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It's All Politics
3:50 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

GOP Senate Takeover Hopes Dim, But Too Early To Put On Ice

Credit Jeff Roberson / AP
Republican Rep. Todd Akin and incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill debate Friday in Columbia, Mo. McCaskill had once been considered among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats until Akin made comments about "legitimate rape." The candidates were asked about Akin's controversial statement at the start of Friday's debate.
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Originally published on Fri September 21, 2012 6:58 pm

Republican dreams of taking control of the U.S. Senate in November have been declared all but dead over the past several days by prognosticators pointing to trouble facing the party in unexpected places.

Missouri and Indiana come to mind.

But don't count Senate race analyst Jennifer Duffy among them.

"I'm not ready to call this done and over," Duffy said of the GOP's push to pick up four seats, which would definitely tip the Senate balance of power. "We seem to be in some period of transition. Whether it's permanent or not, we'll know in a couple weeks."

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The Two-Way
3:17 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

Wide Gap Remains Between NFL And Refs; League Insists On Respect For Subs

Credit Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images
Denver Broncos Coach John Fox yells at field judge Jimmy Buchanan during the Broncos' game against Atlanta Monday. Referring to the game, the NFL insisted that players and coaches give replacement referees, and the game, more respect.
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Originally published on Mon September 24, 2012 5:44 am

Despite complaints from NFL coaches and players, the league and its locked-out officials are no closer to reaching a deal than they were last week, according to reports. The two sides are separated by "significant and serious economic gaps," an anonymous source tells the AP.

A representative of the NFL Referees Association confirmed that talks had taken place, but he would not go into detail, the AP reports.

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Around the Nation
2:31 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

One Afghan Girl's Healing Journey To The U.S.

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Credit Gloria Hillard for NPR
Arefa with her host family, sisters Jami Valentine (left) and Staci Freeman. Doctors in the U.S. have been treating Arefa's third-degree burns, and also performed skin-graft surgery for the top of her head. Each morning still requires a fresh dressing.
Credit Courtesy of Solace for the Children
Valentine and Freeman greet Arefa after she arrived at LAX in June.
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Originally published on Fri September 21, 2012 9:09 pm

There is limited medical infrastructure in war-torn Afghanistan, so severely wounded children are sometimes brought to the U.S. for medical care. Doctors in America say that for one little girl, her struggle to stay alive for three years until finding her way from central Afghanistan to a hospital in Los Angeles is nothing short of a miracle.

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Education
2:13 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

New Wave Of School Integration In Birmingham, Ala.

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Credit Dan Carsen / WBHM
First-grade teacher Euginia Miller reads to her class at Avondale Elementary School in Birmingham, Ala. In this crucible of the civil rights movement, the city's schools are being reintegrated, as a handful of middle-class parents ignore the school district's poor reputation and enroll their kids in the city's public schools.
Credit Dan Carsen / WBHM
Avondale Elementary School in Birmingham, Ala. In this crucible of the civil rights movement, the city's schools are being reintegrated, as a handful of middle-class parents ignore the school district's poor reputation and enroll their kids in the city's public schools.
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Originally published on Sat September 29, 2012 6:05 pm

When Laura Kate Whitney enrolled her 4-year-old, Grey, at Avondale Elementary, a public school in Birmingham, Ala., she and her husband were bucking a trend. Whitney and her husband are white, middle-class professionals. Public schools in Birmingham are 95 percent black, and 90 percent of the students are on free or reduced lunch.

Whitney's is one of about two-dozen similar families who are not buying into the conventional tradeoff that if you live within city limits and have means, you send your kids to private schools.

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The Salt
1:21 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

Juice Maker Helps Tight End Block Thieving Teammates

Credit Carolyn Kaster / AP
Niles Paul (right) at a Redskins practice with then-teammate Tim Hightower, before the juice-stealing incidents came to light.
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Originally published on Fri September 21, 2012 3:58 pm

Niles Paul had a problem. The second-year tight end for the Washington Redskins couldn't stop his teammates from stealing his Capri Sun. You know, Capri Sun — those sugary-sweet packets of juice that come in triangular foil containers with their own straws attached.

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The Two-Way
1:19 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

Romney's 2011 Tax Return Shows He Paid At 14.1 Percent Rate, Campaign Says

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Originally published on Fri September 21, 2012 5:53 pm

Mitt Romney and his wife Ann paid $1,935,708 in federal taxes last year on income of $13,696,951, an effective tax rate for the couple of 14.1 percent, the Republican presidential nominee's campaign just reported.

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Health
12:35 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

What The Doctor Ordered: Building New Body Parts

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Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Over 115,000 Americans are currently waiting for an organ transplant, and most of them are in need of a kidney. Now, what if we could just create a kidney for them in the laboratory? One of my next guests has experimented with printing out organs using an inkjet printer, but instead of ink, he uses cells.

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Shots - Health Blog
12:29 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

'Downton Abbey' And The History Of Medical Quackery

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Credit FDA
Credit Food and Drug Administration
Outtake from a Devo show? Nope, It's an orgone accumulator. The device was touted as treatment for anemia, epilepsy and high blood pressure. In 1954, the FDA halted distribution of the devices.
Credit Science Museum of Minnesota
The Psychograph. It looks like something you'd find in your grandmother's hair salon, but this machine supposedly read the bumps on a person's head to measure personality traits.
Credit Food and Drug Administration
The Magnetron. Osteopath Peter D. Pauls claimed that by placing one foot on a red pad and one hand on a metal tube, patients could be treated for conditions ranging from rheumatoid arthritis to diabetes.
Credit Science Museum of Minnesota
The Kellogg Vibratory Chair. Though it looks like an instrument of capital punishment, this electric-powered chair was reputed to cure constipation and improve respiration. The chair shook and rattled so violently that patients had to hold firmly onto side handles.
Credit Food and Drug Administration
The Relaxacizor. Popularized by advertisements featuring unauthorized celebrity endorsements, the Relaxacizor claimed to help women drop dress sizes while reading, eating dinner, or sleeping. The machine used electrical pulses, which the FDA found to be harmful some people.
Credit Science Museum of Minnesota
The McGregor Rejuvenator. M.E. Montrude, Jr., the maker of this 1932 device, claimed that by using magnetism, radio waves and ultraviolet rays, the rejuvenator could reverse the aging process.
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By Jessica Stoller-Conrad

The third season of the television show Downton Abbey premiered in the U.K. last weekend, and if you're a dedicated follower like me, you'll know that medical tragedy is no stranger to the Crowley household.

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Books
12:29 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

The SciFri Book Club Visits 'Flatland'

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Mathematician Ian Stewart joins the Science Friday Book Club meeting to discuss Edwin Abbott's classic Flatland. The book, published in 1884 under the pseudonym "A. Square," tells the story of a two-dimensional world where women are straight lines and men are polygons.

NPR Story
12:20 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

Can Government Bans Tackle Obesity?

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Originally published on Fri September 21, 2012 12:48 pm

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

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