Talk Of The Nation

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Time for our monthly meeting of the SCIENCE FRIDAY Book Club. Here with me are SCIENCE FRIDAY's multimedia editor, Flora Lichtman, and our senior producer, Annette Heist. And this month we have the physics - physics on our to-do list, right? A classic book by Richard Feynman, Annette?

ANNETTE HEIST, BYLINE: That's right. It is called "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character."

FLATOW: How did we pick that one?

Social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, have been important parts of this year's presidential campaigns. As Americans prepare to head to the polls, experts discuss social media's influence on politics, and whether Twitter can predict who will win the election.

Earthquakes, terrorist attacks and muggings have all scared people to death. Sporting events, too, sometimes cause frenzied fans to drop dead. Neurologist Martin Samuels of Brigham and Women's Hospital explains how positive or negative excitement can lead to a heart-stopping surge of adrenaline.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Next up, the science of monsters. Like most myths, there are some real-world phenomena behind the stories. Take vampires, for example. Let me read you a passage from Bram Stoker's "Dracula," where Professor Van Helsing describes the monster.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Up next, time for our Video Pick of the Week. Flora Lichtman, our multimedia editor is here.

Hi, Flora.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ira.

FLATOW: You have a super-duper, super-duper this week.

LICHTMAN: Yes, and we have one of our listeners to thank. It is about - this week's video is about humans who fly.

FLATOW: Humans who - well, you get in the plane and you fly.

Vaccination campaigns have erased polio in almost every country in the world, but the disease persists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Obstacles in each country, including religious extremism, difficult terrain and transient populations, make eradication efforts difficult.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Most would describe the Middle East peace process as stuck somewhere between impasse and stalemate and not likely to budge anytime soon. Still, a delegation of respected world leaders is visiting Middle East capitals to see if moral power can effect change. They're members of The Elders, some of the most respected leaders of recent history. They look to restart dialogue on some of the world's most intractable disputes and call attention to violations of human rights.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Two dozen dead and hundreds sickened from contaminated drugs with probably more to come. The outbreak of fungal meningitis has scared many thousands more who received injections of what may have been tainted steroids from a now-closed facility in Massachusetts, which called itself a compounding pharmacy.

Many scientists expressed outrage after an Italian court convicted six earthquake experts of manslaughter for not doing enough to warn the public before a 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people. NPR foreign correspondent Sylvia Poggioli talks about the trial and other recent events in Italy.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. As of Monday, the procedure of freezing women's eggs is no longer experimental. The announcement from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine should make the controversial practice more widely available and increase pressure on insurance companies to pay for it.