Search results for

NPR's Joe Palca reports that physicists have found evidence challenging the assumption that fundamental particles called "top quarks" can't be divided into yet smaller structures. Researchers at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., were surprised to find indications that quarks have internal structures. If this turns out to be true, it would contradict the Standard Model that physicists have long used to explain the basic structure of all matter. 17. MAYBE VOOM -- A reading from "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" by Dr. Seuss. The cat, you'll remember, comes back to reveal another cat under his hat, who has another cat under his hat, who has another cat, and so-on. The cats get smaller until there's only VOOM left.

A beautiful, ethereal soprano voice backed by two acoustic guitars, accordion, and synthesizer has captured huge audiences in Europe playing music that is the antithesis of the electro-dance bands that usually top the charts there. The band, Madredeus (mah-dre-DAY-oos), is also REALLY big in Japan, despite the fact that all of the songs are in Portuguese. The band has just released its first album in this country, has just started its first U.S. tour, and can be heard in Wim Wenders' latest film, "Lisbon Story." From Spain, Emilio San Pedro reports. (8:00) (IN S

Thirty years ago, Pink Floyd's recording The Dark Side of the Moon became the number one album on Billboard magazine's pop music chart. So began the longest streak in music chart history: 741 weeks on the Top 200. No other recording comes close. The album has touched one generation after the next, which is odd because it's such a quirky album of electronic music, sound effects, saxophones, and a famous but unidentified female singer performing scat. Reporter Jad Abumrad of member station WNYC went around New York City to ask likely listeners why Dark Side has lasted.

Mexico's top two presidential candidates are each claiming victory in the country's highly polarized election -- and their parties have accused one another of election fraud. An official tally of the contest, in which 30 million Mexicans voted, isn't expected for days. Though sharply divided by ideology, leftist Andres Manual Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon are separated by less than one-tenth of one percent.

Forty years ago, Allan Sherman topped the pop charts by replacing the lyrics of folk songs with satires of Jewish American life. And in doing that, he offered a perfect snapshot of what it meant to assimilate.

The Bangles were a rock phenomenon in the early 1980s, beginning with the chart-topping hit "Walk Like An Egyptian." After a 15-year hiatus, they're back as rock 'n' roll moms. NPR's Neda Ulaby reports.

Steve Martin is at the top of his game. He has just been awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, at the same time that his newest movie, Shopgirl, is winning strong reviews around the country.

His songs include "By The Time I Get to Phoenix," "Up Up and Away," "Wichita Lineman," "Macarthur Park," "Galveston," "Didn't We," "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "All I Know." His songs have been recorded by Glenn Campbell, Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, Linda Ronstadt, Art Garfunkle and the Fifth Dimension. At one point in the 1960s, he had five Top 10 hits within a 20-month period. Webb has a lifetime achievement award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he's been inducted into the Nashville Hall of Fame. There's a new album, One Life, by singer Michael Feinstein, that pays tribute to him.

Richard Clarke, who served as the top White House counter-terrorism official under three presidents, says George W. Bush's administration did not consider terrorist threats to be urgent in its first seven months, despite Clarke's urgings. Speaking on Capitol Hill to a national commission investigating U.S. policies before Sept. 11, 2001, Clark said terrorism was given extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration. Also Wednesday, CIA Director George Tenet told the panel that terrorist intelligence was not properly integrated among different agencies. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.

New York Times writer JASON DEPARLE. He covers poverty and social welfare issues for the Times. Recently DEPARLE has been writing about the disappearance of affordable housing. Government guidelines suggest that renters should be paying 30% of their income for housing, but many of our nations disabled and poor are paying 50, 60 and 70 percent of their income on housing. On top of that government subsidies for low-income housing have all but disappeared. DEPARLE's New York Times Magazine cover story about housing appeared on October 20, 1996. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE