Untold Stories

End Of Life Planning...For Backyard Chickens/A Beer Genius With Autism Embarks On A Cross-Country Brewery Tour

06/15/2013

Backyard chicken raising is one of the fastest-growing facets of the local food movement. Cities and towns have been reforming land-use and health policies to accommodate raising chickens…a hobby many picked up after the 2010 outbreak of salmonella that led to the recall of 500 million eggs.

Erica Strauss recently stirred things up when she urged readers of her blog to consider what keeping chickens means down the road…killing them. Erica is a former professional chef turned gardening fanatic who blogs at Northwest Edible Life. She joins us to explain what's got so many of her readers

Traffic Jams On Mount Everest/Cicadas Aren't The Only Creatures With Bizarre Life Cycles

06/15/2013

Sixty years ago last week, since Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first confirmed climbers to summit Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak.  Many than 3000 people have since repeated the feat…the numbers grow along with advances in mountaineering gear and forecasting technology…which make it easier than ever to reach the peak. Along with the unprecedented number of climbers comes the mounting problem of high altitude traffic jams. Jon Kelly wrote about Everest’s climber congestion for BBC news magazine, and he joins us with more.

and

You’ve likely

The Girls Of Atomic City/Tristan Omand

06/1/2013

The story of the development and deployment of the atomic bomb is generally told as a narrative driven by powerful men like Oppenheimer, Truman, and Stimson, operating at the highest levels of government. What few people know is how many women played a crucial role – albeit unknowingly – in one of the most significant turning points in history. Denise Kiernan interviewed several women who worked in Oak Ridge, Tennessee – a secret, government-built town created as part of the Manhattan Project. Their stories, combined with detailed reporting, come together in her new book called The Girls of

The Quantum Internet/A Year Of Living Internet-Free/The Unusual Ascenders

06/1/2013

A government lab announced that it’s been operating a quantum internet at Los Alamos for the past two years. Which led us to wonder, um, WHAT IS A QUANTUM INTERNET???   Rob Fleischman, Chief Technology Officer at Xero-Cole, explains.

AND

Life without Google: At 11:59 on April 30th 2012, Paul Miller, a writer and reporter for The Verge,  un-plugged his ethernet cable and traded in his smartphone for one year without the internet. Now he's back online, and talking about his experience.

AND

Sean Hurley reports from the 3rd Annual Alton Weagle Unusual Ascent Day, which took place at Mount

Battle of The Nations/Colonial Cannibalism

06/1/2013

Battle of the Nations is an international event held annually since 2009 – this year in the medieval walled city of Aigues-Mortes in the south of France.  About five-hundred men from twenty-two countries competed in what is part historic re-enactment, and part full contact sport.  Wearing full medieval armor and using blunted period weaponry, participants hack, slash, and wrestle opponents to the ground.  Jaye Brooks was there – he’s executive officer for team USA and the Armored Combat League.

 

And

Cannibalism at Jamestown: Experts at Preservation Virginia, the Colonial Williamsburg

Author Elizabeth Strout/Healing With A Horse

05/25/2013

Shirley Falls, Maine is one of those New England towns with a strong memory of the way things used to be…before the mills closed, before the mall went up across the river…before so many residents moved away. It’s the fictional town left behind by a pair of brothers in The Burgess Boys, a new novel by Elizabeth Strout, who won the Pulitzer prize for fiction for Olive Kitteridge. The story centers on Jim and Bob Burgess, brothers whose lives are imprinted by a childhood tragedy in very different ways.

Edge Of America/Data Hollywood/N.H.'s World Cup

05/18/2013

A new show from the Travel Channel explores America’s recreational fringe. “The Edge of America” is an experiential survey of some of the bizarre, dangerous, and hilarious things people do to have fun all over the country. Geoff Edgers is the host and writer for the program. When he’s not jousting bicycles or eating who-knows-what, he’s also an arts and culture reporter for the Boston Globe.

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Nate Silver opened the public’s eyes to the power of predictive statistics… now, having already conquered politics, marketing, and social media, data-crunchers are taking on their next big

Jane Austen, Game Theorist?/Surprising Canes

05/18/2013

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s most celebrated novel, in which Ms. Bennet discovers her true love in a man she first sees as an adversary. Pride and Prejudice has spurred countless adaptations, films, and even a zombie parody…but now Austen is getting new attention not for her romantic prose, but for her strategic thinking. Joining us is Jennifer Schuessler with the New York Times, who recently covered the publication of the book, Jane Austen, Game Theorist, written by UCLA political scientist Michael Chwe.

and

We may associate canes with old age and physical

Forty Years Of Free To Be...You And Me/Feminist Bootcamp

05/11/2013

Forty years ago, the groundbreaking cultural phenomenon Free To Be…You And Me found its way into the collective subconscious of children across America. The brainchild of actress Marlo Thomas, the project included a book, a television special, and an iconic record that – if you were a girl growing up in the seventies – likely got hundreds of plays on the family record player. Joining us to talk about Free To Be...You And Me, and legacy among those of us that still remember the songs is  Laura Lovett. She’s professor of Twentieth Century U.S.

Wonder Women!

05/11/2013

“Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines” is a documentary that follows the character from her Amazonian origins to that campy TV show in the 70s to her following among punk rockers, suburban girls, and even Gloria Steinem. Kristy Guevera-Flanagan directed the film and joins Word of Mouth to talk about it.

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