Did you know Mayor Michael Bloomberg has an engineering degree and built a ham radio as a child? The mayor talks about his passion for science and how it shapes the way he thinks. He also discusses plans for an applied sciences campus in New York and potential spin-offs from the project.
The first Homo sapiens appeared on the planet some 200,000 years ago. But even though they looked fully human, they didn't act fully human until they began creating symbolic art, some 100,000 years later. Paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall discusses those human origins in his book Masters of the Planet.
Coyotes were first spotted in New York City in the 1990s. Now they are thought to be permanent residents of the Bronx, and have been seen in Queens and Manhattan. Wildlife biologist Mark Weckel, of the Mianus River Gorge Preserve, is documenting their immigration through camera traps in New York City parks.
2011 brought exceptionally mild winters in most of the U.S., deadly tornadoes in the Midwest and extended drought in the West and Southwest. Kevin Trenberth, distinguished senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, discusses the correlation between climate change and extreme weather.
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Over the past several years, doctors who performed weight loss surgery noticed an unexpected benefit: Many patients no longer needed to take their medication for their diabetes.