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The costumes onstage in Washington, D.C. might look a bit brighter this opera season. All Things Considered senior host Robert Siegel talks with Alberto Spiazzi, costume designer for Washington Opera's production of Aida, about luminex, a self-illuminating fabric. View the fabric in action.

Melanie Peeples reports from Birmingham, Al., that an Internet site has become a way for so-called "military brats" to reconnect to childhood friends and sweethearts. The children of those serving in the military often spend their childhood moving from one base to another. Staying in touch through these countless relocations can be difficult. So far, about 60,000 of the millions of military brats have registered on the site searching for former friends and acquaintances.

Film critic David Edelstein comments on the DVD release of Donnie Darko, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

It's estimated that hundreds of volunteer "human shields" are in Baghdad from the United States and elsewhere. They're placing themselves at installations in an effort to prevent U.S. bombing. NPR's Melissa Block talks to volunteer human shield Ken Nichols O'Keefe, and to Paul Eliopolous, an American who became an involuntary shield when arrested by Iraqis in Kuwait in 1990.

Alex Chadwick has the second of a two-part NPR/National Geographic Radio Expedition to the remote New Mexico test site where the most terrifying weapon ever -- the atomic bomb -- was born.

The space shuttle Columbia disaster leaves Russia's space program with the responsibilty of maintaining the international space station while shuttle flights are grounded. Russia says it needs U.S. financial help to achieve that. NPR's Lawrence Sheets reports.

Hip-hop culture, with its street rhythms and explicit lyrics, is more relevant in advancing civil rights today than the peaceful messages of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., author Todd Boyd says. In an interview with NPR's Scott Simon, Boyd says hip hop artists use language as a political weapon that provokes and "makes people think." (Note: Contains language that some may consider offensive.)

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe faces tough questions on Capitol Hill during a hearing on the space agency's 2004 budget. Members of the House Science Committee also press O'Keefe for safety assurances following the loss earlier this month of the space shuttle Columbia. NPR's Eric Niiler reports.

The United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa talks about the current state of the AIDS crisis there. He recently returned from a tour of Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, where he was investigating links between hunger and AIDS. He is the former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and was the Canadian ambassador to the U.N. from 1984-1988.

NPR's Susan Stone reports on a new Scottish film based on the hit novel Movern Caller. It uses music, specifically a cassette left for the title character by her dead boyfriend, to drive the story.