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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon and we'll have to wait until June to learn what the U.S. Supreme Court has decided on the two gay marriage cases before it. But this week, the justices heard oral arguments and they gave perhaps some hints of their thinking. One case concerns the constitutionality of California's ban on gay marriage, the other case is a challenge to what's called DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act.

We're joined now by NPR legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg. Thanks for being with us.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Sonoran Desert, which spans some 100,000 square miles in southwestern North America, is one of the most diverse desert ecosystems in the world. Host Ira Flatow and guests discuss some lesser known desert creatures, and explore the secret life of that American southwest icon, the saguaro cactus.

When does a story about science become science fiction? Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss and theoretical physicist Brian Greene discuss how to spin a yarn about string theory or the Big Bang, without hyping the science. And novelist Ian McEwan, whose books touch on neurosurgery and quantum field theory, talks about what science offers to fiction.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. And for the rest of the hour we're going to talk about collisions, space collisions, space impacts, with Erik Asphaug, who's Ronald Greeley chair of planetary geology, School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

ERIK ASPHAUG: Thanks very much, Ira.

FLATOW: You must be very busy since this last collision in Russia of this asteroid.

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CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with P. J. O'Rourke, Kyrie O'Connor, and Adam Felber. And, here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, and filling in for Peter Sagal, Tom Bodett.

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TOM BODETT, HOST:

Thank you, Carl. In just a minute, Carl leaves the rhyme on for you at Motel Limericks in our listener limerick challenge. Let me do that again, I don't think you heard it.

(LAUGHTER)

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CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, filling in for Drew Carey filling in for Peter Sagal, Tom Bodett.

TOM BODETT, HOST:

Thank you Carl.

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BODETT: Wow. Those are some big - and numerous - shoes to fill. And by the end of the show those shoes will be fuller than a preacher's pockets at a Sunday picnic. And by that I mean what, Carl?

KASELL: No clue, Tom.

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TOM BODETT, HOST:

Now, panel, how will that teenager blow his 30 million? P. J. O'Rourke?

P. J. O'ROURKE: Well, 30 million is about what college education costs for a kid these days. So he's going to spend it to get a college education so he can get a good job.

BODETT: Kyrie O'Connor?

KYRIE O'CONNOR: He's going to blow it on cars he can't drive, women he can't date and liquor he can't drink.

BODETT: And Adam Felber?

ADAM FELBER: He's going to wait two years and then he's going to buy Yahoo.

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