Talk Of The Nation

When Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich used the word "slacks" in a recent column, a reader commented: "Slacks? How old are you?"

"I was describing a young man, a college guy," Schmich tells NPR's Neal Conan. "I was trying to point out that he wasn't wearing jeans, that he wasn't sloppy, that he wasn't inordinately well-dressed for a guy in college," she says. "And so I used the word 'slacks.' "

A NASA spacecraft captured the clearest recording yet of what space sounds like inside Earth's radiation belts. Craig Kletzing, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa, explains what causes these eerie chirping noises, and what we can learn from them.

A professor spends his off-time tracking the little things in life that bother us. Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, tells us what poor parking, long waits in the doctor's office, and the controversial brussel sprout tell us about science.

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FLORA LICHTMAN, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Flora Lichtman, filling in for Ira Flatow today. The moon, it's our nearest neighbor, but we don't know much about where our companion came from. In the 1800s, Charles Darwin's son, Sir George Darwin, proposed that maybe the moon just popped off from the Earth when the Earth was spinning much faster than it is today.

In less than a month, the 2012 presidential election turned from an almost certain victory for President Obama to a neck-and-neck race. New York Times blogger and statistician Nate Silver and Princeton neuroscientist Sam Wang talk about making sense of the polls--and why not all votes are created equal.

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Lance Armstrong has resigned from his charity and lost millions of dollars in endorsements, days after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released its report alleging a widespread doping conspiracy inside his cycling team. In the court of public opinion, at least, the verdict seems to be in on Armstrong.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Almost exactly 33 years ago, Iranian activists stormed the American Embassy in Tehran and held 52 U.S. citizens hostage for well over a year. But six American diplomats escaped the embassy at the last minute and took refuge in the home of Canada's ambassador. A new movie called "Argo" tells the story of a CIA agent, played by Ben Affleck, who dreams up a plan to get them out of Iran, disguised as a film crew scouting locations for a science fiction movie. Here, he presents his idea to the secretary of state.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "ARGO")

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington. After a two-year battle in court, lawyers in Portland, Oregon, said - last hour - that they'd release hundreds of confidential files kept by the Boy Scouts of America, on men they suspected of sexual abuse. The files went public online, within the last few minutes.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Binders full of women, Benghazi blame and ancient history now, there was a vice presidential debate last week. It's Wednesday and time for a...

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Bunch of malarkey...

CONAN: Edition of the Political Junkie.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: There you go again.

VICE PRESIDENT WALTER MONDALE: When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: Where's the beef?