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NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on a new trend in medicine -- using extreme treatments for diseases that aren't immediately life-threatening. We look at how doctors are using bone-marrow transplants and other treatments traditionally reserved for severe cancer cases in patients with diseases like arthritis and multiple sclerosis. It's a controversial approach and effectiveness studies are only now getting started. But it's helping some people return to normal, disease-free lives.

Alchemy in outer space? Not exactly. But a new theory about gold -- and some other heavy metals -- suggests they're created when two specific types of stars collide. Linda Wertheimer talks Stephen Rosswog, research associate in physics and astronomy at the University of Leicester, England.

Commentator Reynolds Price thinks back to the phrase "this week's play in front of last weeks sets." It's a phrase he remembers from reading Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

Robert Siegel talks with retired Lt. Gen. William E. Odom about how pilots are trained to behave when they are in the custody of another nation. Odom is former head of the National Security Agency, director of National Security Studies at the Hudson Institute, and adjunct professor of political science at Yale University.

As the reconnaissance plane standoff continues, the Chinese government must take into account the opinions of its own people, even though the political voice of the masses is muted. The public mood is one of anger and disappointment at the United States. NPR's Rob Gifford samples opinion outside the U.S. embassy and in McDonalds in Beijing.

Lisa talks with NPR's White House correspondent Don Gonyea about the continuing diplomatic stand-off with China over the collision between a U.S. military spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter. Twenty-four American military personnel remain detained on the Chinese island of Hainan.

The California utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric, has filed for bankruptcy. NPR's Larry Abramson reports on difficulties this bankruptcy presents for California consumers and for the courts.

For every U.S. mission with NASA astronauts, a family from Texas has sent a bouquet of roses to NASA's Mission Control Center to show support to those who keep the astronauts safe.

Commentator Joel Achenbach says everyone needs to wander a bit more.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead begins a new six-part series we call Avant-Garde Made Easy, highlighting some of the important modern jazz mavericks of the so-called Avant Garde. We begin the series with pianist, composer, and band leader Sun Ra.