Voices from the March on Washington 2020 (0:31)

Guests: March on Washington 2020 participants Courtney Wiley, Sue Brown, Rachael Theis, Carl Crawford, Lisa Smitley, Julie Reed

An estimated 50,000 people rallied for racial justice in Washington, DC on Friday, marking the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr’s 1963 March on Washington. Top of Mind’s Julie Rose was at the 2020 March on Friday. In this special report, we meet veteran activists and people attending a civil rights march for the very first time. What makes this march different from the one Martin Luther King, Jr. led 57 years ago? What change do they hope for? 

American Guns Smuggled into UK Aid British Crime (23:08)

Guest: Aaron Karp, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Old Dominion University, Senior Consultantat with the Small Arms Survey, Geneva

The United Kingdom has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world–private ownership of handguns has been almost completely banned since 1996. But there’s been a recent surge in illegal firearms there. Gun seizures by Britain’s National Crime Agency more than doubled in the last year. And experts are worried that gun smuggling out of the US to the UK will accelerate after Brexit.

Flu Season and COVID-19 (33:08)

Guest: William Schaffner, Professor, Preventive Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Fall is just around the corner, which means the flu season is, too. But we’re still in a pandemic, so now experts are worried about COVID-19 and a severe influenza raging across the country. They’re calling the possibility a “twindemic.”

A Day in the Life of Hand Model (52:48)

Guest: RayMartell Moore, Hand Model

Hand modeling. Can’t be so hard, right? After all, George Costanza from the TV show Seinfeld got offered a hand modeling job. What does make someone’s hands commercial-worthy? A professional hand model fills us in.

Learning a Language Faster By Stimulating a Nerve (1:10:12)

Guest: Matthew Leonard, Professor of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco

Learning a new language as an adult is hard. Apps and computer programs can only do so much when our brains just aren’t as flexible. So what if we ditch the Duolingo and go straight to stimulating a nerve instead? A special earpiece is making that possible. It’s non-invasive, and it helped participants in a study learn some Mandarin Chinese more quickly.

Are Beavers Contributing to Climate Change? (1:27:33)

Guest: Ken Tape, Ecologist, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Many beavers have left the forest in the past couple decades to live in the arctic tundra of Alaska. And they’ve been very busy. The rodents created 56 new lakes in just five years with all the dams they’re building. That’s a big problem because researchers think it’s contributing to climate change.