Talk of the Nation on KAZU

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Up next, an entirely different kind of food problem. Recycling paper and plastic, as you know, is an effective way to save money and energy. So why not recycle all the uneaten food that goes to waste? And there is an awful lot of it. Forty percent of the food in the U.S. today goes uneaten, which means Americans are throwing out the equivalent of 165 billion - with a B - billion dollars worth of food each year. But that's not all. Food waste, as it decays in landfills, also produces methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Up next, Flora Lichtman is here with our Video Pick of the Week. Hi, Flora.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ira.

FLATOW: What's in store for us this week?

LICHTMAN: I pretty much geeked out this week.

FLATOW: You geeked...

(LAUGHTER)

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Over 115,000 Americans are currently waiting for an organ transplant, and most of them are in need of a kidney. Now, what if we could just create a kidney for them in the laboratory? One of my next guests has experimented with printing out organs using an inkjet printer, but instead of ink, he uses cells.

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.

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.