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Melissa Block and Robert Siegel read from listeners' emails from the past week. They comment on a story out of Iraq about a Muslim man who buries the unclaimed dead, Melissa Block's quest for the elusive Wok Hay, and the reporter in the White House pressroom affectionately referred to as the Goyal Foil. We also share a brief message from sound designer Randy Thom about the progress of our Search for Sound project.

Opponents to embryonic stem cell research point out its moral cost: the destruction of human embryos. Two couples discuss the different choices they made about the embryos they left at a fertility clinic.

Author Scott Hershovitz sets out to prove that philosophy, like inquisitive, rowdy children, can offer illuminating insights — even when addressing complex subjects related to misbehavior.

Buffy Sainte-Marie has always been a wandering soul with a fierce sense of direction. Watch her and her touring band perform four songs from across her long, innovative career.

Journalist Karl Fleming's new book is Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir. As a civil rights reporter for Newsweek in the 1960s, he wrote about major events such as the Birmingham church bombing, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss. While at the 1966 riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Fleming was severely beaten.

Melissa Block talks with Jeffrey Hyson, an assistant professor of history at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Hyson is writing a book on the cultural history of zoos. We ask him about the modern interest and opposition to zoos. He says there is a tension between the desire to see the animals one would never get to see naturally in the wild, and the feeling of pity for them as they are held in captivity.

Oscar-winning singer/songwriter Jorge Drexler, who started out as a medical doctor in Uruguay, tells Jennifer Ludden about his rich cultural background, his eclectic muscial mix and the U.S. debut of his latest CD, Eco.

Gas prices are soaring across the country, but particularly in California. Fuel in the San Francisco Bay Area has topped $3, though the hike has not caused an attendant spike in public transportation ridership.

A sharp drop in share prices sent Wall Street to its worst week since last August. Joel Naroff, chief economist for Commerce Bank, tells Jennifer Ludden the decline has been under way for months, and in part reflects investors' concerns about high oil prices.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a short-term fix for a staggeringly expensive problem: Every year, more than 850 billion gallons of sewage flows into the nation's rivers, lakes and bays.