NPR News

Getting your tonsils out used to be just part of childhood — a rite of passage for children in the 1950s and 1960s. Then it fell out of favor.

But tonsillectomy is back.

Today, the most common reason for the surgery is "sleep disordered breathing," a broad diagnosis that includes sleep apnea and snoring. About 10 percent of elementary-school-age children snore.

At 32, it just didn't make sense that Daniel Sheiner was exhausted literally from the moment he woke up. "It didn't get any better over the course of the day, and I knew that was not normal," Sheiner says.

Sheiner is a software designer and programmer. His job suffered as a result of his fatigue.

"I would miss conversations," Sheiner says. "I would ask a question that had already been answered."

Monday is March 14 — a.k.a. 3/14, a date celebrated the world over as "Pi Day," after the irrational number. This year, to celebrate, musician Michael John Blake had the idea to compose, record and put on YouTube a musical interpretation of the most famous mathematical constant.

Monday night, five new performers will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Over the past several weeks, Morning Edition has looked behind the stage personas of this year's honorees. Here, we conclude the series with the story of an anonymous Tin Pan Alley tunesmith who went on to become one of the country's most popular concert performers.

Japan's economy — like much of the world — was already facing serious challenges before the earthquake struck. Economist Robert Madsen, a senior fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies, discusses the effects of the disaster in Japan on the economy there and around the globe.