Talk of the Nation

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. And topic A in this city remains the Supreme Court decision on health care handed down on Thursday. President Obama claims validation of his signature legislative achievement. Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, vow to repeal it.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

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

Twelve years after it was voted out of office, the PRI, Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, reclaimed the presidency in yesterday's election. PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto won 38 percent of the vote. He promised new style and new substance for a party long accused of corruption, deals with drug lords, and authoritarian rule. In a pre-election op-ed for the Dallas Morning News, Jesus Velasco asked whether the U.S. can trust Mexico's new administration.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. This weekend, three members of the crew onboard the International Space Station will be returning to Earth after over six months in orbit. Flora Lichtman had a chance to chat with some of them, and she's here with us. Hi, Flora.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ira. That's right, just another day at SCIENCE FRIDAY, calling space.

(LAUGHTER)

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. It's not often that people pay tribute, even eulogize, an animal, unless it's a famous film star like Lassie or maybe Trigger. But this week, they are remembering Lonesome George, the famous giant Galapagos tortoise thought to be over 100 years old and the last known member of his subspecies.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

When it comes to climate change, you've heard of melting icecaps and rising sea levels, but just how high will the sea levels rise in 20, 30 or 100 years? Will it be enough to notice the difference? New research now says the oceans will swallow up more and more of our coastline, rising not just inches but feet according to two new reports released by the National Research Council and the U.S. Geological Survey.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY; I'm Ira Flatow. Imagine walking through Times Square, and every step you take it converted into a tiny electric current by the special pavement underfoot. Now multiply by the third of a million people who walk through Times Square on any given day. Wow, it could be a pretty awesome source of renewable energy, right, perhaps enough to power all those neon lights and flashing billboards.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy hit the big screen again next week. The new movie "The Amazing Spider-Man" opens on July 3rd. And once you accept the premise that a man can get super spidey skills from a radioactive - sorry to laugh - spider bite, well, you know, just like Johnny Carson used to say, you buy the premise, you buy the bit.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Your telephone is a computer, really. Your microwave, it's got a computer in it. Your television, it's got a computer there. Even, of course, your computer has a computer. Your iPhone, your cellphone. Everything - just about everything in electronics these days has a computer, and they all work the same way like a Turing machine. Decades before your PC, your Mac or your Commodore, Alan Turing was designing a machine which could calculate almost anything: a universal computer.

While he's best known for his aural pursuits, musician and DJ Moby has been taking photographs for years. He released his 2011 photo book, Destroyed, to accompany an album of the same name.

The book offers a visual journey of a touring musician's insomnia. Isolated and disoriented by jet lag and strange hotels, Moby shows readers what it's like to roam the world at hours when most of us are sleeping.

Conventional wisdom holds that happier workers are also more productive. But precisely how to boost staff morale has eluded many employers. But some researchers say there are specific ways companies can build a better workplace, from moving coffee stations to increasing diversity.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan at the Aspen Ideas Festival, but the big news today comes from Washington, where the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's health care law in a series of five-to-four votes. In a surprise, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four liberal members of the court.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

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

While fires don't affect us here in Aspen, other parts of Colorado face dire conditions. In Fort Collins, firefighters and the National Guard have been attempting to contain the huge High Park Fire burning for two weeks now. It's destroyed hundreds of homes and scorched tens of thousands of acres. A lightning-sparked wildfire erupted near Boulder yesterday, but the focus right now is in Colorado Springs where fire swept into the city and forced more than 30,000 people to evacuate their homes.