Kim Jong Un, War Games, Water Cycle

Guest: Anna Fifield, Beijing Bureau Chief, Washington Post, Author of “The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un” We’ve just passed the one-year anniversary of the very first meeting between leaders of North Korea and the United States. Negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program have since fallen apart but President Donald Trump continues to speak highly of the North Korean dictator he’s met twice, in-person.

Guest: David Shlapak, Senior Defense Researcher at the RAND Corporation Militaries the world over devote lots of time and money to practicing for battle. Sometimes it’s tabletop exercises like an amped-up version of Risk. Other times, it’s full-fledged rehearsal. We wanted to know a bit more about how these rehearsals work –and whether they’re really worth the money.

Guest: Ben Abbott, Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Ecology, Brigham Young University It’s been 17 years since The Banana Slug String Band first released their song, and the basics haven’t changed. But some important details have –and BYU Ecology professor Ben Abbott says the standard textbook diagrams kids are using to study the water cycle today need updating.

Guest: Michael J. Boivin, Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Ophthalmology, Michigan State University Children with malaria or HIV aren’t just affected physically with things like fever and fatigue –they can also cause significant brain damage. And when those kids live in sub-Saharan Africa, cognitive impairments are rarely addressed.

Guest: Dennis McCarthy, Independent Shakespeare Scholar, Co-Author of “A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels by George North” It’s the season of free outdoor Shakespeare performances, which started in New York’s Central Park in the 1960s and have spread to cities across the country. I love how you can see people of all ages and backgrounds at these performances. With all the “where tos” and “forthwiths” it’s easy to forget that Shakespeare wrote his plays for a wide audience. And he didn’t just invent plots and characters out of thin air. Shakespeare scholars have identified many of the Bard’s influences, but one of the biggest was only discovered in the last year or so, with the help of anti-plagiarism software.

Guests: Brent Nielsen, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BYU; Dave Brown, BYU Technology Transfer Office Too much salt can ruin a meal. Too much salt can also ruin the crops that meal is made from. Salty soil is a growing problem in parts of the world. BYU microbiology and molecular biology professor Brent Nielsen is working on a way to make crops more salt-tolerant.