Internet In America: An On Again Off Again Relationship

"The American Customer Satisfaction Index surveys large swaths of consumers about various industries. And in last year's survey, Americansrated Internet service providers at the very bottom for satisfaction. That puts them below the postal service, health insurance and even airlines."

"Critics of the telecom industry say Americans are paying too much money for slow speeds and bad service. The industry says those charges are way overblown."

"All Things Considered recently asked its fans on Facebook, "How satisfied are you with your Internet service provider?" Many responded that they didn't like their Internet service, that it often goes out and that their connection was often 'painfully slow.'"

A Green Movement Website Shakes Up the Debate Over GMOs

"A 26-part series on genetically modified food was not Nathanael Johnson's idea. And he didn't realize it would take six months, either."

"Last year, Johnson was hired as the new food writer for Grist, a website for environmental news and opinion. Grist's editor, Scott Rosenberg, was waiting with an assignment: Dig into the controversy over GMOs."

"GMOs "were a unique problem for us," says Rosenberg. On the one hand, most of Grist's readers and supporters despise GMOs, seeing them as a tool of corporate agribusiness and chemical-dependent farming."

"On the other hand, says Rosenberg, he'd been struck by the passion of people who defended this technology, especially scientists. It convinced him that the issue deserved a fresh look."

New Research Affirms That Milky Way Has Four Spiral Arms

"Our Milky Way galaxy has four arms instead of two, according to just published results of a 12-year study by scientists in the U.K."

"The findings, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, affirm what astronomers surmised in the 1950s but began to doubt in 2008 after seeing images from the Spitzer Space Telescope that could only confirm two spiral arms."

"Unlike our view of other galaxies, it's challenging to figure out from our inside looking out vantage point what the Milky Way looks like. Our solar system is thought to be located on one of the spiral arms that jut out from the massive central core."

Healthy Habits Can Help Induce Sleep Without the Pills

"About one third of American adults say they have problems falling asleep. And prescriptions for sleeping medications are on the rise, with about 4 percent of people using the drugs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

"But sleep experts say people should exercise caution before deciding to take medication to help them sleep."

"Take the case of Nancy Sherman, a woman in her 60s who lives in Seattle. Sleepless nights started about four years ago when she lived directly above an "end of the line" bus stop. "The buses would leave their motors on all night long and I developed insomnia just listening to all that noise," she says. Dozens of e-mails to officials didn't help. So Sherman went to see her doctor, who prescribed the most popular prescription sleep medication, zolpidem."

Satan's Naked Women, Gatsby's Cocktail, and Other Literary Fetes

"Throwing a perfect holiday party is no simple task. Do you want a swanky cocktail party, an intimate dinner party, or a huge New Year's bash? A whole host of decisions revolve around the menu — and don't forget your gluten-free or vegan invitees. Then there's the decor (is tinsel too much?), the music (festive, but not cheesy) and, of course, the guest list."

"To offer some inspiration for a memorable holiday gathering, NPR's Rachel Martin chats with Suzette Field, author of A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Fiction. A party promoter based in London, Field has compiled a guide to literature's most famous and fabulous hosts and their soirees — from Plato and Proust to Jay Gatsby and Winnie the Pooh."

Wake Up Rosetta: Europeans Begin Checklist For Comet Landing

"The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe, launched in March 2004, will be awakened from a deep sleep next month in preparation for a rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which will culminate late next year with the first-ever soft landing on such a body."

"The 6,600-pound spacecraft, which has spent nearly a decade making repeated flybys of Earth and Mars to gain enough speed to catch the comet, was put in hibernation in July 2011, after its last major gravity-assist maneuver."

Megatons to Megawatts: Russian Warheads Fuel US Power Plants

"Here's a remarkable fact: For the past two decades, 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States has come from Russian nuclear warheads."

"It was all part of a deal struck at the end of the Cold War. That deal wraps up today, when the final shipment of fuel arrives at a U.S. facility."

"The origins of the plan lie in the early 1990s. At the time, Philip Sewellwas working for the U.S. Department of Energy. The Soviet Union had just disintegrated, and Sewell's job was to find ways to collaborate with the former adversaries."

"In practice, this involved driving out into the Russian countryside, to military facilities that weren't even on the map. When Sewell got there, what he saw wasn't pretty."

What Happened on Easter Island? A New Even Scarier Scenario

"We all know the story, or think we do."

"Let me tell it the old way, then the new way. See which worries you most."

"First version: Easter Island is a small 63-square-mile patch of land — more than a thousand miles from the next inhabited spot in the Pacific Ocean. In A.D. 1200 (or thereabouts), a small group of Polynesians — it might have been a single family — made their way there, settled in and began to farm. When they arrived, the place was covered with trees — as many as 16 million of them, some towering 100 feet high."

