syoung's blog

Up first on tonight's schedule at 6:00, we've got Hip Hop Historics with Goatt. DJ Goatt takes a look at hip hop through the collaborations and influences that made it possible and how artists influenced--and were influenced by--social movements. Tonight, he will take us through the career, music and impact of A Tribe Called Quest, an act that cracked open the genre.

I Liked You Better Before You Sold Out is next at 7:00. Tonight's guest is Louis Landry, multi-instrumentalist, solo artist and drummer for Curtis Eller's American Circus. He'll be talking about his career and his latest project, a concept album called JJ vs. the Digital Whale.

We start tonight's programming with The Endless Frontier at 6:00 and an interview Rich Schneider, a professor in the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Dr. Schneider will discuss his research on the craniofacial development of birds and the connection between evolutionary biology and medicine. He'll also explain the open access movement, an effort to make published academic research available to the general public, and what he's doing to help that happen.

Next at 6:30, we'll join With Good Reason for a conversation about something most of us never see: true darkness. Host Sarah McConnell talks to an author whose book examines the impact of the loss of nighttime darkness and learns about how people dealt with darkness throughout history. Later in the show, titled Let There Be Night, McConnell has a look at how social situations affect IQ and the history of the classical guitar.

The Endless Frontier returns tonight at 6:00 to discuss some of the latest in science news. The hosts will examine a new study that links cancer rates in different tissues and organs to the number of stem cells in those tissues and organs, ethical concerns relating to the human and animal chimeras made during research, and the use of programming languages in scientific research.

Then at 6:30: Many people make New Year's resolutions and take the start of a new year as an opportunity to look to the future. But how did people in the past imagine the future? In an episode titled The Future Then: Visions of a Future Yet to Come, BackStory with the American History Guys explores just how people envisioned the years that lay ahead.

Keeping with the retrospective theme of today's Polyphonic Perversity and local music countdowns, we start tonight at 6:00 with the Western Folklife Center's take on the significance and meaning of recognizing the New Year. In an episode called New Year's: A Reflection, a version of which were originally broadcast in 1996, we'll explore the traditions of reflection and renewal in Gaelic and Native American cultures.

Next at 7:00, BackStory with the American History Guys takes a look at charity in this season of giving. In What Gives: Generosity in America, the guys discuss how ideas and practices of philanthropy have evolved in this country over the centuries.

The Endless Frontier is taking a holiday break, so we start at 6:00 tonight with a look at the 1914 Christmas Truce, a time during which troops violated military law and held an unofficial truce in order to celebrate Christmas. The truce occurred one hundred years ago, as soldiers in the midst of the First World War longed to be home with loved ones for the holiday. Later in this episode of Humankind, produced in conjunction with WGBH-Boston and titled Humankind Special: The Christmas Truce, the producers share the story of another peace effort during World War I: conscientious objection.

WXDU News is next at 7:00. On tonight’s show:

With the holiday season in full swing, we've got two holiday-themed shows on the schedule tonight.

First at 6:00 is this month's edition of Jukebox Graduates, a show produced by the students in Githens Middle School's Bruce Springsteen fan club. On this episode, the kids play Christmas songs from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and a few other artists as they share background information and anecdotes about the Boss's career.

After the Jukebox Graduates at 7:00, we'll air this year's Moth Radio Hour holiday special. This episode, titled Holiday Special 2014: Monkeys, Megachurches, and First Elves, includes the stories of a decorator's challenge dressing the White House for Christmas, a non-profit director's realization that generosity comes in many forms, a Jewish girl's desperate wish to meet Santa, and a 12-year-old boy's wild Christmas with a new pet and a brush with death by hippie.

First at 6:00 tonight, we have The Endless Frontier, WXDU’s science show. On tonight’s episode, the hosts will discuss the latest in science news and developments. They will have a look at advances in and challenges of genome editing, recent research by a team of Duke University Scientists on a novel way of reducing infection in a fish model for tuberculosis, and Science Magazine’s nominees for the top scientific breakthroughs of 2014.

Then at 6:30: Today is December 7th, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. It is the 73rd anniversary of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s attack on the U.S. naval base. It is “a date,” as then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously proclaimed, “which will live in infamy.” But as time passes and the number of those still living who experienced this moment in U.S. history steadily declines, does the seventh of December begin to become merely another square on the calendar? In this episode of Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow called Pearl Harbor…Generational Perspectives, we will hear the viewpoints of three different generations: a 92-year-old veteran who was at Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack, a maritime museum director and a undergraduate history student.

Tonight from 6:00-8:00 on WXDU, we'll delve deeper into the careers of two music acts: De La Soul and TOW3RS.

First up at 6:00, DJ Goatt will  have an hour-long look at hip hop trio De La Soul on Hip Hop Historics. He'll follow the group from their formation in the late 1980s through the present, as he explores, song by song, their influences--and influence on the hip hop world.

Then at 7:00, I Liked You Better Before You Sold Out will be talking to Raleigh artist Derek Torres, better known as TOW3RS, about his latest release, TL;DR. They'll be playing some tracks from the new record, which came out earlier this month on Phuzz Records.

With Turkey (or Tofurky, for us vegans) Day just around the corner, we've got a Thanksgiving-themed smorgasbord of programming for you tonight on WXDU, with a look at the treaty between the Wampanoag Confederacy and British settlers, Native American indigenous foods, and a more recent Thanksgiving tradition: football.

Up first at 6:00: Every school child learns about the first Thanksgiving around this time of year, but the lesson usually includes depictions of Pilgrims and Native Americans feasting on turkey and other local foods as they cemented their new friendly bond, followed, of course, by a handprint-Turkey-making session. But the first Thanksgiving wasn't that simple, and neither was the treaty entered into by Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag Confederacy, and early British colonists in the 1600s. Although the treaty began a 40-year period of peace between the two groups, there's more to the story. In this episode of Peace Talks Radio called Massasoit's Peace Pact with the Pilgrims, we'll learn more from Native American scholars on what really happened, and what it meant.