The lust that once lured prospectors to California is today drawing countless thousands to remote tropical rainforests on a quest for gold. It’s a valuable source of income in developing nations. But Smithsonian scientist William Laurance says the thirst for gold and other metals is fueled by both illegal and legal trade that carries heavy social, environmental and public health costs.
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Will Wright, the godfather of gaming, is rolling out his latest creation—“Spore.” The game can best be described as “evolution meets computer simulation.” Eight years in the making—a mere nanosecond in the evolutionary scheme of things—this greatly anticipated game hits stores this Sunday. For a sneak preview we check in with enthusiastic gamer and evolutionary biologist, Dr. Thomas Near
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About half of the year, actor and comedian Harry Shearer lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He’s been watching Gustav’s wrath from afar, via satellite feeds from his other home in Southern California.
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Now that Hurricane Gustav has dashed the momentum leading up to the Republican National Convention, the storm’s ill-timing led us to wonder if there has been a time in history when inclement weather affected political outcome. Author Laura Lee joins us with five examples of when the weather changed history.
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Terence Blanchard is a prolific composer and musician. He’s written film scores for over thirty movies including, “Malcolm X”, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts”, “Inside Man” and “Miracle At St. Anna”, Spike Lee’s upcoming film about the lives of four African-American soldiers fighting in World War 2. Three years ago Blanchard was working on the score of “Inside Man” in Los Angeles when he turned on the television and saw hurricane Katrina hit his home city of New Orleans. Recovering from the disaster and rebuilding and reinvigorating the Crescent City has been his passion ever since. Terence Blanchard joins The Takeaway on the eve of the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, to talk about how he’s using music to rebuild the city he loves.
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Read Senior Editor Femi Oke's notes on the series below.

It's been three years since Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast and changed the lives hundreds of thousands of Americans. This week, The Takeaway is talking to some of those people and looking back at the events that followed the storm.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, then FEMA director Michael Brown took a beating for his lack of formal emergency management experience. It’s been three years since Brown stepped down as FEMA’s director. But in one way at least, he’s picked up where he left off: Brown now owns a crisis management firm. We check in with Michael Brown about life after Katrina, lessons learned, and how he thinks about that tragic moment now that he has the clarity that often comes with the passing of time.
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Caitlin McNally

I drove from Minneapolis to Minot, North Dakota, this year as a late spring snowstorm was brewing. Interstate 94, near the state line, closed down and the two lane highways and farm roads snaking westward were covered in hard ice and occasional, demonic flurries of drifting snow. I concocted a route around the storm with some helpful farmers at a gas station. My car limped west then north, west then north, on a maze of empty back roads.

With energy prices soaring, the economy slumping and global warming fears taking center stage, there is no end of innovative responses to this new world order. But today, hybrid cars, compact fluorescent lights and low-flow shower heads seem old school compared to the latest energy saving trend: the four-day work week.
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Soaring oil prices, coupled with climate change, is making commercial aviation not only unpopular but maybe impossible. Is the mile-high club about to end for good?
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Guest: Blair Heusdens, spokeswoman with the Florida Division of Emergency Management
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Guest: Dr. Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist and professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense.”
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Guest: Jad Mouawad, The New York Times, covers the energy industry
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Five years ago today, a power outage blanketed states in the Northeast, Midwest and parts of Canada. Leaving 50 million in the dark, it was the largest blackout in North American history. The outage highlighted the fragility of our electricity system. And with energy demands rising, and economy in a slump and global warming fears taking center stage, "smart grid" technologies could provide solutions.
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Agriculture is a $31-billion industry in California — no state is bigger for farming. But with California in a drought, state-enforced water rationing is forcing farmers to abandon fields and lay off workers. The Takeaway talks to the mayor of Mendota, California, where hundreds have been left hungry, and with Sacramento Bee reporter Matt Weiser about the difficult choices the state is facing.
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China is tightly managing every aspect of the Olympics, even trying to control the weather. They’re using cloud-seeding techniques, both to create rain to reduce smog and to steer rain away from outdoor events. The Takeaway takes a closer look at the often colorful efforts to control the weather.
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Guest: Karla Raettig, Legislative Representative for Wildlife Conservation at the National Wildlife Federation, and Kaush Arha, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
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This week, the media reported on scientists developing materials they say could create a kind of invisibility cloak. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation. It’s just one example of “nanomanufacturing,” which the NSF sees as a way to give the United States an edge as industrial manufacturing wanes.
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Takeaway science correspondent and science writer Jonah Lehrer, author of "Proust Was a Neuroscientist"
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Guest: Chad Hart, agricultural economist, Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa
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A “citizen scientist” network called Project BudBurst uses everyday observers to collect climate change data related to the leafing and flowering of flora across the United States. Armed with a Web site and thousands of participants, the project notes early flowering trends and other anomalies, which one environmentalist says are a symptom of "global weirding.”
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Guest: Andrew Leonard, Salon.com
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There’s an oil boom in North Dakota, and the wealth under ground is creating millionaires.
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Civics class may teach you that voters weigh the issues and choose the candidate who matches their positions, but several studies suggest that voters are not rational. They are rationalizers.
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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the legislation that launched NASA and, subsequently, the human race into the great beyond. But have we really pushed our boundaries as far as space exploration can go? Or is NASA suffering a mid-life crisis?
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It's the 50th anniversary of a great proxy battle fought in outer space. In 1958, President Eisenhower created NASA so the United States could compete with the USSR in space technology. Today, there’s a new space race on — between China and America. The finish line, 50 years later, is still the moon.
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A 21-patient study has shown that the drug abiraterone can stop the testosterone that feeds prostate cancer. A larger international clinical trial is underway to test the drug before it can be deemed a "miracle drug." Also, Dimebon, once used as an antihistamine, has been found to improve cognitive abilities for Alzheimer’s patients, though researchers aren't yet sure how.
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Guest: Caitlin McNally, documentary filmmaker
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