"These settlers were farmers, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, so they burned down woods, opened spaces, and began to multiply. Pretty soon the island had too many people, too few trees, and then, in only a few generations, no trees at all."

Nothing Says Christmas Like 700 Screaming Faces

"As it has done for the past 16 years, the Embassy of Norway decorated a Christmas tree at Union Station in Washington, D.C. — a gift to the American people to say thanks for helping Norway during World War II."

"This year is no different. The tree was lit in a ceremony Tuesday evening, but what stands out is the nature of the ornaments that adorn the artificial tree: In addition to small American and Norwegian flags, the tree is decked out with 700 shining decorations with the iconic image from Norwegian Edvard Munch's painting The Scream."

"This month marks the 150th anniversary of Munch's birth, and Norway's ambassador to Washington, Kare Aas, told All Things Considered's Melissa Block the artist is being feted across the world."

Ready or Not: Quick Climate Changes Worry Scientists Most

A

n expert panel at the National Academy of Sciences is calling for an early warning  system to alert us to abrupt and potentially catastrophic events triggered by climate change.

The committee says science can anticipate some major changes to the Earth that could affect everything from agriculture to sea level. But we aren't doing enough to look for those changes and anticipate their impacts.

And this is not a matter for some distant future. The Earth is already experiencing both gradual and abrupt climate change. The air is warming up slowly, and we're also seeing rapid changes such as the melting Arctic ice cap.

US High School Students Slide In Math, Reading, & Science

"American 15-year-olds continue to turn in flat results in a test that measures students' proficiency in reading, math and science worldwide, failing to crack the global top 20."

"The Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, collects test results from 65 countries for its rankings, which come out every three years. The latest results, from 2012, show that U.S. students ranked below average in math among the world's most-developed countries. They were close to average in science and reading."

"In mathematics, 29 nations and other jurisdictions outperformed the United States by a statistically significant margin, up from 23 three years ago," reports Education Week. "In science, 22 education systems scored above the U.S. average, up from 18 in 2009."

Remember Death By French Fries Here's the Story

"Back in 2002, french fry lovers around the world received a nasty bit of news: Those crunchy, fried strips of potato contained a known carcinogen. Now, all these years later, a new warning from the Food and Drug Administration has consumers once again puzzling over whether to fear the chemical acrylamide."

"Acrylamide was known to cause cancer in lab animals when ingested at high doses. So when researchers announced a decade ago that they had also discovered it in many commonly eaten foods – including French fries, potato chips, bread and even coffee — consumers were understandably worried that their snack chips might do them in."

"The news set off a bit of a panic and even some lawsuits. A panel convened by the World Health Organization concluded that acrylamide in food was indeed a major concern, and the FDA issued an action plan."

Bach Unwigged: The Man Behind the Music

"Johann Sebastain Bach has been a central figure in the life of British conductor John Eliot Gardiner since he was a youngster. On his way to bed, he couldn't help glancing up at the famous 18th-century portrait of Bach that hung in the first floor landing of the old mill house in Dorset, England where Gardiner was born. It was one of only two fully authenticated portraits of Bach by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, painted around 1750, and came to the Gardiner home in a knapsack, delivered on bicycle by a Silesian refugee who needed to keep it safe during World War II. Bach's music also hung in the air of the Gardiner home. Each week the musically inclined family gathered for serious singalongs, which included Bach's motets."

"It's a scene Gardiner sets at the beginning of his new book, BACH: Music in the Castle of Heaven, published today by Knopf. From his childhood interactions with Bach, Gardiner would grow up to become one of the composer's greatest champions, creating his own orchestras (English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique) and choir (Monteverdi Choir) to play the music in historically informed performances."

Goodbye Paper Menus: Restaurants Test the Waters For Tablets

"When you sit down at Chef José Andrés' tapas restaurant, Jaleo, in Washington, D.C., and ask to see the beverage options, as I did recently, you're in for a surprise. Instead of a traditional leather-bound menu, I was handed an iPad."

"An app called SmartCellar guided me to search for wine by grape variety and climate zone. Selecting a bottle, I got details about the vintage and its producers, tasting notes written by the restaurant's wine team, pictures of the bottle or label, and food pairing suggestions."

"Having all this information on hand was initially intimidating. What was I in the mood for? Did I want to splurge on a rare bottle from the illustrious, shuttered Spanish restaurant El Bulli? What was the back story on that Rioja? But as I immersed myself in the app, I got so into it that the waiter had to stop by three times before I was ready to order."

