KQED's Forum

For author Jackie Higgins, the bizarre-looking star-nosed mole has a lot to tell us about how humans perceive the world. The fastest eater in the animal kingdom, its secret weapon is 22 tentacles that stick out of its nostril, giving it an uncanny sense of touch. In her new book “Sentient,” Higgins explores the different sensory powers found in the animal kingdom, like pheromone detection or the innate sense of time. A nature filmmaker who studied with Richard Dawkins, Higgins joins us to talk about the book, and about why everything we were taught about humans having only five senses is wrong.

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Calling her "one of the nation's brightest legal minds," President Biden on Friday nominated federal appellate court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. If confirmed, she would be the first Black woman to serve on the high court and would replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who is set to retire in June. Judge Jackson, who clerked for Justice Breyer, is also a former trial court judge and federal public defender. We'll talk about the significance of her nomination and how she could shape Supreme Court doctrine.

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Russian forces on Friday closed in on the outskirts of Ukraine's capital city Kyiv, and aerial assaults continued, forcing tens of thousands of Ukrainians from their homes. Rose Gottemoeller, who served as NATO Deputy Secretary General from 2016 to 2019, calls the invasion an "enormous tragedy" that threatens to destroy Ukraine and that could signal President Vladimir Putin's intent to turn Russia into a pariah state. We'll talk about what NATO and the U.S. need to do to de-escalate and deter further violence.

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Rep. Ro Khanna is one of a handful of congress members who represent Silicon Valley. His district stretches from Fremont to Cupertino, and in his new book, “Dignity in a Digital Age,” Khanna argues that to achieve digital equity, tech needs to be less geographically concentrated. The book also addresses multiple legislative proposals to tighten federal regulation of consumer privacy, digital wealth inequality and the cognitive impacts of social media. We’ll talk with Rep. Khanna about the book, his proposed “Internet Bill of Rights,” and how to make tech work for all of us.

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On Thursday morning, Russian forces unleashed an air and land assault on Ukraine, and by day’s end, troops were closing in on the country’s capital Kyiv and had taken control of Chernobyl, the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster. According to the Ukrainian government, at least 57 citizens have been killed and 169 wounded. Meanwhile, civilians attempted to flee cities under missile assault. In a televised statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky committed to the fight saying that “a new iron curtain” is closing around Eastern Europe and his job is to keep Ukraine in the west. President Joe Biden and leaders around the world condemned the Russian invasion, and Biden also announced sanctions against Russia and its leaders. We’ll talk about the latest developments and what lies ahead.

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As a longtime family physician, John Abramson became alarmed by the growing influence of drug makers over how doctors do their jobs. Abramson, who also teaches at Harvard Medical School, later became an expert witness in pharmaceutical lawsuits, which gave him a front row seat to the industry’s abuses. In his new book “Sickening,” Abramson shares troubling cases of drug companies interfering in medical research – often at the expense of patients. Abramson joins Forum to talk about the book and how to reform the American healthcare system.

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One day in the summer of 2019, Solomon Hughes, a former Cal basketball star then working in academia, got a message from a former college teammate-turned actor: an untitled TV series was searching for someone to play the great basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Based on the 2014 book “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers” by Jeff Pearlman, the series now has a name, “Winning Time,” and premieres Mar. 6 on HBO. And Hughes, who landed the role, now has his first turn as an actor. We’ll talk to Hughes about the series, becoming an actor and the legacy of the Showtime Lakers dynasty that ruled the court in the 1980s.

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Every year, thousands of bees are transported from other regions of the country to pollinate California’s highly profitable almond crops. But the valuable hives belonging to those migrant worker bees have now become targets for thieves: so far this year, beekeepers have reported more than 1,000 beehives stolen from orchards across the state. We discuss the growing problem of beehive thefts and the sophisticated tools and tactics beekeepers are using to protect their bees.

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During the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd, many remember the emotional testimony of Darnella Frazier, the Black teen who filmed the murder. Her testimony and that of other eyewitnesses, many of whom were Black, were a central part of the prosecution’s case. Black people didn’t always have the right to testify in court in the U.S., though – and not just in the Jim Crow South, but in California as well, which had a Black testimony exclusion law on the books from 1850 to 1863. That lesser known law, and the consequences of it, is the subject of a new episode of the podcast “Gold Chains,” produced by the ACLU of Northern California. We talk to the podcast’s creator, Tammerlin Drummond, about this history and why Black testimony mattered then – and still matters today.

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State efforts to curtail reproductive rights are on the rise as Florida, Arizona and West Virginia all consider bills that would ban abortions after 15 weeks. Meanwhile, lawmakers in South Dakota, Alabama, Missouri and Arkansas have introduced bills that copy SB 8, the Texas law that bans all abortions, even in the case of rape and incest, after six weeks and lets private citizens enforce the ban by suing anyone who “aids and abets” in an abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in the last year 108 laws rolling back reproductive rights have been introduced in state legislatures across the country. As the Supreme Court weighs whether Roe v. Wade will stand, we’ll examine the politics behind these latest measures and where they will lead.

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