Talk of the Nation

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on previous show topics including the controversy over homeless hotspots, why some songs get stuck in our heads, and sober advice for former Illinois Governor Blagojevich as he begins a long sentence in federal prison.

Sgt. Robert Bales is expected to be charged with murdering 16 civilians in Afghanistan. It raises questions about how the military screens troops. Former Surgeon General of the Army, Ret. Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, and Ret. Brig. Gen. Steve Xenakis talk about how the military tests mental fitness.

After more than a week of grueling days on a dog sled, Dallas Seavey won 2012's Iditarod, beating his father and grandfather in the process. The race took off from Willow, Alaska, on March 4, Seavey's 25th birthday. Nine days, 4 hours and 29 minutes later, he crossed the finish line in Nome as the youngest musher ever to win the race.

Seavey talks with NPR's Neal Conan about the extreme conditions of the Iditarod, from freezing dogs to sleepless nights, and what it means to be in a legacy racing family.

In recent months, a swarm of controversies have erupted over issues of women's health — from the split in the Catholic church over employer coverage of contraceptives to the proposed ultrasound laws in Virginia and Texas to the uproar over funding for Planned Parenthood.

Three weeks after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, no arrests have been made in what critics are calling a case of racial profiling. Columnist Leonard Pitts says the incident exposes society's "blindness" to African-Americans.

Former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi could face 10 years in prison and deportation to his native India after being convicted of bias intimidation. Ravi used a webcam to spy on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, having an intimate encounter with another man. Clementi killed himself several days later.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

The world's tallest peak. It's so iconic. It's so classic. You'd think we'd have learned everything there is to know about it by now, but you'd be wrong. Scientists still can't even agree on the exact height of the mountain. And what's more, they're not even sure what kind of rocks the mountaintop is made of.

Business and political leaders have repeatedly warned that America's scientists and engineers are in short supply. However, some economists say the numbers indicate the opposite — a glut of high-tech workers. A panel of experts debate whether America's schools produce the scientific workforce needed to compete globally.

Estimated altitude for this flight was about 115,000 feet, says Raul Oaida, 18-years-old. Raul launched the shuttle, along with a video camera and a GPS tracker, by way of a large helium balloon. Flight time was about three hours--the shuttle landing about 150 miles south of where it took off.

Astrophysicist Adam Riess shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 for his work on distant supernovae, which demonstrated that the universe was not only expanding--but that its expansion was accelerating. Now he's hunting for clues that might explain why, and one of the prime suspects is a mysterious force known as dark energy.