Culture and Arts

"The mob quickly fanned across the 27-acre [American Embassy] compound, waving posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini. They took the ambassador’s residence, then set upon the chancery, the citadel of the embassy where most of the staff was stationed." The magazine article that provides a basis for the new movie, Argo, details the true story of the five who escaped in the Iranian hostage crisis. more »

The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body. Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop. John B. Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialisation of cells is reversible. Shinya Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later, in 2006, how intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells. more »

In the late '90s, we called NPR's Car Talk for Time Magazine's Notebook section to ask Tom and Ray which 'retired' car would they like to see revived. Their producer, Dougie Berman, asked and they replied. But Car Talk was a fixture of our lives, an eagerly-looked- forward-to bright spot on the Saturday morning routine. It still is — but in edited past versions. Sigh. more »

It's easy enough to identify the Public Broadcasting Company as an elimination for government funding, but those monies represent 15% of their entire funding, enough to cripple the organization's ability to not only produce new award-winning programs but to purchase others from producers and networks here and abroad. more »