Tradegies in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio

There were two mass shootings in the span of 13 hours over the weekend. On Saturday morning a gunman in El Paso killed 21 people and wounded dozens of others. Early Sunday morning, another gunman killed nine people and injured more in Dayton. We discss the latest information as of air time.

China’s Mass Incarceration of Muslim Uyghurs May Be a New Form of Ethnic Cleansing 

Guest: Sean R. Roberts, Director and Associate Professor, International Development Studies Program, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University

Facing international condemnation, China says it has released all of the people detained in so-called re-education camps in western China. Up to a million Muslim Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in the camps. Experts who’ve watched China’s escalating mistreatment of the minority ethnic group over the last decade are skeptical the camps have actually been emptied.

Decoding the Secret Messages of Firefly Flashes

Guest: Clyde Sorenson, Professor of Entomology, North Carolina State University

If you happen to live in a part of the country where fireflies are abundant this time of year, I’m so envious. They’re magical to watch –and though their flashing lights can seem random, different species have their own unique rhythm.

A Walk Through the Two Newest US National Parks

Guest: Becky Lomax, Author of “USA National Parks: The Complete Guide to All 59 Parks”

The US has designated two more places as national parks in the past couple of years. One of them –Indiana Dunes –received the official title just a few months ago. The park features sand dunes that run along Lake Michigan. The other new one is called Gateway Arch, and unlike its sisters, the central feature of this park is something totally man-made.

500 Years after Leonardo Da Vinci’s Death, New Book Considers his Legacy

Guests: Jean-Pierre Isbouts, Art Historian and Doctoral Professor, Fielding Graduate University; Christopher Brown, DDS, Director of Brown Discoveries, LLC, Co-authors of “The Da Vinci Legacy: How an Elusive 16thCentury Artist Became a Global Pop Icon”

This year marks 500 years since the death of Leonardo da Vinci. The Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, his incredibly detailed human anatomy sketches and his early invention of the bicycle and the parachute make him perhaps the most celebrated artist of all time. But when he died in the summer of 1519, he was not famous. In fact, he was something of a failure by Italian Renaissance standards and was living in exile in France. His burial site went forgotten for centuries. So why is he so famous today? 

Inbred Cows

Guest: Chad DeChow, Associate Professor of Dairy Cattle Genetics, Penn State University

A happy Holstein cow in 1950 could produce a little more than 600 gallons of milk in a year. Today, that cow would be a slacker. Now that same cow would be expected to produce over 2,600 gallons of milk. How did this increase happen? Turns out a cow’s ability to produce much more milk is the result of a highly tuned selective breeding process. So selective that researchers have discovered nearly every Holstein in America can be linked back to a couple of bulls from the 1960s. But the downside of this is inbreeding and a lack of genetic diversity.