Talk of the Nation

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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.

The 2012 Nobel Prize winners were announced this week, and research on stem cells, cloning, cell receptors and quantum optics took center stage. Experts discuss how the work of this year's Nobel laureates changed our understanding of our bodies, and the world around us.

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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.

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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.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

As the end of the year draws near, politicians and economists are again warning of the consequences of the "fiscal cliff." David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, sorts through the politics and numbers to explain how the government came to the precipice of the fiscal cliff.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

No woman can have it all, words that may come as a surprise from the president of one of the country's premier women's colleges. In an article in Newsweek, Deborah Spar, president of Barnard, says women's liberation created incompatible expectations: the perfect wife and mother who breastfeeds and whips up sachertorte for the bake sale and puts in a 60-hour week in a high-power job. Women, she argues, need to acknowledge biological differences, stop striving for perfection and start recruiting others, men and women, to build happier lives.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Columbus, Ohio, today. over the past week, the crisis in Syria deepened as the conflict spilled across the border with Turkey. While stray rounds from the civil war landed on Turkish soil from time to time, Ankara chose to look the other way until a mortar bomb struck a house last Friday and killed five civilians, including women and children.

To mark the bicentennial of the War of 1812, the Ohio Historical Society's new exhibit features important artifacts and information on the war and Ohio's role in it. The exhibit, "War of 1812: Ohio on the Front Line," features memorabilia that tells the stories of the people behind the war.