Talk of the Nation

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Last month, customers of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo and several other banks were unable to access their bank accounts. Hackers overwhelmed the sites with traffic that made them extremely slow or totally unresponsive. No funds were lost, but it was a nuisance.

Months earlier in Saudi Arabia, a virus named Shamoon spread through 30,000 of the computers of ARAMCO, the world's largest oil company, and erased file after file.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Few stories in the 20th century are more tragic than the fate of Cambodia, a small, peaceful country on the sidelines of the war in Vietnam. Cambodia would be invaded by both sides, carpet-bombed by the United States, taken over by murderous Maoists, invaded again by the Vietnamese and left to wither for a decade by a grotesque, international impasse.

Douglas Groat traveled the world for the Central Intelligence Agency, breaking into foreign embassies and stealing secret codes. But then he questioned his superiors about one operation that nearly failed. His subsequent battle with the CIA led to accusations of extortion and four years in prison.

For older drivers and their families, the conversation about giving up the car keys can be wrenching. Driving, for many, means independence and the transition to life without a car can be challenging, particularly for those who live alone or in areas with limited access to public transportation.

In three weeks, millions of Americans cast their vote for president in an election that both campaigns depict as a stark choice between two fundamentally different visions for the country. But the chief executive's power is limited in real ways, by Congress, foreign interests, and other players.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Fifty years ago this week, a team of researchers at General Electric created something new: a solid-state device that could emit visible red light without getting hot like a light bulb. Other groups have made light-emitting devices, but this was the first practical one that could make light that a person could see, rather than invisible infrared light.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY; I'm Ira Flatow. The 2012 Nobel Prizes were announced this week in Stockholm, and groundbreaking research on stem cells, cloning, cell receptors and quantum optics, yeah, claimed the honors this year. The physics prize was awarded to French physicist Serge Haroche and American David Wineland of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Next Tuesday, marijuana will have its day in court because the United States Court of Appeals is set to hear arguments about the drug's therapeutic and medicinal effects. But some doctors, like one of my next guests, disagrees with the government's ban on medical use of marijuana, pointing to the drug's ability to suppress nausea, stimulate the appetite, relieve pain, improve sleep, even fight cancer cells, in test tubes at least.

Corning's Gorilla Glass isn't totally unbreakable, as anyone who's dropped a smartphone knows. But it's twice as durable as regular glass--at half the thickness. How do they do it? Dave Velasquez, director of marketing and commercial operations for Gorilla Glass, talks about the innovations that make this ultrastrong, ultralight glass possible.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. 21 years ago this week, way back in October of 1991 on the first ever episode of SCIENCE FRIDAY, one of our show topics was the ozone hole, that bite out of the Earth's ozone layer caused by chemicals in our refrigerators, air conditioners, cans of hairspray. Our guest that day was the late Sherwood Rowland, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize for his work on the ozone hole.