth — like time banking, worker cooperatives, local currencies and community banking — Americans are rethinking how we measure prosperity and calculate GDP.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden talks with Brancaccio about new experiments in the economy of the future.

Making close friends after college can be challenging. As the days of dorm life, dining halls and synchronized schedules fade, it can be tough to form solid bonds. Once marriage and children enter the scene, adults have even less say in choosing friends.

In a piece for The New York Times, writer Alex Williams explores his own changing friendships and his sometimes failed efforts to connect.

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JENNIFER LUDDEN, HOST: