Access Utah

There are many needs in our communities, and there are dedicated individuals and nonprofits working to meet those needs. They sometimes don’t get the recognition they deserve, and you may want to help somehow but don’t know where and how. On Wednesday’s AU we’re opening the phone lines, email and Twitter and giving you the opportunity to spotlight a nonprofit or individual doing good in your community.

Ken Valyear, Lecturer in cognitive neuroscience at Bangor University, writes in the Conversation that “Erik Sorto, 34, has been paralysed from the neck down for the past 13 years. However, thanks to a ground-breaking clinical trial [conducted by scientists at Caltech and USC], he has been able to smoothly drink a bottle of beer using a robotic arm controlled with his mind. He is the first patient to have had a neural prosthetic device implanted in a region of the brain thought to control intentions.” On Tuesday’s AU Ken Valyear will join us from Wales to discuss the latest in robotics and neuroscience.

Logan attorney Herm Olsen recently spent several weeks in the South Pacific island nation of Palau, helping the legal community there to make a transition to the jury trial system. Palau uses the American judicial system, but until recently they didn't allow for jury trials. Olsen reports to the Logan Herald Journal that "The Palauans were somewhat skeptical about a jury system, They said, 'Why do we need one? We have a judge.' One Palauan said 'I don't want to judge anybody. I don't want to make any decisions about guilt or innocence.'" An upcoming murder trial involving three defendants spurred the chief justice of the Palau Supreme Court to seek help. We'll also talk about the jury system in the U.S. and the ongoing meaning of the Magna Carta.

The Mau Mau Rebellion was a military conflict that took place from 1950 to 1962 in British Kenya. The Mau Mau failed to capture widespread public support partly due to the British policy of divide, conquer and rule. The movement remained divided despite attempts to unify its many arms . Today on the program author Laura Lee discusses one man's history as a Mau Mau General and how he broke through the rebel stereotypes throughout his life. She spend over 1,000 hours transcribing his words to write the book "The Boy is Gone, Conversations with a Mau Mau General."

Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 50,000 interviews with over 100,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to their weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition. StoryCorps’ mission is “to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of our lives.”

Our guest on Tuesday's AU is Mary Norris, who has spent more than three decades in The New Yorker's copy department. She's out with a new book "Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen" in which she addresses some of the most common and vexing problems in spelling, punctuation, and usage―comma faults, danglers, "who" vs. "whom," "that" vs. "which," compound words, gender-neutral language―and explains how to handle them.

Readers of physical books leave traces: marginalia, slips of paper, fingerprints, highlighting, inscriptions. All books have histories, and libraries are not just collections of books and databases, but a medium of long-distance communication with other writers and readers.

Biologist Niall McCann has made capturing the world's most dangerous creatures his part-time career, the rest of time he is at school working on his PhD focused on the much less threatening animal, the tapir.

Sandhill Cranes are some of the best-known, and loved, birds in the United States. Their tall stature and echoing calls combined with their close association with agricultural fields makes them easy to locate and instantly recognizable. But there is far more to cranes than meets the eye. These magnificent birds have been part of the North American landscape for more than 9 million years. They have also inspired a documentary film "Mating for Life," which focuses on a personal pilgrimage by the filmmaker, Cindy Stillwell, to witness the annual spring migration of the Sandhill cranes. She sees in the birds a metaphor for human transformation. "Mating for Life" is a meditation on nature and art, and poses important questions about our need for both connection and solitude.

David McCullough, widely-acclaimed as a master of the art of narrative history, joins us for Wednesday’s AU to talk about his latest book, “The Wright Brothers.” McCullough has twice received the Pulitzer Prize, for “Truman” and “John Adams,” and twice received the National Book Award, for “The Path Between the Seas” and “Mornings on Horseback.” His other, widely- praised, books include “1776,” “Brave Companions,” “The Johnstown Flood,” “The Great Bridge,” and “The Greater Journey.” He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. David McCullough is also featured as narrator in many documentary films, such as Ken Burns’ Civil War series.