Talk of the Nation

How does blood doping boost performance in events like the Tour de France? Do anabolic steroids help the world's fastest man run faster? In his book, Run, Swim, Throw, Cheat , Chris Cooper discusses how these banned drugs work, or don't — and how they are detected.

The world record for high jump — the event in which a person hurdles himself over a horizontal bar — is just over 8 feet. That's like leaping over a stop sign, and clearing it by a foot. Jesus Dapena, of Indiana University, has studied the high jump for 30 years, filming athletes to understand exactly how they produce the force required to clear the bar.

Antarctica has 90 percent of the world's ice--and it's melting. Ice sheet guru Bob Bindschadler talks about climate change in Antarctica, and rising sea levels across the globe. Plus, biologist Diana Wall talks about hidden life in the barren Dry Valleys, and microbe hunter John Priscu talks about "bugs in the ice."

Florida's Aquarius Reef Base is the only working undersea lab left today. But now that federal funds have dried up, it may be forced to surface. Oceanographer Sylvia Earle joins Science Friday from inside Aquarius, 60 feet underwater, to talk about sponges, corals and other life she's observed on the reef.

The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that more than 80 percent of the continental U.S. is either in a drought or considered "abnormally dry". Farmers and ranchers in the corn and soybean belt are feeling the effects, and the impact is rippling through other economic sectors as well.

On a recent routine stop at his local dry cleaners, Keith Woods encountered a racist remark and he wrestled with how to respond. NPR's Vice President for Diversity in News and Operations talks about facing stereotypes and the difficult conversations precipitated by offensive remarks.

For a second time, attorneys for George Zimmerman, who is accused of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, have filed a complaint requesting that the judge presiding over his case be recused over concerns of bias. These objections raise questions about judge impartiality.

Mitt Romney has been chastised for his refusal to release tax returns for more than the last two tax years. In a piece for McClatchy Newspapers, congressional and economic correspondent David Lightman points out that just 17 of 535 members of Congress have provided tax returns when asked.

In the documentary Fixing the Future, reporter David Brancaccio travels across the country following people who are working to reinvent the U.S. economy. Through innovative approaches to job creation and wealth, Americans are rethinking how we measure prosperity.

After 14 years, congressional correspondent Andrea Seabrook is leaving NPR to produce a podcast and blog called DecodeDC. Seabrook reflects on a decade spent covering Capitol Hill and how America's public policies and institutions have changed.

From record-breaking temperatures to long droughts, extreme weather events are on the rise. Many meteorologists and climatologists say it's only going to get worse. Many cities are putting plans in place to prepare for a range of costly and deadly weather disasters.

With the veepstakes underway, NPR's Jennifer Ludden and Political Junkie Ken Rudin talk with Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, about the strategy of selecting a vice-presidential candidate.

Like millions of American parents, author Sally Koslow sent her children off to college, only to have them return home due to a bad economy and limited job options. In Slouching Toward Adulthood, Koslow shares her research and interviews on the phase she calls "adultescence."

Over half of U.S. states will have to close a combined budget gap of 55 billion dollars, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in the 2013 fiscal year. To avoid raising taxes, most states are implementing continued cuts to deal with budget shortfalls.

A year after South Sudan declared its independence, intractable problems remain: tribal conflict, oil disputes, corruption, hunger and continued fighting. New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson traveled to the remote Nuba Mountains, in Sudan, where the conflict between north and south rages on.