Talk of the Nation

Did you know Mayor Michael Bloomberg has an engineering degree and built a ham radio as a child? The mayor talks about his passion for science and how it shapes the way he thinks. He also discusses plans for an applied sciences campus in New York and potential spin-offs from the project.

The first Homo sapiens appeared on the planet some 200,000 years ago. But even though they looked fully human, they didn't act fully human until they began creating symbolic art, some 100,000 years later. Paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall discusses those human origins in his book Masters of the Planet.

Coyotes were first spotted in New York City in the 1990s. Now they are thought to be permanent residents of the Bronx, and have been seen in Queens and Manhattan. Wildlife biologist Mark Weckel, of the Mianus River Gorge Preserve, is documenting their immigration through camera traps in New York City parks.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Over the past several years, doctors who performed weight loss surgery noticed an unexpected benefit: Many patients no longer needed to take their medication for their diabetes.

Mali is in political crisis after a coup d'etat in March that toppled the president and drove him into hiding. An Islamic rebel group has taken control of the north of Mali. NPR foreign correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton discusses the rapidly changing situation from the capital city Bamako.