The State of Things

Duo Ellen Stevens, aka Lu Lubenstein, and David Zielinski believe that scientists can do cool work in the lab and rock out on their free time. They make up the music group All Your Science, and together they have released two albums and an EP. When they’re not making tunes, Stevens is a pharmacologist working on cancer research at Duke University and Zielinski works at Duke’s virtual reality lab. Host Frank Stasio talks to them in the studio, and they’ll perform live.

What is this ability to step into someone else’s shoes? To imagine how they feel - and to hurt for them or be happy for them?  Host Frank Stasio is joined by a panel of experts to discuss empathy, the trait that makes us uniquely human.

For six months, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh has been searching for a new director. It finally found one. Emlyn Koster is a geologist who has headed big museums in the U.S. and Canada. His official start date is January 28. Host Frank Stasio talks to Emlyn Koster about becoming the new director of the museum.

Hedwig Kohn was one of only three women to receive German qualification to teach physics at a university, and that was her vehicle to flee Nazi Germany. Hedwig Kohn wound up teaching and doing research at Duke University and has made significant contributions to the field of flame spectroscopy and radiation. Brenda Winnewisser took special interest in Hedwig’s story and currently has a biography on her due to be published in Spring 2014. Host Frank Stasio talks with Brenda Winnewisser, an adjunct professor of physics at Ohio State University.