Talk of the Nation

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Starting route to Empire State Building: Head northwest on West 43rd Street.

FLATOW: That's the voice of Apple's maps app for iOS 6. She sounds confident enough, but how do you know she'll actually lead you to the correct destination? Because as users all over the world have figured out, Apple's maps and their driving directions have some serious problems. Apple has even apologized for it.

A recent study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania identified key molecules involved in forming long-term memories. Experts discuss how this is the latest in a growing field of research on how our bodies regulate our genes, and how this process affects our memories.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Flora Lichtman is here with our Video Pick of the Week. Hi, Flora.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ira.

FLATOW: What you got for us this week?

LICHTMAN: This week's video pick is about a very menacing creature, and I want to give our listeners a chance to guess what it is based on some clues from University of Montana, biologist Doug Emlen and Erin McCullough.

ERIN MCCULLOUGH: These males have a giant pitchfork sticking out of their forehead.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

In the aftermath of death, many adults struggle with how to talk to kids while dealing with their own grief. Often, the instinct is to protect children from pain and loss. That can sometimes leave kids out of the family grieving process, which can leave them feeling lonely and misunderstood.

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LYNN NEARY, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Lynn Neary. Mitt Romney proved he could go head-to-head with President Obama in the first of three presidential debates last night in Denver. Romney's strong performance gave Republicans renewed hope for his chance at the White House.

Dominican-American novelist Junot Diaz was awarded a MacArthur "genius grant" and the no-strings-attached $500,000 prize that comes with it. The Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Brief And Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao talks about the grant, his writing process and how the award may affect his work.

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LYNN NEARY, HOST:

The Oxford English Dictionary needs your help. Do you know where words like disco, baked Alaska or email come from? For years the widely regarded authority in the English language has asked the public for help tracking down the history of words and phrases. Yet as our lexicon evolves, the mission grows even tougher. A new initiative called OED Appeals hopes to solve that problem by using that same crowdsourcing approach online.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan broadcasting today from the University of Missouri St. Louis at Grand Center, home of St. Louis Public Radio. T.S. Eliot, who grew up here, wrote a poem about the Mississippi, which flows about three miles from here.