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When doctors autopsied tuberculosis patients, they described finding round, white swellings, especially in and around the lungs. Medical historian Howard Markel describes how those potato-like growths led to the disease being called tuberculosis, from the Latin tuber.

There was meaning in the places President Obama and Mitt Romney chose for their dueling speeches on Thursday. The president was at a community college in heavily Democratic Cleveland. The Republican visited a small business in Cincinnati, a G.O.P. stronghold.

The London 2012 Olympics are officially over, but people are still buzzing about Sunday's closing ceremony. It included many of the highlights of British culture and history that weren't in London's opening ceremony. And in America, some viewers are angry about what was left out of the U.S. feed.

It's been more than a week since the Mars rover Curiosity made its successful landing on the Red Planet. Curiosity is by far the most technologically advanced rover to reach the planet's surface. David Greene talks to astrophysicist Neal DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, about Curiosity's two-year visit to Mars.

The Bourne Legacy is the latest movie to recast a main character in order to continue the franchise. But from Bond to Bewitched, Batman to Dumbledore, Hollywood has never been afraid to dump old stars and seek fresh blood for the sake of a character's longevity.

Iran is facing its most serious challenge since the war with Iraq in the 1980s.

When Republican Mitt Romney tapped House budget chairman Paul Ryan to be his vice presidential running mate, the decision forced both campaigns to focus on Medicare. The Ryan pick was a 180-degree turn from Romney's original premise, which was to focus exclusively on President Obama and the economy.

Just how do trees die? It seems like a simple question, but the answer still eludes scientists. And understanding forest ecology is increasingly important as the effects of climate change begin to take root.

International Envoy Kofi Annan is quitting and his peace plan for Syria in tatters. So, what will the U.S. and others do now? President Obama has quietly allowed a group to raise money to give to the Free Syrian Army and U.S. diplomats have been trying to get a better sense of the opposition on the ground, offering non-lethal support. Syrian opposition figures complain that these are only small adjustments that won't make a difference amid a rapidly changing situation on the ground.

This summer's dry weather is drawing comparisons to the droughts of the 1950s and even the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. Technology and techniques developed from those hard times are helping to save some of today's crops, but there's no substitute for water.