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Felix Baumgartner plans to ride a balloon to an altitude of 34 miles over New Mexico and then he'll step out into the void. He'll be wearing a pressurized suit like an astronaut, and expects to break the sound barrier as he falls. He's being advised by a former NASA flight surgeon who lost his wife in a shuttle crash, and who wants to improve astronauts' odds of surviving a future disaster.

A researcher at the Wharton School of Business showed participants photos of men with shaved head and men with full heads of hair. It turns out, men with shaved heads were perceived as manlier, taller and stronger. The downside: men with shaved heads were viewed as less attractive than those with full manes.

Compare the U.S. and Saudi catalogs. All the same stuff is for sale. But you won't find women in one.

The agents worked out of the recently renamed Brian Terry station near Tucson. Terry was an agent killed in 2010. His death revealed the "Fast and Furious" program — a botched effort to track drug cartels by allowing guns to go south of the border.

High food prices have often been cited as a factor behind mass protest movements. But a group of researchers say food prices can actually be used to predict when social unrest will occur. And according to their mathematical modeling, we've hit the threshold for more waves of riots.

The Arab Spring is in its second autumn, but violent upheaval in Syria and Bahrain indicates the uprisings are not over. Guest host Celeste Headlee discusses what's in store for two countries the U.N. calls the biggest human rights offenders. She speaks with Al Jazeera's Abderrahim Foukara and Maren Turner of Freedom Now.

NPR's David Green reads letters from listeners about previous show topics, including the new look of school lunches and the challenges and upsides of living with siblings who have intellectual disabilities.

Judges in these cases have declined to rule on the constitutionality of the laws. Instead, they have signaled the laws would withstand scrutiny if states can ensure that the vast majority of voters have easier access to free IDs. Legal scholars agree that many of these measures could be enacted after Election Day.

Only two groups of people really matter in any game: the players and the officials. That's the lesson the NFL inadvertently taught football fans in the past four weeks, says Frank Deford. At many stadiums, the regular officials were greeted with loud ovations after their lockout ended.

The federal government wants hospitals to take responsibility for discharged patients to make sure they are not admitted again within 30 days. Medicare will penalize hospitals with many repeat admissions, but some think putting this whole burden on hospitals is not fair.