Talk of the Nation

Mitt Romney says his win in the Texas primary puts him over the top in the delegate count and secures his nomination as the Republican candidate for president. Meanwhile, Donald Trump resurrected the "birther" debate at a Las Vegas fundraiser for Romney.

Andy Isaacson rented a 19-foot motor home, enlisted two friends, and spent eight days traveling from California to Oregon and back. With a bathroom, kitchen and beds on board, he found the freedom to roam without reservations. Isaacson wrote about his trip in "Me and My RV" for the New York Times.

A federal task force has recommended against routine use of the PSA test, a common method of screening for prostate cancer. The panel concluded that the potential for harm outweighs any benefit, as many men undergo procedures that are unnecessary and can lead to serious side effects.

In The Last Full Measure: How Soldiers Die In Battle, Michael Stephenson describes how soldiers fight and die, how those who have lived deal with the experience of combat, and what it reveals about warfare and human nature.

He acknowledges it's a sensitive subject, but he argues it's an important one. Understanding how soldiers die, Stephenson tells NPR's Neal Conan, "is central to an understanding of what combat is. And I think we have to engage with it."

Stephenson talks with Conan about the long history of soldier deaths in combat and the social, political and technological factors that have contributed to the changing nature of combat.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

It's Tuesday and time to read from your comments. Cathy May(ph) in Bigelow, Arkansas heard our conversation about possible compensation for organ donors and wrote: I'm donating a kidney to a friend this coming August. While I don't care to be paid for donating, I would love to be reimbursed from my loss of salary while recovering from the process. It's a great honor to help another person, but it comes at a cost for me.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

We don't see a lot of interviews with officials of al-Qaida. Tonight on "Frontline" we hear what al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has to say for itself and see how it administers cities under its control. The setting is Yemen, deeply divided after Arab Spring uprisings and home to what U.S. officials call al-Qaida's most dangerous offshoot: AQAP, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen remains a focal point in the U.S. war on terror and a regular target of U.S. drone strikes. Tonight's "Frontline" report features British journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who went into al-Qaida-controlled Yemen to meet with a fighter and political officer who called himself Fouad.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AL-QAIDA IN YEMEN")

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. In another dramatic turn in Egypt, the first free democratic presidential election in the nation's history set up a run-off vote next month between two divisive candidates: Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood and Ahmed Shafik the last prime minister under former President Hosni Mubarak. Between them, the two top candidates received just under 50 percent of the votes.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Countries around the world expelled Syrian diplomats today, explaining that the representatives of a country that slaughters its own people are not welcome. United Nations observers confirmed the massacre of over 100 men, women and children, many of them children, in the village of Houla last Friday. U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus today to demand that his government abide by a cease-fire agreement that now lies in bloody taters.

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JOHN DANKOSKY, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm John Dankosky, in for Ira Flatow. You've probably already encountered them this year, buried deep in your pet's fur, maybe on your own skin - yes, ticks. These bloodsuckers are often no bigger than a poppy seed, but they can wreak havoc with your health and your pet's.

Infected ticks are the main culprits in the transmission of Lyme disease. It's being blamed for causing a senior banker at JPMorgan to miss a lot of work, leading to a more than $2 billion blunder. Lyme disease can be debilitating. The symptoms can range from fever and fatigue to neurological problems, but there's not agreement about how to diagnose and treat the infection.

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JOHN DANKOSKY, HOST:

So if tiny ticks carrying Lyme disease weren't scary enough for you, how about something even creepier and crawlier? What happens when you see a spider in the sink? Do you panic? Do you shriek? Do you call in someone else to squash it?

For arachnophobes, the fear is more intense. They might break out in a sweat, have difficulty breathing, and maybe even have to leave the room. I'm getting panicked just thinking about it. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that therapy can tame those spider fears.