Watch today's episode on YouTube. Today on Getting Hammered, we’re breaking down President Biden’s eyebrow-raising pardon of Hunter, Donald Trump’s latest cabinet picks, and his take on the conflict in Gaza. Pour a drink and join us for the conversation!
The First World War was an unprecedented crisis, with communities and societies enduring the unimaginable hardships of a prolonged conflict on an industrial scale. In Belgium and France, the terrible capacity of modern weaponry destroyed the natural world and exposed previously held truths about military morale and tactics as falsehoods. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers suffered some of the worst conditions that combatants have ever faced. How did they survive? What did it mean to them? How did they perceive these events?
Whilst the trenches of the Western Front have come to symbolise the futility and hopelessness of the Great War, in Making Sense of the Great War: Crisis, Englishness, and Morale on the Western Front (Cambridge University Press, 2024) Dr. Alex Mayhew shows that English infantrymen rarely interpreted their experiences in this way. They sought to survive, navigated the crises that confronted them, and crafted meaningful narratives about their service. Making Sense of the Great War reveals the mechanisms that allowed them to do so.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
The modern world runs on electricity. That isn’t a throwaway statement. If we take away electricity, our modern civilization will quickly fall apart.
The power that runs the modern world is dependent on a very technical, and in some cases very fragile, network of electrical generation, transmission, and consumption.
These electrical networks can be as small as a city or as large as a continent.
Learn more about the electrical grid, how it works and how may change in the future on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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How are memories made? Where are they stored? Where do they go? What was I just talking about? Neurobiologist, professor, researcher, and Director of UC Irvine’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Dr. Michael Yassa, joins us for a two-parter deep diving into our memories. Get to know the cells that run your life while he also busts flim-flam, and talks about movie myths, aging and memory loss, childbirth amnesia, what happens when you cram for a test, hormones and memory, that thing where you can’t remember a word, how to let go of the past, and more. Next week, we’ll follow up with your Patreon questions about Alzheihmer’s, remembering people’s names, neurodivergence, dementia, collective misremembering, and so much more. Commit it to memory.
The Supreme Court will hear a landmark case over trans rights today. In U.S. v. Skrmetti, the justices will weigh the constitutionality of a 2023 Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for trans minors. A group of families, a doctor, the Biden Administration, and civil rights groups are challenging the law. Sruti Swaminathan, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV project, talks about what’s at stake in the case.
And in headlines: South Korean President Yoon Suk Seoul reversed his earlier decision to declare martial law, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested he’s open to negotiating a peace deal with Russia, and Iowa officials sued the Biden administration to get the citizenship status of more than 2,000 registered voters.
We’ll fill you in on the chaos playing out in South Korea, and what the U-S government has to say about it.
Also, the U-S Supreme Court will take up the hot-button issue of transgender medicine in what’s considered the most high-profile case of this term.
Plus, certain illnesses are starting to tick up around the country, an unprecedented cyberattack hit companies like Verizon and AT&T, and Apple Music has named the top song of 2024.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
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Jaguar finally unveiled its epicly rebranded car… but was the publicity worth the price?
The number of male nurses in America has tripled… and they’re coming from the manliest jobs.
Influencer Ryan Serhant just launched a real estate app… he’s pivoted from reality TV to tech founder.
Plus, we got the data on Christmas tree prices… and they’re dropping 2% every single day.
Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Polaroid: Invented (sort of) by a 3-year-old 📸
“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.
The Vertebrate Genomes Project: It's an ambitious effort by an international group of scientists to create a "Genome Ark" by sequencing the genomes of about 70,000 animal species. The hope is that through all of this gene sequencing, scientists will be able to answer some basic but important questions like: What makes a bird, well, a bird? What makes a mammal a mammal? Plus, with so many species on the verge of extinction, can scientists record their genetic information before they go extinct – or better yet, maybe help save the population from going extinct? Guest host Jon Hamilton, one of our favorite science correspondents, talks to Erich Jarvis, the chair of this project, to learn what this ark of animal genomes could mean for our future – and why a platypus qualified for early boarding.
Want to hear more animal stories? Let us know at shortwave@npr.org — we read every email.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
Angela Merkel served as Chancellor of Germany through a number of global challenges: a pandemic, a migrant crisis and military aggression. But she also had to consider dilemmas that were specific to being the first and only woman to hold her position. The former chancellor reflects on this experience, her rise to power and her political record in a new memoir, Freedom. In today's episode, Merkel speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelley through a translator. They discuss going toe-to-toe with leaders like Vladimir Putin, what a second Trump term means for U.S. diplomacy, and whether Merkel sees herself as a feminist.
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