Energetic Intimate Letters Reveal Private Leonard Bernstein

"Leonard Bernstein was a singular American genius. One of the great orchestra conductors of the 20th Century, he was also a composer of hit musicals like West Side Story, as well as symphonies and ballets. He was a teacher and television personality — his Young People's Concerts introduced generations of children to classical music."

"But that was the public man. A new collection of letters written both by and to Bernstein is being published this week. It's an eye-opening volume: a glimpse into the personal life of a legend."

"Nigel Simeone, who edited The Leonard Bernstein Letters, read through 10,000 of them before selecting the 650 that appear in the book. They go from Bernstein's adolescence in 1932 to right before his death in 1990, and it's not hyperbole to say that the correspondence represents a who's-who of many of the greatest figures of the 20th Century."

Divide By Doh the Mathematical Secrets of the Simpsons

"Most people watch The Simpsons to laugh. And, perhaps, feel a little superior to the animated family who are Springfield's best known, if often most dysfunctional citizens."

"But Simon Singh, the Cambridge-trained physicist and best-selling author, watches the show not just for laughs, but also for the ... math? In his new book, The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, he argues that the writers and producers have woven a lot of math into The Simpsons — and into a highly honored show from the same team,  Futurama."

"Singh is no stranger to math; his first book was about French mathematician Pierre de Fermat's famous unsolved theorem. And the idea of hidden mathematical knowledge encoded in the adventures of Homer and Bart seems far-fetched, but Singh assures NPR's Scott Simon it's true. "I was watching The Simpsons one day, an episode called 'The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace,' and there on a blackboard behind Homer was an equation that directly relates to Fermat's last theorem. And I don't miss things like that.'"

Gravity: The Movie and Life's Fragility

"This weekend I finally caught up with the rest of America's moviegoers and went to see Gravity, the blockbuster directed by Mexico's Alfonso Cuarón, of Harry Potter and Y Tu Mamá También fame. The movie stars Sandra Bullock as a Ph.D. medical engineer on her first space mission and George Clooney as an unflappable veteran astronaut. Somehow, Bullock, the medical engineer, is sent on a mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope. (Huh?)"

"Of the many angles that Gravity could be analyzed, today I look at how it pictures, magisterially, the hardship of surviving in outer space or, more broadly, life's fragility outside of its environment."

"Many scientists talk and write about how the universe is geared for life; some even go as far as stating that the universe has a higher purpose, that of engendering intelligent life. (Yes, it does sound like a vain God that creates humanity so that He could be admired and loved.) This cosmic teleology goes by different names, including the Strong Anthropic Principle and the Goldilocks Universe, to name a couple."

Antibiotics Can't Keep Up With Nightmare Superbugs

"We're used to relying on antibiotics to cure bacterial infections. But there are now strains of bacteria that are resistant to even the strongest antibiotics, and are causing deadly infections. According to the CDC, 'more than 2 million people in the United States every year get infected with a resistant bacteria, and about 23,000 people die from it,' journalist David Hoffman tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross."

"Many people are familiar with the type of resistant infections often acquired in hospitals, caused by MRSA, the acronym for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. But most people don't know about the entirely different group of resistant bacteria that Hoffman reports on in Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria, airing Tuesday on PBS' Frontline. The show explores an outbreak of resistant bacteria at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the U.S., and explains why there is surprisingly little research being conducted into new antibiotics to combat these new superbugs."

The Mist and Mystique of Dry Ice

"Several prank bombs caused paranoia at Los Angeles International Airport last week. One — packed in a 20-ounce soda bottle — exploded in a restroom, one on the tarmac and a third was found just fizzling."

"No one was injured."

"A baggage handler, arrested for "possession of a destructive device near an aircraft," had assembled the simple, ordinary bombs using simple, ordinary material. The results inspired a flurry of concern. A few flights were delayed. An LAPD bomb squad, assisted by the FBI, marched in to investigate. The event made homepage news."

"What is the simple, ordinary material that can elevate empty plastic bottles to the level of destructive — and disruptive — devices?"

"Two words: dry ice."

Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep

"While the brain sleeps, it clears out harmful toxins, a process that may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's, researchers say."

"During sleep, the flow of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain increases dramatically, washing away harmful waste proteins that build up between brain cells during waking hours, a study of mice found."

"'It's like a dishwasher,' says Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Rochester and an author of the study in Science."

"The results appear to offer the best explanation yet of why animals and people need sleep. If this proves to be true in humans as well, it could help explain a mysterious association between sleep disorders and brain diseases, including Alzheimer's."