Talk of the Nation

The big winners at the 2012 Emmy Awards included Homeland and the ABC comedy, Modern Family. Albert Ching points to the dominance of Modern Family at the Emmys as proof that the award show plays it too safe when it comes to comedy by repeatedly rewarding the same programs.

States and cities across the country face a trillion-dollar pension crisis that threatens to reduce local services, raise taxes and trim pension benefits for public employees. But sweeping reforms in Rhode Island have alleviated the state's unfunded pension liability.

With crowd-sourced funding through Kickstarter, a team of inventors are building a Solar Pocket Factory: a machine designed to print micro solar panels--like the ones used in phone chargers and garden lights. Co-inventor Shawn Frayne stopped by Flora Lichtman's backyard with a few pieces of the prototype to explain how the machine works.

New York City's Board of Health approved a controversial and first-of-its-kind soda ban earlier this month. Marion Nestle of New York University and Brian Wansink of Cornell University debate whether government regulations are an effective way to fight the obesity epidemic.

Spray-on skin, made-to-order muscle and print-out kidneys aren't just science fiction anymore. Dr. Anthony Atala and Dr. Stephen Badylak, two pioneers of regenerative medicine, talk about the latest methods for building new body parts, and the challenge of growing complex organs like the heart, liver or brain.

Mathematician Ian Stewart joins the Science Friday Book Club meeting to discuss Edwin Abbott's classic Flatland. The book, published in 1884 under the pseudonym "A. Square," tells the story of a two-dimensional world where women are straight lines and men are polygons.

Each year, Americans waste 33 million tons of food. Dana Gunders, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and author Jonathan Bloom discuss the economic and environmental impacts of food waste, and what can be done to fight the growing problem.

Gen. George McClellan's Union forces narrowly won the battle of Antietam, but he has long been blamed by historians and politicians for botching an opportunity to destroy Gen. Robert E. Lee's army and bring an early end to the Civil War. Cartographer Gene Thorp argues his critics have it wrong.

For Jews, Yom Kippur marks a time for atonement, reflection and repentance. But people of many faiths — as well as those who aren't particularly religious — have different ways of thinking about atonement, what it takes to achieve it and how it affects their lives.

When Purdue professor Daniel Aldrich and his family evacuated New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home, they took only the essentials. Although they applied for federal aid, Aldrich says it was his his social networks that came through for his family when they needed help most.

Business people, diplomats, NGO workers and others living overseas face unique challenges when their home country suddenly becomes the object of outrage. Dr. Thomas Burke, former Ambassador Prudence Bushnell, and business consultant Dave Richter talk about the trials of working under fire.

Mitt Romney's comments from a secretly-taped video at a May fundraiser create more challenges for a campaign already facing a dip in the polls. NPR'S Ken Rudin and Politico's editor-in-chief, John Harris, talk about the Romney campaign and how the tapes may affect it, and a new poll of voters.

The strike in Chicago, the nation's third-largest school district, raises questions about teachers unions nationwide. Jane Hannaway, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, and Andrew Rotherham, co-founder of Bellwether Education, explain how different teachers unions work.

It's an exclusive club: pitchers who win with the knuckleball in Major League Baseball. The New York Mets' R.A. Dickey is one of the few active starting pitchers in professional baseball who use this slower, methodical pitch, and he is one of the subjects of a new documentary, Knuckleball!

The FBI plans to move forward with a facial recognition system that's set to be fully implemented by 2014. Facial recognition is just one part of many biometric tools the FBI eventually plans to use to gather and store intelligence information, including fingerprint searches and iris scans.