Search results for

Robert talks to Karin Helmstaedt, a reporter in Germany for the Toronto Globe and Mail about another Olympic scandal. This week, a German court sentenced two men involved in feeding steroids to East German athletes to help them in Olympic competition.

Amazon.com just turned five years old and the company may have reached a pivotal moment. As NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports, the Internet pioneer has experienced phenomenal growth, gaining some 20-million customers. But it has piled up lots of debt, is struggling to control its massive inventory, and still hasn't earned a dime. Some analysts say Amazon could run out of cash as early as next year. Amazon boosters disagree and insist the company is on the path to profitability.

Commentator Martha Ann Overland lives in India, and takes her kids to the US Embassy Club swimming pool. She learns that the class and racial divisions that have become taboo on most American soil, are still openly practiced by Americans abroad.

People who do well on one kind of mental test tend to do well on other tests, as well. This has led scientists to investigate a quality of the mind that's known as "general intelligence." General intelligence is just one aspect of smarts and savvy, but it is the part that gets assessed by tests like IQ tests. Now, researchers report that they have localized general intelligence to one part of the brain. NPR's Richard Harris reports on this contentious finding.

Robert talks with Khalil Shikaki, Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. He joins us from his home in Ramallah, to talk about public opinion of the Camp David summit among Palestinians.

It's taken a quarter century of watching and waiting, but physicists have finally caught up with an elementary particle called the tau neutrino. These elusive subatomic particles are one of the fundamental bits that make up the matter of the universe. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports scientists at the Fermi National Accellerator Laboratory near Chicago found direct evidence of the particle, which had been theorized, but never proven, to exist.

There's a poem about neutrinos that many physicists have tacked to their walls. It's by John Updike, and it's titled, Cosmic Gall. (1:00) Click here to read the poem

A report just published by the Centers for Disease control says the number of deaths from heroin overdoses has more than doubled in Seattle and Portland over the last few years. Jeff Brady from KOPB in Portland visited a local drug treatment center and filed this report.

Internet message boards increasingly are used by investors to trade information about companies and executives running them. Often the messages are highly critical and may even include inflammatory opinions. Some executives claim their stock value has been ruined by such attacks and their personal reputations shattered. Now some are seeking to sue these anonymous message board authors for libel but first must win access to the identity of the critics. The dispute raises questions about freedom of speech on the internet. NPR's Phillip Davis has a report.

Noah speaks with Jim Dale, the actor and voice behind the Harry Potter books on tape. For the latest in the series, Dale had to create 125 voices -- and unlike other books he records, he was unable to read this one through to the end. This meant he was making up voices and not always remembering when one voice sounded like another. His voices come from the famous, like John Houseman and the not so famous, like past girlfriends.