Talk of the Nation

Amyloid plaques and tangles of protein in the brain are two of the key signs of the form of dementia known as Alzheimer's disease. In new work reported in the journal PLOS One, researchers tracked the spread of tangles of tau protein from neuron to neuron in the brains of mice. Study co-author Karen Duff of the Columbia University Medical Center discusses the findings.

NASA's iconic images of Earth from space date back to the late 1960s--with snapshots taken by Apollo astronauts. The modern "blue marble" images are captured by machines and they're not photos. They're datasets collected by instruments aboard satellites and then translated into imagery on the ground.

In That's Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion, psychologist Rachel Herz discusses the origins of disgust — what she calls the 'instinct that's learned' — and why humans turn up their noses at smelly feet but devour expensive cheeses cultured with some of the very same stinky bacteria.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

After a few more days of escalating hoopla, the Super Bowl between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots kicks off on Sunday evening, but whether you've got a small financial interest in the game or if you're just waiting for the ads, there are stories on the field in Indianapolis - the Brady legacy, salsa dancer Victor Cruz, hometown boy Mathias Kiwanuka, and of course the medical epic of the high-ankle sprain. What story will you follow in Super Bowl XLVI?

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. From the Harlem Renaissance to black power, Langston Hughes spoke to the life of African-Americans. The neglected son of a famous abolitionist family, he immersed himself in books. Eighteen years old and just out of high school, he saw sunset on the muddy Mississippi from a train and wrote the poem that introduced the world to Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers."