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Shots - Health News
4:29 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

With Routine Mammograms, Some Breast Cancers May Be Overtreated

Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 5:01 pm

The endless debate over routine mammograms is getting another kick from an analysis that sharply questions whether the test really does what it's supposed to.

Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, coauthor of the analysis of mammography's impact, which was just published in The New England Journal of Medicine, tell Shots that the aim was to "get down to a very basic question."

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Business
4:20 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

HP Says It Was Duped Into Overpaying For Company

Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 4:57 pm

Hewlett Packard is claiming it was duped into overpaying when it acquired Britain's largest software company a little more than a year ago. HP released its latest quarterly earning report on Tuesday and announced that it was writing off most of the $11 billion investment. The firm HP bought, Autonomy, denies there were any improprieties.

Around the Nation
4:20 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

Through Meditation, Veterans Relearn Compassion

Credit VA Palo Alto Health Care System
Veterans participate in a therapy session at the Veterans Affairs center in Menlo Park, Calif.

Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 5:52 pm

Marine Esteban Brojas is rocking back and forth in his chair in a rehabilitation center for veterans in Menlo Park, Calif. He rubs his hands together so quickly you can hear them.

"You know, you're going into a building, and you know there's a grenade being popped in there," he says, "and there's a woman and a child in there ... and you're part of that?"

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Shots - Health News
4:03 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

When Fetuses Yawn In The Womb

Credit Courtesy of A Little Insight 3D 4D Ultrasound.
Could that be a yawn? An ultrasound scan catches an opened-mouth fetus.

Why people yawn is a mystery. But yawning starts in the womb.

Past studies have used ultrasound images to show fetuses yawning, but some scientists have argued that real yawns were getting confused with fetuses simply opening their mouths.

So Nadja Reissland, a researcher at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, used a more detailed ultrasound technique to get images of fetal faces that could distinguish a true yawn from just an open mouth.

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Monkey See
4:01 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

Rob Delaney Talks About Gratitude, Perspective, Spaceships And A Career With Teeth

Credit
A screenshot from Rob Delaney's standup special, "Live At The Bowery Ballroom."

Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 4:57 pm

Full disclosure: The first thing I said when I saw that Rob Delaney would be talking to NPR's Audie Cornish on today's All Things Considered was that I was curious to see whether he had ever said anything on Twitter — where he has almost 670,000 followers (including me) as of this writing — that they thought they could read on the radio. It's an exaggeration. But not by that much.

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Middle East
4:00 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

What Gaza Says About Possible Iran-Israel Showdown

Credit Jack Guez / AFP/Getty Images
An Israeli missile is launched from the Iron Dome defense system, designed to intercept incoming rockets. This missile was fired from the southern Israeli city of Ashdod in response to a rocket launched from the nearby Palestinian Gaza Strip on Nov. 18.

Originally published on Sun November 25, 2012 9:01 am

In the Gaza Strip fighting, where a cease-fire was reached Wednesday, the Israeli military pounded Gaza with hundreds of airstrikes. Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that rules Gaza, launched hundreds of rocket attacks on Israel.

The weeklong battle temporarily diverted attention from Iran, the archenemy of Israel and a key ally of Hamas. Israeli leaders have threatened to strike Iran over its nuclear program.

Yet the Gaza fight may offer insights into what a possible confrontation between Israel and Iran would look like.

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The Two-Way
3:58 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

Judge Approves Hostess' Plan To Liquidate

Credit Scott Olson / Getty Images
The big name in the Hostess lineup.

Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 4:02 pm

Maybe the end is nigh, after all.

A judge has approved Hostess' plan to liquidate the company, all but assuring that the maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Donettes and Wonder Bread will cease to exist.

The New York Times reports:

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Music Reviews
3:35 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

Samuel Yirga: A Prodigy Reviving Ethiopian Jazz

Credit Courtesy of Worldisc
Yirga's debut album is called Guzo.

Originally published on Tue November 27, 2012 2:50 pm

Samuel Yirga is a pianist from Ethiopia. A 20-something prodigy, Yirga is too young to have experienced the Ethio-jazz movement of the early 1970s, but he has absorbed its music deeply — and plenty more as well. With his debut release, Guzo, or "Journey," Yirga both revives and updates Ethiopian jazz.

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'It's All Politics': NPR's Weekly News Roundup
3:25 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

It's All Politics, November 20, 2012

Credit Alex Brandon / AP

Originally published on Fri November 30, 2012 11:50 am

The election may be over, but the bickering continues, and not just between NPR's Ron Elving and Ken Rudin. As President Obama defends his United Nations ambassador, Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to lambast her for "misleading" reports about what happened in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Plus: Mitt Romney's "gifts" that keep on giving. And Rep. Allen West concedes in Florida.

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Deceptive Cadence
2:58 pm
Wed November 21, 2012

Max Richter Recomposes 'The Four Seasons'

Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 4:57 pm

Composer Max Richter has done a brave thing for any artist in any medium: He's messed with a classic, specifically, Vivaldi's four violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. He has a new album simply titled Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons.

Richter says that as a child, he loved The Four Seasons. But as he grew older, that passion faded.

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