Somali immigrants living in Minneapolis, Minnesota are finding that an increasing number of their children have autism. Is it random coincidence, or evidence of a larger epidemic? New York Times global health reporter Donald McNeil joins The Takeaway to report.

Check out McNeil's story on the cases, An Outbreak of Autism, or a Statistical Fluke? in today's Science Times.

For more, watch this report and follow the story in The Huffington Post and in The MinnPost.

Former Secretary of Defense, William S. Cohen and his wife Janet Langhart wrote the book “Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance,” published in 2007, about their marriage and life together as an interracial couple living in the United States. They met in 1974 and married on Valentine's Day, 1996. They are hosting the 2nd annual Race and Reconciliation in America conference in Washington D.C. Both join The Takeaway to talk about race in America.

Watch William S. Cohen and Janet Langhart discuss their book and their marriage in the video below.

Jennifer Baszile grew up black in the affluent, predominantly white suburb of Palos Verdes Estates, California in the 1970s and 1980s. She was part of the first generation of Americans born after official segregation came to an end. The experience of growing up African-American in that context hasn't been chronicled much, and now Baszile has written a book, "The Black Girl Next Door," to fill the gap. She shares her story with John and Farai.

How has the notion of the American dream changed for the new generation of Mexicans in the United States? The Takeaway talks to Gustavo Arellano, who writes the syndicated "Ask A Mexican" column, and is a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times opinion page.

What is your American dream? Join the discussion on The Takeaway's New American Dream section.

Utah and Oklahoma have the highest rate of households that replaced landlines for cell phones; at least 26 percent as opposed to 20 percent in nine other states. Ivan Zatkovich, a consultant for various telecommunication companies, including Verizon and Deutsch Telecom, explains why these two states boast the highest cellphone-only usage while New York, for instance, is at a low 11 percent.

Trouble viewing this video? Check out the YouTube version.

Studies show less than half of the students in New York City high schools graduate on time. And many think that New York City is a rough place to go to school. The Takeaway invites two students from Democracy Prep Charter School in Harlem who think otherwise. Daniel Clark Jr., is 12 years old, and a seventh grader and Nia Hill-Mims is 13 years old, and an eighth grader. They are joined by Nia's mom Catherine Hill to talk about what it's like to go to charter school in New York City.

Britain celebrated World Book Day last week, and put out a poll to go along with the celebration. People were asked if they had ever claimed to read a book when they hadn't and 65 percent of respondents said that yes they had. Patrik Henry Bass a former book editor and current senior editor of ESSENCE magazine, joins us to talk about why people lie about what they are reading.

If you've faked reading some of the books mentioned in this segment and want to redeem yourself, cross them off the list below.

• Beloved, By Toni Morrison
• Kiss the Sky, By Farai Chideya
• Ulysses, By James Joyce
• Moving Violations, By John Hockenberry
• War and Peace, By Leo Tolstoy

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Hey there. This is Stephanie — I was collecting your responses today on which books you’ve said you read, but actually haven’t. Your responses overwhelmed us! Here’s the list of tomes you’ve fibbed about — along with the reasons why.

All of Dickens.
But I did listen to it on tape. Does that count?

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, by Barbara Tuchman.
Ironically, I have wanted to read this for years. I have started perhaps 10 times, but then…

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence.
It's because I could never get through enough of it to find a good part, so to speak.

Dante’s Inferno
I hope I don't burn in hell for that one.

War and Peace by Leo Tolsoy.
I did it to better my chances with a woman I really liked, but it was a really stupid move, because it invited follow-up questions.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
If as many people read this book as bought it, we’d be a nation of cosmologists by now.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
I tried to read it because I was dating a sea captain and he loved it, but after just two chapters, I thought why?

The Star Wars series.
I actually have read them — many more than most people know.

Today, California’s Supreme Court takes up the issue of whether Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that effectively banned gay marriage in that state, is legal or not. The hotly-contested proposition passed last year and heads to the court today over questions of constitutionality. The courthouse should be a spectacle as protesters on both sides of the issue rally and even Ken Starr is expected to make an appearance. To tell us more about the gay marriage debate in California and across the country, Kenji Yoshino of New York University Law School joins us.

For a comedic take on the gay marriage battle in California, here's "Prop. 8 The Musical":

Over the past few years a rash of food-related illnesses caused by everything from tomatoes to spinach to peanut butter has sparked nationwide concern over food safety. Conventional wisdom has always said you can assure your food is safe by buying organic. But New York Times reporter Kim Severson did some digging and she found that organic certification has nothing to do with food safety.

For more, read Kim Severson's and Andrew Walker's article, It’s Organic, but Does That Mean It’s Safer?, in today's New York Times.

Professional athletes in just about every sport imaginable are sprinting to new records: passing more accurately, throwing faster, jumping higher, swimming further. But there's one thing in sports that just hasn't changed: the free throw. Basketball players are simply no better at hitting that shot from the line than they ever were. John Branch from our partner The New York Times has been looking into why.

For more, read John Branch's article, For Free Throws, 50 Years of Practice Is No Help, in today's New York Times.

Maybe the NBA can take pointers from Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. Check out his stats!

