Leah, Melissa, and Kate are joined by Anil Kalhan to break down the Supreme Court’s important immigration habeas case, Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, as well as some DOJ developments.
Tom Sutcliffe discusses racism, the traps of history and the Black Lives Matter movement with the American author Brit Bennett and the British academic Gary Younge.
Racial identity, bigotry and shape-shifting are at the centre of Brit Bennett’s new book, The Vanishing Half. The novel focuses on twin sisters who flee the confines of their southern small town, and the attempts by one of the sisters to escape her background completely by passing as white. The social unrest in the US in the 20th century pervades her latest work, but Bennett is hopeful that today’s protests mark the beginning of real change.
Gary Younge lived in the US for 12 years working as a journalist, before he returned home and became Professor of Sociology at Manchester University. He discounts the attempts by some in Britain to claim moral superiority over America in terms of racism. He argues that Britain’s colonial past meant the most egregious racist acts often took place abroad, and so rarely became an integral part of the country’s story.
A few years ago, climate scientist Kim Cobb had a brutal realization about how much she was flying for conferences and meetings. Those flights were adding lots of climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Host Maddie Sofia talks with her about her push to get scientists to fly less for work, and what happened when the pandemic suddenly made that idea a reality.
The best method for electing the president of the United States, debated by the Founding Fathers, is a bone of contention generations later. Today, many call the Electoral College outdated. But Carly Terry, a new high school graduate from Nassau County, Florida, argued in an award-winning essay that the Founders settled on the Electoral College for a reason, and it remains the best way to elect the president.
Terry was awarded a $10,000 scholarship from the U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation for her essay as a senior in defense of the Electoral College. She and Howard Pines, a founder of the organization, join the podcast to discuss precisely why we shouldn't abandon the Electoral College.
Also on today’s show, we share your letters to the editor and a good news story about the prayer gatherings taking place around the country since the death of George Floyd.
A record summer temperature in Siberia is an indication of major changes in the Arctic climate. Changing weather patterns there have a knock on effect for other parts of the planet says Climatologist Steve Vavrus
Chile appeared to get Covid-19 under control, but in reality the virus was spreading uncontrollably through poor areas, As we hear from our correspondent in Santiago Jane Chambers, the lockdown has tightened but cases continue to rise.
And could mass testing using new saliva tests help control or even end the epidemic? Epidemiologist Julian Peto tells us about his plan which is designed to contain the virus within individual households and stop community spread.
Experiments to investigate dark matter have produced some tantalising results, Physicist Laura Manenti says it’s not confirmation of detection, but potentially close.
If you put one person’s blood into another person , sometimes it’s fine and sometimes it’s a death sentence.
French physician Jean-Baptiste Denis discovered this when he performed the first blood transfusion back in 1667. He put the blood of a lamb into a 15-year boy. The teenager survived but Denis’s third attempt killed the patient and led to a murder charge.
In 1900, Austrian doctor Karl Landsteiner discovered the reason for this lottery – blood types. The red blood cells in our bodies are decorated with different marker molecules called antigens. These define us as A, B, AB or O blood type. And this is just one of 38 different systems for classifying our blood. CrowdScience listeners have discovered that we aren’t the only animal with blood types and want to know more.
Dogs have 12 different blood groups, so how do they cope when they need a transfusion? CrowdScience meets some very good dogs who donate a pint to the pet blood bank in return for a toy and a treat. Each pint saving up to 4 other dogs’ lives.
We also hear how examining our blood types can tell us more about our links to our ape-like cousins and how the human species spread around the world. And what about the future of blood types – can we use science, and animal blood to get around the problems of transfusions?
(Image: Rural Scene in Verkhoyansk. Credit: Dean Conger/Corbis via Getty Images)
The hosts of NPR's All Things Considered help you make sense of a major news story and what it means for you, in 15 minutes. New episodes six days a week, Sunday through Friday.
The steroid Dexamethasone has been hailed a ?major breakthrough? in the treatment of Covid-19. But what does the data say? Plus, why haven?t mass protests led to a second wave?
