PRI's The World - with Host Marco Werman
Toothpaste. Really?
As the Winter Olympic Games get started in Sochi, US Homeland Security officials have warned airlines flying to Russia that someone might try to smuggle explosives aboard airplanes in toothpaste tubes. This comes after reports of security lapses at Russian airports. We'll go to Sochi to get the latest on how residents, visitors and athletes are feeling about security in the run-up to the games. Also, The World's Nina Porzucki takes us back in time to 1972 to tell us about the man who created the event pictograms for the Olympic Games, which serve as the basis for today's Olympic pictograms.
And here's an idea worth exploring: a Japanese scientist has proposed using algae to help leach radioactivity from the sea water around Fukushima. Our environment editor, Peter Thomson, takes a look at the proposal. And staying in Japan, we dig into the strange tale of the man dubbed "Japan's Beethoven," who, it turns out, hasn't written his own music for the past 20 years.