The State of Things

Laurelyn Dossett's Appalachian style is well known. Music legend Levon Helm covered her song "Anna Lee" on two grammy winning projects, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops named their recent grammy nominated release after Dossett's song "Leaving Eden." Host Frank Stasio talks to her live at the UpStage Cabaret at Triad Stage about her upcoming shows, and she performs live in the studio.

In the fall of 1963, five undergraduate black students walked onto the campus at Duke University, integrating one of the last remaining segregated schools in the South. Their experience -- and that of the African-American students who followed -- was challenging as they overcame overt racism, biased faculty and social isolation.

Scientists are learning fascinating things by studying songbirds. Sophisticated microscopes are able to see the smallest level of detail in the brain and determine how it changes in response to learning. Researchers at Duke University are using this technology to study the brains of songbirds and determine what implications their findings could have for humans. 

Would you believe us if we told you that glowing mice might be the next step in saving human beings from cancer? Well, Ned Sharpless and his research team are trying to see if that very thing is possible. They have been injecting mice with the enzyme that makes fireflies glow in an effort to improve cancer treatment and detection.