Morning Edition from NPR

Just about three years after he violently assaulted her, R&B singer Chris Brown is back with pop star Rihanna — musically, at least. On Monday night, each released a new version of a previously released song. Both remixes feature the other party, and both are causing quite the stir.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. A couple who met working in a bookstore in Denver have spent their marriage amassing books about their passion - nature. Tales of birds and bees and literature like "The Mad Farmer" poem spill out of every corner of their home - 30,000 volumes. Now the house is up for sale and they're scrambling to find storage. One admirer joked to the Denver Post, it's a thin line between collecting and hoarding, but this collection is the best. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. A look at a factory in Pakistan tells you a lot about how the country works. The high security air force complex makes jet fighters and weapons systems and consumer electronics. The military is deeply involved in the economy, so its workers are making a low budget tablet computer. With Pakistani engineering and Chinese hardware, they make their version of a popular American product. The original is Apple's iPad. The copy is the PACPAD. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Some new research throws into question things we say all the time about the Internet. The research focuses on Twitter, the service that lets many millions of people send short messages to each other from computers or cell phones. It's commonly said that social networking like this is revolutionary, that it's created new communities, even that it's obliterated geography. You can connect with people who share common interests, not just people who happen to live nearby. NPR's Shankar Vedantam is here to explode all that. Hi, Shankar.

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And today's last word in business follows up on the business of Jeremy Lin, the Chinese-American sensation for the New York Knicks. You know, if you had a dollar for every news story that has used puns on his name, like linsanity, you would be lincrediably wealthy, but we would never lindulge in such things. So let's go straight to the way people are making money.

Rhythm in music is about timing — when notes start and stop. And now scientists say they've found a curious pattern that's common to musical rhythm. It's a pattern also found in nature.

There area a lot of bad movies out there. Some movies are so bad that they're good. For some reason people love them. Is there an art to making films that are deliberately bad? Can a company be successful by producing bad movies?

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The March issue of the medical journal, Pediatrics, features a striking editorial. It begins with the following sentence: A new pediatric problem is in town. That new problem, according to the editorial, is gender identity disorder in children. Pediatricians are apparently seeing more young patients who express an interest in changing their gender. NPR's Alix Spiegel reports.

The film Saving Face is nominated for an Oscar. It chronicles the lives of acid-attack survivors in Pakistan. Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy talks to Renee Montagne about what happens to some of the victims.

Tension has been high in the Maldives after Mohamed Nasheed resigned as president earlier this month. He later claimed that he was the victim of a coup, but his successor denies this. Nasheed talks to Renee Montagne about his situation, and what it means for the Indian Ocean islands.