Talk of The Nation

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ari Shapiro in Washington; Neal Conan is away. Year by year, cities are raising fees and cutting public services to stay out of financial trouble. For some cities, that's just not enough. Detroit projects a $200 million deficit this year, and the city owes $14 billion in long-term obligations. The state's Republican Governor Rick Snyder says there's probably no city more financially challenged in the entire United States.

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

And now for the Opinion Page. Technology has always promised to fix our imperfections. In this 1950s TV ad, G.E. swore that a new refrigerator-freezer combo would make a housewife's problems disappear.

(SOUNDBITE OF ADVERTISEMENT)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We didn't have all this storage space in the door or conveniences like a butter conditioner, sliding shelves.

Ed. Note: This article was originally published Nov. 2, 2011.

Photographer Jon Crispin has a fascination with things that are left behind. Those are his exact words. "Even as a kid I was trying to get into places I shouldn't go," he says on the phone.

In the '80s he was basically given free rein to document abandoned asylums in New York state. He has also worked closely and often with the New York State Museum, including on some Sept. 11 preservation projects.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Far above the Earth's surface, two doughnuts of radiation surround the planet, charged particles zipping around in stable belts - that's the shape of them - and they were discovered in 1958 by James Van Allen and now bear his name. They are the Van Allen Belts.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Robert Langer is sort of a modern-day Thomas Edison. He holds over 800 patents. He's launched two dozen startups making an eclectic variety of stuff from tumor-zapping nanoparticles to biosensors and blood tests, synthetic spinal cords, even anti-frizz hair products, all of this originating from the same lab. And recently, President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He's already won the National Medal of Science, after all.