Author Laurence Gonzales has won many awards, including two National Magazine Awards and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. He'll discuss his work researching stories of incredible survival and extraordinary circumstances, and what character traits separate the survivors from the victims.

First Hour: Research scientist Robert Golka talks about the mysterious quality of ball lightning, and plasma physics.

In the first half, journalist and teacher Frosty Wooldridge discussed his work campaigning against illegal immigration and the ramifications of adding 100 million people to the U.S. population by 2035, with the population rising to 438 million by 2050.

In the latter half, futurist Paul Guercio and physicist George Hart shared updates from their Merlin Project, which tracks trends for such things as current events, places, products, business people, politicians and celebrities based on their birth or start date.