By Tom Ashbrook
The first time Greta Binford really paid attention to spiders was in a Peruvian rainforest where hundreds of thousands of spiders worked together to weave webs as big as semi-trailer trucks. The young biologist — part Indiana Jones, part Spider Woman — never looked back.
She’s now tracked spiders all over the world. [...]

By Tom Ashbrook
The human papilloma virus is the most common sexually transmitted disease. A new study out yesterday finds more than a third of American women are infected before they are 24. Some HPV strains lead to cervical cancer, and cervical cancer can kill. But when Texas governor Rick Perry recently mandated [...]

By Tom Ashbrook
British playwright Michael Frayn made a huge splash on Broadway with his show “Copenhagen,” a mind-gripping drama about a World War II meeting between physicists Niels Bohr and Nazi atomic chief Werner Heisenberg. Now, the actor who played Heisenberg on screen, Daniel Craig, is off playing James Bond. And Michael Frayn [...]

By Tom Ashbrook
Imagine you’re the reporter. In a dusty field near the Baghdad airport. Surrounded by hundreds of components for making deadly roadside bombs. The US military has laid them out for your inspection. And the whole exercise is pointing the finger of blame at Iran.
It’s the third time in two [...]

It’s snowing up and down mainland America’s east coast today, and in Chicago, the airport’s been socked in. But way out mid-Pacific, in the balmy Hawaiian islands, snow is not a factor. It’s sunshine and waterfalls and a whole lot of tropical history.
We ditch the snow and head there today; in the sound of the [...]

By Tom Ashbrook
John Edwards grew up in a Carolina milltown, made a killing as a trial attorney, lost a son, won a US Senate seat, ran for president (and came closer than you might recall in the Democratic primaries), and ran on the ‘04 White House ticket with John Kerry — all before he was [...]

The Oscars are this Sunday, and the competition for Best Picture remains as wide open as it has been in years.
It’s a mystery which way Academy voters will go, as all of the “Big Five” films seem to have a chance. Will it be “Babel,” “The Departed,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” or [...]

In the news this week: a whole lot of yin and yang.
Tony Blair says he’s bringing some troops home from Iraq at the same time Prince Harry readies to deploy.
Tehran ignores another USN deadline. The US and allies ready for a showdown.
On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama lock horns in a battle [...]

Never has the phrase “the buck stops here” had so much relevance. Thanks to the boundary-pusher that is technology, the days of cash may soon be no more. The future is called electronic money, and soon millions of people will be paying for their purchases not with dollars and cents, but key chains and mobile [...]

Nigeria is rich with oil, producing more than Iraq and Kuwait combined. The country is the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the United States. And it’s “light sweet crude,” …a dreamy kind of oil that needs little refinement.
But, the communities closest to the drills and platforms — the people of the Niger Delta — live [...]

Daniel Tammet’s mind works in extraordinary ways. He can calculate huge sums in his head in moments.
He came to fame a few years ago when he recited pi to the 22,514th digit without skipping a beat. He speaks 10 languages. Learn Islandic and Lithuanian in a week? No problem.
Daniel Tammet has a rare form [...]

Iraqis working and studying in America live with the gnawing fear that their friends and family could be the next victims. They know every cell phone call could bring bad news.
It’s an expatriate life of frequent nightmares and frantic emails each time the media reports another bombing.
Iraqis know firsthand the pain and anxiety of living [...]

Writer Sara Davidson on lost love, no sex and other middle-age dilemmas. And she answers the question: “What Will We do with the rest of our lives?”
Guests:
Sara Davidson, author of “Leap! What WIll We Do wioth the Rest of Our Lives?”

It’s that stage in life somewhere between what we once were and what many try to hold on to – sometimes desperately. Futilely.
It’s the point where choices narrow into thin slivers of possibilities. The passage from middle age into that later, often unspoken stage.
Author Sara Davidson hit the panic button in her late [...]

We’ll talk with the Afghanistan Ambassador to the United States, Said Jawad about the current threats to his country’s peace and security.
Guests:
Afghanistan Ambassador to the United States, Said T. Jawad

Lately, it’s easy to assume that Al Qaeda is hardly what it was.
That since its massive attack on September 11th it’s been beleaguered, aching for solid leadership, and struggling wildly to regroup.
And – in tandem with the war on terror – in the geopolitical background.
But new reports suggest otherwise – that Al Qaeda is back.
This [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson.
“Green building” is becoming increasingly popular in home and commercial building construction. Buildings in this country are energy hogs, consuming more energy than cars and trucks by a two to one margin.
Many Americans associate “green construction” with higher prices and inconvenience. But the cost of environmentally-friendly technology — such as energy-efficient [...]

The United States is immersed more deeply than ever in the Muslim world’s sectarian divide. A five-part series explores the split between Shia and Sunnis, from its origins shortly after the death of Muhammed in the seventh century to the modern-day upheaval in Iraq.
We talk with NPR reporter Mike Shusterabout Islam’s Sunni-Shia split and how [...]

By Tom Ashbrook.
Eighty-five percent of American parents believe it’s important to tell their kids they’re smart. And 85 percent of American parents may be wrong.
In recent years, the self-esteem movement born in the 1960s has run into some serious opposition when it comes to scholars who think about raising kids.
You think telling young sons [...]

By Tom Ashbrook.
Winston Churchill famously said “jaw jaw” is better than “war war” – that talking is better than fighting. This week, Americans had both. Debate on the Hill. War in Iraq.
And there were other notable pairings. A negotiated breakthrough with North Korea that left Pyongyang, for now, with nuclear bombs. [...]