When most lawyers debate the death penalty, they do it in a court room. Robert Blecker may be the only lawyer who goes into prisons and debates the death penalty with the residents of death row. As one of the few academics who makes a passionate argument in favor of capitol punishment, he’s spent the last 20 years speaking to those who face the ultimate punishment — and recording his visits on videotape. His relationship with one of those inmates, Daryl Holton, who admitted to killing his four children in 1997, is the subject of a new documentary, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead. It just opened here in New York.

Takeaway Contributor Stephen Dubner, who co-authors the Freakonomics book and blog, asked his readers to come up with a six-word motto for the United States. Our listeners joined in the fun and now Stephen is here to announce the winner of our poll.

Want to see the poll results for yourself? Click here!

Winter, spring, summer, fall. It seems like no matter the season, it’s always time to get the newest version of the flu shot. Well, times may be achangin'. Scientists who were looking for a way to annihilate the Avian flu have stumbled upon a protein that halts both the Avian and seasonal flu. Are the consequent rumors of a universal flu vaccine justified? The Takeaway is joined by Wayne Marasco, M.D., one of the lead authors on the research article that appeared online just yesterday.

If you're in the mood for some dense reading (or if you want to get in touch with your inner molecular biologist), read the article abstract, Structural and functional bases for broad-spectrum neutralization of avian and human influenza A viruses

When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier at second base with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, it was one of the defining moments in professional sports. But in the past decade, pro and college baseball have been losing black players at an astonishing rate. Sports contributor Jeff Beresford-Howe has been doing some investigating into why baseball can't seem to attract black players.

Contributor's notes: Jeff Beresford-Howe

With the resounding "Ping!" of the aluminum bat, the North American baseball season commenced on Friday at colleges and universities all across the United States... Click through for the rest!

It doesn't sound nonsensical to say that what happens when we are younger stays with us the rest of our lives. But today, for the first time ever, scientists reveal that childhood abuse can affect our genes by altering the biology of our brains. Luckily these markers can be wiped clean in the next generation and the cycle can end. In this segment, John Hockenberry goes knee-deep into the brain with guest Michael Meaney, one of the lead researchers on the work, which appears online in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

For more, read the very scientifically written and deeply wonky article abstract, Epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor in human brain associates with childhood abuse.

Have more questions? Michael Meaney is happy to answer your questions. Post here and he'll respond.

Attorney General Eric Holder delivered some interesting remarks this week in a speech to Justice Department workers. And he said most Americans are avoiding candid discussion of racial issues. And he says they self-segregate in their private lives. The Takeaway talks to Joe Hicks, a community leader, activist and talk show host in Los Angeles. For more than 30 years, he’s been an active figure in local and national issues related to civil rights and inter-group relations and he joins us now.

You may have noticed that the White House press corps is looking a little less white these days. However, this ethnic diversity could be misleading. Although the percentage of racial minorities in the United States is steadily increasing (topping 34% in the last census), the proportion of people of color in editorial jobs at daily papers has remained at less than 14%. Some sources contend that, as large-scale layoffs continue, newsroom diversity is actually beginning to erode. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists reports than in 2008 recruitment of journalists of color did not replace or surpass those who left. And a recent post by Richard Prince of the Maynard Institute offers an alarming list of African-American columnists who have been downsized or downgraded, some of the voices lost include Donna Britt of the Washington Post and Les Payne of Newsday. Media watchdog Callie Crossley joins us for her take on this trend. Callie Crossley is a radio and TV commentator, she's also a regular panelist on WGBH's Beat the Press.

Facebook, the incredibly popular social network, hit massive protests when they changed their terms of service to indicate that they owned all content posted on their site by users. This would include photographs, poems, and messages. Tens of thousands of the social network's users joined online protest groups to denounce the change in policy. While initially trying to defend the change, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, ended up announcing a return to its previous terms of service. For an overview of the problem we are joined by Slate legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick and University of Virginia media professor Siva Vaidhynathan.

Anybody who knows anything about Harry Potter has drooled over the Marauder's Map — a handy little tool that shows Harry, in real time, the location of every person at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (see below for details). Today, that fantastical map seems to be turning into reality: GPS applications on our cell phones, like Amigo Mapper, allow us to track our friends via their cell phones. But are there people, or companies, other than our friends who would be interested in knowing where we are? Yes, says John Markoff, technology reporter for the New York Times and author of an article on geographical cell phone technologies in today's Science Times. He joins The Takeaway to talk about the implications around the rise of GPS technologies in handheld devices.

For more, read John Markoff's article, The Cellphone, Navigating Our Lives in today's New York Times.

Today nearly 14 percent of Americans are underemployed. This is proving to be a challenge for beleaguered bosses and disgruntled employees struggling to keep morale up in the workplace. For those who are despairing, fear not. The ideal that IKEA holds forth in the form of those little flat wrenches and a lot of elbow grease, could prove to have some answers for business leaders, policymakers and everyday workers. It turns out what is true for the success of IKEA—the sense of accomplishment many experience in assembling IKEA’s housewares—could have broader implications. Joining us to discuss a phenomenon called “The IKEA Effect" is Dan Ariely, the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University and author of Predictably Irrational.