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The Two-Way
12:41 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

Nation's Worst Dressers Are In Anchorage, Survey Says

Credit Michael Dinneen / AP
High fashion in Anchorage. (Just kidding! It's a photo from the 2011 Iditarod.)

Which U.S. city has the worst-dressed citizens?

According to readers of Travel and Leisure magazine, it's Anchorage.

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Health Care
12:35 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

Can Technology Deliver Better Health Care?

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. If you have trouble sleeping, your doctor might send you to a sleep lab and spend $3,000 a night to chart your sleep cycle, or you could do the same thing at home with a commercially available headband, which wirelessly transmits your sleep data to your smartphone for under 100 bucks.

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It's All Politics
12:30 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

May Jobless Report Keeps Obama On Defensive, Aids Romney's Offense

Credit Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Military veterans Kris Hummel (l) and Shane Foley, speak with a TSA representative at a May 15, 2012 job fair in Utica, NY.

Originally published on Fri June 1, 2012 2:04 pm

How to convince voters that while the economy isn't roaring, the situation is still improving?

That's President Obama's challenge, made more difficult with every passing month where the jobs report disappoints, as on Friday. The latest Labor Department report informed us that only 69,000 jobs were created in May, less than half what analysts had forecast. Meanwhile, the jobless rate ticked up a tenth of a percentage point to 8.2 percent.

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Science
12:29 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

Lightning Bug Of A Different Color

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

And now for our Video Pick of the Week. Flora's still here and positioned perfectly to take us on a safari.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: We're still on safari.

FLATOW: We're still on safari.

LICHTMAN: The safari continues, this time to slightly larger organisms. See if you can see with your naked eye, and maybe in your own backyard. These guys are glow-in-the-dark - I have you already, don't I?

FLATOW: Yeah.

LICHTMAN: Millipedes - which, I didn't know - let me - can I tell you the story of how this came about?

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The Two-Way
12:28 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

Obama, Romney Have Sharply Different Takes On Weak Jobs News

Earlier, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney blamed what he said have been President Obama's "failed" economic policies for the nation's stubbornly high unemployment rate and weak job growth.

In Minnesota this hour, President Obama conceded "we've got a lot of work to do before we get to where we need to be," but also claimed credit for policies that he said prevented another Great Depression after the financial crisis of 2008.

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The Two-Way
12:22 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

Catholic Nun Group Rejects Vatican Report That Found Them Afoul Of Doctrine

Credit Andrew Medichini / AP
American nuns attend Mass at Sant'Apollinare in Rome.

The board of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents most nuns in the United States, rejected a report from the Vatican that found they were running afoul of church doctrine.

The report, which among other things expressed concerned about the group's "radical feminism," was issued in April and ruled that an American archbishop would bring the nuns back in line.

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NPR Story
12:10 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

Paralyzed Rats Walk, Even Sprint After Rehab

Originally published on Fri June 1, 2012 12:18 pm

Reporting in Science, researchers write that a combination of therapies, willpower and chocolate helped rats with severe spinal cord injuries learn to walk and even run again. Neurobiologist Moses Chao, not affiliated with the study, discusses the rehab method and whether it could work in humans.

NPR Story
12:10 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

Why Ignorance Trumps Knowledge In Scientific Pursuit

Originally published on Fri June 1, 2012 12:22 pm

In Ignorance: How It Drives Science, neuroscientist Stuart Firestein writes that science is often like looking for a black cat in a dark room, and there may not be a cat in the room. Firestein discusses why the hit-or-miss process, the "not knowing" is the true engine of science.

NPR Story
12:10 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

The Many Lifestyles Of Muck-Dwelling Microbes

Originally published on Fri June 1, 2012 12:26 pm

Scientists at the University of Leeds are exploring ways to use magnetic bacteria to build biocomputers of the future. Meanwhile, another group of researchers, reporting in Science, write that they have unearthed deep-sea microbe that live off nutrients from the dinosaur age.

NPR Story
12:10 pm
Fri June 1, 2012

Remembering A Son In 'Immortal Bird'

Originally published on Fri June 1, 2012 12:42 pm

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. For the rest of the hour, a look at an extraordinary life and a heartbreaking loss. In his new memoir "Immortal Bird," Doron Weber takes us to the inner circle of his family, where we meet his son Damon, a smart, likeable, aspiring actor born with a congenital heart defect. At 16, Damon undergoes a heart transplant, and his short life ends not long after in the ICU of a hospital that, according to Doron, seemed to botch his care in multiple and unimaginable ways.

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