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Airs Monday, August 22, 2011 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV

For centuries, the ice-choked Northwest Passage has been prized as a potential trade route. Now, rising Arctic temperatures mean the waterway is expected to open up for longer periods — a boon for shipping companies seeking a shortened trade route and for nations vying for untapped natural resources.

Melting Arctic ice will have profound consequences on the roof of the world, opening strategic waterways to shipping, reducing the ice cap on Greenland, and spurring a rush to claim rights to the wealth of natural resources that lie beneath.

"The truth of poetry is not the truth of history," according to the new poet laureate of the United States. Philip Levine's work is most famous for an urban perspective that began with a youth spent working in Detroit's automobile factories.

Sometimes, when walking Brooklyn's streets, it doesn't feel as if its literary past is haunting. Rather, its literary soul is still alive and pulsating. Brooklyn is a world unto itself and a writer's enclave. Journalist and critic Evan Hughes has written a literary biography of the leafy borough.

Genes that cause cancer to grow or an immune system to turn itself on will now be studied at a unique center in San Diego.

In the Iowa debate, Mitt Romney, the frontrunner, will likely stick tightly on his message,which is that President Obama has failed to lead, and his approach, which is to play it safe. It's a traditional frontrunner's strategy against an incumbent president of the opposite party.

The Navy SEALS are dealing with the deaths of 22 of their own after a Chinook helicopter goes down in Afghanistan. We take a look at this locally trained elite group.

A Sampling of Tempting Indie Fare

Holmes County is the most obese county in Mississippi, the most obese state. The county is also among Mississippi's poorest. Officials are trying to get families to make healthier choices, and a co-op that farms the fertile Delta land is trying to steer residents toward fresh food.