Will Teachers Strike if They’re Forced Back to Class During Pandemic? (0:33)

Guest: Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers

What’s happening with the schools? It’s the thing everyone with kids is talking about. Worrying about. Will they reopen? Is it safe? Teachers are the lynchpin in this whole conversation and last week, the nation’s second largest teachers union announced that “nothing is off the table” including strikes if the safety demands of teachers are not met as schools open.

 

The Genetic Link between Polynesians and Native South Americans (20:31)

Guest: Alexander Ioannidis, Researcher, Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University; Keolu Fox, Anthropology Professor, Genome Scientist, Dir. of Indigenous Futures Lab, University of California at San Diego

How did the tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean become populated? There’ve been debates among scientists about this for centuries. DNA analysis is providing new, more conclusive evidence of ancient people traveling back and forth across the Pacific Ocean–from Asia, to the Polynesian Islands, to South America and back. It’s pretty remarkable to think how they pulled that off in canoes and no modern navigational equipment to guide them.

 

Airline Travel in a Pandemic World (37:55)

Guest: Henry Harteveldt, President, Atmosphere Research Group

The airline industry is not doing well. The pandemic has so many travel restrictions in pace that often you can’t fly where you might want to go. And even if you can, do you want to get in a closed space with hundreds of other people for hours on end right now?

 

The Wolves of Yellowstone (52:48)

Guest: Jim Halfpenny, President of a Naturalist's World, Author "Charting Yellowstone Wolves: The 25th Anniversary Edition"

It’s been 25 years since wolves returned to Yellowstone National Park. Those first wolves that were reintroduced to the park have given birth to a sprawling genealogy you can now trace on Ancestry.com. I know, Ancestry is for people. But the Yellowstone Wolves have their own family tree on there, too, complete with photos and personal histories that are pretty dramatic in some cases.

 

What Killed 300 Elephants in Botswana This Spring? (1:11:49)

Guest: Chris Thouless, Head of Research, Save the Elephants

As the world came under the grips of COVID-19, a mysterious illness swept through an otherwise healthy population of African elephants in Botswana. Conservationists captured images of nearly 300 elephants slumped on their bellies, indicating a “fast and sudden death”. Were they poisoned by humans? That seems unlikely, since the dead elephants all had their tusks, so it wouldn’t have been poachers.

 

How 800 Million Children Around the World Are Suffering From Lead Poisoning (1:28:27) 

Guest: Richard Fuller, President, Pure Earth

A new report from UNICEF, that’s the United Nations Children Fund, has determined that 1 in 3 children around the globe are poisoned by lead which can cause crippling defects in their development. Children in Africa and South Asia are particularly affected by this lead poisoning.