NASA's iconic images of Earth from space date back to the late 1960s--with snapshots taken by Apollo astronauts. The modern "blue marble" images are captured by machines and they're not photos. They're datasets collected by instruments aboard satellites and then translated into imagery on the ground.

Amyloid plaques and tangles of protein in the brain are two of the key signs of the form of dementia known as Alzheimer's disease. In new work reported in the journal PLOS One, researchers tracked the spread of tangles of tau protein from neuron to neuron in the brains of mice. Study co-author Karen Duff of the Columbia University Medical Center discusses the findings.

In That's Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion, psychologist Rachel Herz discusses the origins of disgust — what she calls the 'instinct that's learned' — and why humans turn up their noses at smelly feet but devour expensive cheeses cultured with some of the very same stinky bacteria.

As it circles Earth, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer hunts for particles streaming in from beyond the solar system. It has intercepted hydrogen, helium, neon and oxygen atoms. IBEX principal investigator Dave McComas discusses how the abundance of those atoms hints at the Milky Way's composition.

Transcript

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

NPR's Business News starts with a reversal from the Komen Foundation. The Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation has just announced that it will not pull its funding for Planned Parenthood after all. The breast cancer charity endured a massive backlash when it announced, earlier this week, it would no longer give Planned Parenthood money for breast cancer screening. NPR's Julie Rovner joins us to explain the turnaround. And Julie, what exactly did the Komen Foundation say this morning?

Saying officials have undertaken yet another campaign of "bullying and harassment" of its Persian service staff, the BBC called on the Iranian government to "repudiate the action of its officials."

In a blog post, the BBC's Director General Mark Thompson also called on the international community to "put maximum pressure on Iran to desist in this campaign of intimidation, persistent censorship and a disturbing abuse of power."

The Labor Department said the economy added 243,000 jobs in January, well beyond many economists' expectations. The unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent.

Human Rights Watch has a harrowing report out today about what it says is the targeting of children by Syria's government forces.

"Children have not been spared the horror of Syria's crackdown," Lois Whitman, children's rights director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Syrian security forces have killed, arrested and tortured children in their homes, their schools or on the streets. In many cases, security forces have targeted children just as they have targeted adults."

Tell Me More is back from the Motor City, but the letters are still rolling in. This week, host Michel Martin and editor Ammad Omar comb through listener feedback and hear from one woman who was brought to tears after hearing Oscar nominee Demian Bichir's favorite songs.

The Barbershop guys discuss whether Mitt Romney put the brakes on his momentum when he said he was not concerned about the very poor. Host Michel Martin checks in with freelance journalist Jimi Izrael, civil rights attorney Arsalan Iftikhar, Sports Illustrated reporter Pablo Torre, and National Review contributor Neil Minkoff.