Transcript

The universe is being pushed apart at a faster and faster rate. And the culprit? Dark energy. Astrophysicist Adam Riess shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for that discovery, and now's your chance to ask him about it--or anything else you've been wondering about the cosmos.

Bioengineers are developing microchips, about the size of a thumb, that can behave like human organs. Donald Ingber, director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, discusses how the "organ-on-a-chip" works and why the technology could replace the animal model for drug testing.

In the face of a massive drought and climbing sea levels are the presidential candidates going to talk about climate change? Why is science always at the bottom of the list of campaign issues that resonate with the public? Ira Flatow and guests discuss what scientists can do to shape the national dialogue in an election year.

In their new book, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy examine how institutions and people respond to disruptions. By studying how systems--from coral reefs to Lehman Brothers--respond to change, Zolli argues that we can be better prepared for unexpected events.

Fast food's Chick-fil-A has been at the center of the culture wars in recent days because of company President Dan Cathy's outspoken opposition to gay marriage.

Today, reluctantly, we say goodbye to someone our listeners may have come to feel attached to, even though they've never heard her voice on our show.

Until about 3 years ago, we were so obsessed with getting Fresh Air on the air every day that we were virtually ignoring all the social media possibilities, and our website was pretty bare-boned. Then we hired Melody Kramer to be our associate producer for online media.

No surprise: The economy grew only sluggishly in April, May and June. The U.S. Commerce Department says gross domestic product — the sum of all goods and services produced in the country — grew by just 1.5 percent in the second quarter.