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If diet is destiny, then modern humans should thank our ancestors for their ability to eat just about anything.

Two new studies peek into the distant past to try to figure out just how big a role food played in human evolution. One says that eating meat made it possible for early human mothers to wean babies earlier and have more children.

A Dutch virologist is considering his full range of legal options if his government refuses to lift the restrictions it has put on his controversial bird flu research, and matters could quickly come to a head after a meeting next Monday that will be attended by U. S. observers.

Of Monsters and Men is an Icelandic sextet specializing in catchy folk-pop. The group came together in 2009 when singer Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir began recruiting backups for her acoustic solo act. In 2010, Of Monsters and Men gained national fame when it won an annual Icelandic battle of the bands; since then, the buzz has only grown.

There's another bit of tragic news to report today: 43 people are dead after a truck crashed into a passenger bus in eastern Mexico today. Authorities told the AFP that the incident happened after a trailer came loose and hit a bus carrying agricultural workers headed to work.

The AP reports:

Smoking is bad. Quitting smoking is hard. But exercising can make quitting easier, and make sliding back into smoking less likely.

That's the word from a big new study, which tracked the health and habits of 434,190 people in Taiwan from 1996 to 2008. Smokers who got just 15 minutes of exercise a day were 55 percent more likely to quit than were people who weren't active at all. And those active smokers were 43 percent less likely to relapse when they did quit.

A story and two questions on the New York state English exam taken by eighth-graders this week has stumped many — including Jeopardy! star Ken Jennings.

The story — titled The Pineapple and the Hare — was included in a New York Daily News story about the consternation the questions have caused.

A year after an uprising threatened Bahrain's monarchy, the royal family is hosting a Formula One Grand Prix race this Sunday as it attempts to show life has returned to normal.

But racing fans will have to make their way through ranks of police and soldiers who are part of a heavy security presence. And riot police have been using tear gas, stun grenades and birdshot to hold back demonstrations around the capital city, Manama.

A photograph published by ABC News this morning shows what the network says is the head of George Zimmerman covered in blood. ABC News says the picture was taken minutes after Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin to death.

The 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting, but he has maintained that he shot Martin, who was unarmed and on his way back from buying candy and tea, in self defense.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Earth Day is Sunday and in anticipation of that we're going to spend some time revisiting one of the worst environmental disasters in our nation's history: the BP oil spill. It's been exactly two years since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded some 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, we are going to go to Sweden, where a cake and a minister who seemed to have too much fun cutting it have sparked international protests. We'll tell you more about this in just a few minutes.

But first, it's time for Faith Matters. That's the part of the program where we talk about matters of faith and spirituality. Catholic parishioners in the Cleveland area were thrilled this week when Bishop Richard Lennon announced he will reopen 12 churches.

UPDATE at 11:10 a.m. EST:

Judge Kenneth Lester says George Zimmerman can go free as he awaits trial if he posts a $150,000 bail.

Lester said as a condition of his release, Zimmerman would be electronically monitored, could have no contact with Trayvon Martin's family and would be prohibited from possessing firearms or using alcohol. He will also be on a curfew and have to check in every three days.

The judge said once he is assured that security measures have been met, Zimmerman will be freed.

UPDATE at 11:50 a.m. EST:

The Associated Press quotes Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhar as saying the 737-200 went down in a farm field of a relatively unpopulated area just a few miles from the international airport in Islamabad.

Mukhar said it was unlikely that anyone had survived.

Pakistani television showed wreckage of the plane, including parts that appeared to be the engine and the wing up against a small building, AP says.

UPDATE at 11:00 a.m. EST:

Levon Helm, the longtime drummer of The Band who backed Bob Dylan and sang with Van Morrison, died Thursday after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 71.

Arithmetic can be quite enlightening sometimes. One of the country's top agricultural economists just fiddled with the government's balance sheet on crop insurance, and arrived at a shocking conclusion: We'd spend billions of dollars less than we do now if we just gave away a simplified version of the insurance for free.

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LYNN NEARY, HOST:

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

When John Paton Davies died, he left some unfinished business. His daughter, Tiki Davies, knew he had signed a contract to write a memoir but never finished it. One of her sisters had a carbon copy of the manuscript, which Tiki Davies started typing into a computer.

TIKI DAVIES: What was interesting to me about retyping it is that it's very much in his voice. He was very funny and an elegant speaker as well as a writer. And so I felt as though I had him back for the couple of months I did this.

The home of the Red Sox may be a Boston landmark but it also holds a place in baseball history. The big green wall in left field is known as the Green Monster. Some fans are paying more than $1,000 to sit on top of the Green Monster when the Red Sox play Friday night.