Lives lost, answers sought.

Today, Egypt's military rulers called for an investigation into twenty-six deaths in downtown Cairo last night, after a protest by Cairo's Coptic Christians escalated into mayhem.

Before Egypt's January revolution began, reports of sectarian attacks on the country's Christian minority dominated headlines. Yesterday's blooshed was the worst since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

Sarah Carr is a reporter for the Al Masry Al Youm newspaper. She followed the protesters' march yesterday. We reached her on her cellphone in Cairo.

They put down their dukes. And then he called them "pukes".

Last week, Don Cherry squared off with a few former NHL enforcers, for allegedly turning their backs on fighting in hockey. One of them, Jim Thomson, fought back on As it Happens. The scrap was enough to get a number of listeners to join the fray.

Bob Kotyk from Algonquin Island, Ontario, wrote:

"I must take issue with your interview with Jim Thompson and his response to Don Cherry's name calling and accusations. How fair is it that you have someone of Mr. Thompson's character, intelligence and thoughfulness respond to Mr. Cherry? Clearly you have set up a one-sided fight. Matching a lightweight with two feet in his mouth against an articulate heavyweight of Mr. Thompson's calibre is just not right."

That email from Bob Kotyk on Algonquin Island, Ontario.

David Heinimann from Terrace, BC, scores the fight similarly:

"Jim Thompson definitely decked Don Cherry. Perhaps hearing Thompson (and perhaps fearing for his CBC contract), Cherry has attempted an apology over the 'puke' slur -- attempted, because, if you listen carefully, he equivocates with his concern for 'the kids listening'. In other words, adult listeners -- and especially the players he insults -- do not deserve the apology.

"His apology should go further. It is too kind to say that Cherry's encouragement of the violent game doesn't feed but only reflects the increased incivility of fans damaged by social factors far beyond his influence or, likely, understanding It is, however, completely fair to say that, despite Cherry's meanness, Ron MacLean's restraint shows what civility remains.

Thanks to David Henimann of Terrace, BC, for that email.

And to everyone who wrote in. Talkback also penalized Cherry - two minutes for instigating:

A write-up of wrongs -- one that adds up to "systematic" torture.

Today, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan released its latest report on the treatment of detainees in the country's prisons.

The report brings together the testimony of nearly four-hundred detainees collected over the last year.

And concludes there was widespread torture.

Georgette Gagnon is a Canadian lawyer and the UN mission's director of human rights.

We reached her in Kabul, Afghanistan. And again, a warning to listeners: some of the descriptions in this interview are graphic.

In the beginning, there was water. A lot of it. And then there was land. And the fish saw that the land was good. So they leapt at it.

Fast-forward about about three-hundred-fifty-million years*, and you have far more highly-evolved terrestrial creatures -- like, say, Alice Gibb. She's a researcher with the department of biology at Northern Arizona University.

Ms. Gibb's research into how fish jump may have implications for our understanding of how we ended up here at all. We reached her in Flagstaff, Arizona.

*Corrected from sixty-five million years Oct 11/11

Happy Ending?

There are no happy endings.

Endings are the saddest part,

So just give me a happy middle

And a very happy start.

That little poem -- along with several others by the late Shel Silverstein -- is getting just that, a very happy start -- thirteen years after the writer's untimely end.

Every Thing On It is the title of a posthumous collection of poems and illustrations by Silverstein, recently published by members of his family.

Mitch Myers is the nephew of Shel Silverstein, and one of the people who put the book together. We reached him in Chicago, Illinois.

Being diagnosed with cancer is scary and confusing. But getting tested to find out whether you have it or not shouldn't be. On Friday, Carol spoke with a doctor from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. That organization advises men not to have their blood tested for P-S-A -- a prostate-specific antigen that can sometimes indicate prostate cancer.

That conversation prompted Andrew Lyon from Calgary to send this email:

"Thank-you for interviewing Dr. Wilt about the problems with P-S-A screening for prostate cancer. The harm from screening programs that use non-specific tests, on asymptomatic volunteers, is difficult to communicate. We all like to hear of advances in medicine that promote health -- and they often get headlines, while this type of news about P-S-A is difficult to grasp and report."

Thanks to Andrew Lyon from Calgary for that email.

As you know, Talkback routinely provides a second opinion:

Sirte is all that remains.

The Libyan National Transitional Council is fighting a pitched battle with the last of Gadhafi's army. When the city falls, says the interim government, the old regime will have been defeated.

In the meantime, The Times of London has learned that a number of Western companies with business ties to the old regime are taking measures to ensure the details of their dealings don't fall into the wrong hands.

Hugh Tomlinson is a correspondent with that paper. We reached him in Dubai.

Exquisitely bland.

How else to describe John Boa's award-winning porridge?

Carrbridge, Scotland, played host to the World Porridge Making Championships over the weekend.

And, For the Record, here's a BBC interview this year's winner of the "Golden Spurtle" -- John Boa.

Their goal is anything but simple: they want to save the world.

More specifically, they want to save the lives of the world's most vulnerable people.

They are Abdallah Daar and Peter Singer -- both Canadian doctors, both frustrated by the disparity between the developed and developing worlds. If you live in Canada, the U.S. -- or anywhere else in the First World -- you've got a good chance of living into your eighties. If you life in Tanzania or Afghanistan -- or anywhere else in the developing world -- you can expect to live about half that long.

And because most of the world's population falls into this second category, Dr. Daar and Dr. Singer have made it their goal to fix this. It's no small feat.

Which is why they've called their new book, "The Grandest Challenge: Bringing Life Saving Science from Lab to Village."

Peter Singer and Abdallah Daar joined Carol in the As It Happens Studio.