Talk of the Nation on HD-2

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. From the Harlem Renaissance to black power, Langston Hughes spoke to the life of African-Americans. The neglected son of a famous abolitionist family, he immersed himself in books. Eighteen years old and just out of high school, he saw sunset on the muddy Mississippi from a train and wrote the poem that introduced the world to Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers."

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

You may remember Anthony Mackie as the uptight sergeant who defused bombs in Baghdad with Jeremy Renner in the Oscar-winner "The Hurt Locker."

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE HURT LOCKER")

JEREMY RENNER: (as Sergeant First Class William James) That wasn't so bad. First time working together. What do you think?

ANTHONY MACKIE: (as Sergeant J.T. Sanborn) I think us working together means I talk to you and you talk to me.

RENNER: (as Sergeant First Class William James) We going on a date, Sanborn?

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. The good news, even in the recession, came from American manufacturing. Output is up one-third over the past decade. But over just about that same period of time, six million manufacturing jobs disappeared. About as many people work in manufacturing now as did at the end of the Depression, though our population has more than doubled.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

After a few more days of escalating hoopla, the Super Bowl between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots kicks off on Sunday evening, but whether you've got a small financial interest in the game or if you're just waiting for the ads, there are stories on the field in Indianapolis - the Brady legacy, salsa dancer Victor Cruz, hometown boy Mathias Kiwanuka, and of course the medical epic of the high-ankle sprain. What story will you follow in Super Bowl XLVI?

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

A report by NPR and ProPublica finds that Freddie Mac bet billions of dollars against homeowners' ability to refinance their mortgages. Public documents show Freddie Mac sought to make gains through complex securities which would make money for Freddie Mac, but homeowners with high-interest rate loans would not be able to qualify for refinancing. This is not illegal, but it does raise questions about a conflict of interest within a federally-owned company that is supposed to make getting a mortgage easier.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan.

Violence persists around Damascus as protesters continue to urge President Bashar al-Assad's to step down. The Arab League has suspended its monitoring mission and the United Nations Security Council is considering a resolution condemning al-Assad's regime.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Paywall skeptic Clay Shirky long maintained that barriers to newspaper websites were counterproductive and self-defeating, that online readers accustomed to getting the news for free would find another way or another source of news.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Time now for our Video Pick of the Week. Flora Lichtman, our multimedia editor is here. Hi, Flora.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ira.

FLATOW: Good video as always.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: Yeah. This one is about something that I encounter every day, and I think of it as little more than a beverage cooler or maybe a nuisance on my commute to work. I'm talking about ice. But it turns out that ice was way more interesting than I knew before (unintelligible)...

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Stem cell therapy, it seems, is always promising, promising to cure diseases or illnesses. And this week, a study using embryonic stem cells has increased the hope of fulfilling some of those promises.