South Korea on the World Stage, Defense Against Mosquitoes, Making Hollywood Funny

Guests: Kirk Larsen, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Brigham Young University; Mark Peterson, PhD, Associate Professor of Asian and Near and Eastern Languages, Brigham Young University All weekend long, media reports bordered on breathless as they followed Kim Yo-jong, the only sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un and the first immediate member of North Korea’s ruling family to visit South Korea. She and South Korea’s president Moon Jae-In shared a warm handshake at the opening ceremonies. Photos of that went viral. And Kim Yo-jong also extended an unexpected invitation for the South Korean president to visit Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

Guest: Hillary Chute, PhD, Author, “Why Comics? From Underground to Everywhere,” and Professor of English, Northeastern University Another superhero from the world of comics is shaping into the year’s first movie blockbuster, Black Panther. It does have our attention – advance ticket sales for this weekend’s opening are through the roof. The DC and Marvel comic families have dominated at the box office for the last decade. But there’s more to comics than spandex and superpowers.

Guest: Clément Vinauger, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Virginia Tech One good thing about the cold winter months is fewer pests. Mosquitoes are a summer time nemesis. Researchers are getting to the bottom of why some people attract mosquitoes more than others. And, get this, they’ve done it by putting tiny helmets on mosquitoes. They’ve also figured out that if you swat at a mosquito like crazy, it just might remember that and avoid you later.

Guest: Rick Eckstein, Author, “How College Athletics Are Hurting Girls’ Sports: The Pay-to-Play Pipeline” If you want to insult a boy playing ball, just tell him, “You throw like a girl!” We laud female athletes who can keep up with the guys. Besides what this stigma might do to girls’ self-esteem, a male standard in athletics can actually be dangerous when it affects the way girls are coached and trained because their minds and bodies are different from boys’. That’s a central message of Rick Eckstein’s book “How College Athletics Are Hurting Girls’ Sports: The Pay-to-Play Pipeline.”

Guest: Rod Gustafson, Host, Parent Previews Beatrix Potter's classic tale comes to the big screen, featuring live-action and computer graphics. The movie follows the antics of a rebellious rabbit who has an insatiable appetite for the vegetables growing in the neighbor's garden. Based on a true story, three Americans (Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos) on holiday in Europe are forced to use their past military training when a terrorist attacks passengers on a train.

Guest: Brent White, Movie Editor Have you ever watched an old comedy – and by old, anything made before 1990 – and found yourself a little disappointed? We’re spoiled, really, with how uproariously funny films are today. The laughs come faster and they seem engineered, somehow, to maximize the humor so that, at least in my case, leaving the theater with sore cheeks from laughing so hard is pretty common.  Well, the laughs are in fact engineered to be bigger. And that is Brent White’s job. He’s a Hollywood film editor and the guy directors turn to when they’ve got actors who do a lot of improvising on set. As the New York Times Magazine once said, Brent White is “the man who makes the world’s funniest people even funnier.” White is a graduate of BYU, and his film credits include Anchorman, Talladega Nights and the Ghostbusters reboot.