Energy fuels our lives in ways that seem almost magical. It can transform darkness into light, cold into warmth, water into ice. Of course, it’s science — not magic — but like magic, there are rules that must be followed. One of the fundamental laws of physics is that energy can never be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another. On this episode, we explore what these rules mean for our quest to create new power sources, and for life on earth. We hear stories about what makes batteries a feat of engineering — and sometimes its Achilles’ heel. We also hear about the ongoing quest to create “fusion energy,” and the roadblocks standing in the way.

Martha recommends Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen, a deeply personal, exuberant account of falling in love with both ancient and modern Greek by Mary Norris, former copy editor for The New Yorker. Norris shares several intriguing modern Greek terms, such as  diaphani memvrani, or "cellophane," which is cognate with English diaphanous membrane. Another is the modern Greek word for "newspaper," which is ephemerida, a relative of the English word ephemeral, which literally means "lasting but for a day."


Jesse from Newport News, Virginia, wonders about the expression potato quality meaning "poor quality." For at least a decade, commenters on YouTube have used the phrase recorded with a potato to criticize a heavily pixelated or otherwise blurry video.


Jerry in Lutherville, Maryland, was reading a 2018 biography of Nelson Algren, author of The Man with the Golden Arm, that mentions a group in the 1930s that were described as hipsters or hepsters. In the 1930s, the word hipster applied to a jazz aficionado who was in the know about all the cool places to be. Years later, the term hipster came to apply to others who were similarly in the know about such cutting-edge culture as as the best beer, the coolest clothes, the best podcasts. The term hippie, which denotes "a member of the counterculture," probably derives from this word, as do hip and hep, which describe someone "in the know."


It's Quiz Guy John Chaneski's annual wrap-up of the year in limerick form. For example, a notable news story from 2019 is suggested by this rhyme: In China the scientists croon / A triumphant spacefaring tune / They're fans of Pink Floyd / Or so I have hoid / They landed a craft on the . . . what?


Matt from Portage, Wisconsin, says that as a musician, he often finds himself focused on analyzing the structure and quality of a piece of music rather than just sitting back and enjoying it with everyone else. He asks if the hosts face a similar challenge when listening to casual conversation or reading for pleasure. The answer is yes!


If you say you're going to repair to the drawing room after dinner, meaning that that you will "go" to that room, you're using a word that's completely different from the verb repair meaning "to fix." These words come from different roots. The repair that means "to go" derives from the Latin word repatriare, a relative of English repatriate, meaning "to return to one's own country." The other repair meaning "to mend" comes Latin reparare meaning "to restore."


Janie says that when she moved to Nantucket, Massaschusetts, she'd hear oldtimers there describe something in positive terms by saying it was some good. The some here functions as an intensifier that simply means very. This expression isn't limited to Nantucket; it's heard in many parts of the United States.


Why do we refer to small children as little shavers?


Grant recommends the book All This Could Be Yours, the latest novel by Jami Attenberg. A dark glimpse of a family with an imperious father in a coma, and the family comes to terms with his life and effect on them. If you're familiar with her earlier book The Middlesteins, you'll recognize the same sharp, well-observed writing. Other recommendations for the book lovers on your holiday gift list: A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, the lavishly illustrated anthology of letters edited by Maria Popova of Brainpickings and Claudia Bedrick, and Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language is a smart, engaging, introduction to language and linguistics by linguist Gretchen McCulloch.


Elijah from Akron, Ohio, was surprised when his girlfriend Jenny observed that he was zhuzhing his hair. Elijah was skeptical that zhuzh, meaning "to make more attractive," was actually a word, until he heard others use it. The word was popularized by Carson Kressley in the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy reality TV series from the early 2000s. He'd use the word  to denote the action of making something prettier. Variant spellings include zhoosh and joosh, and the term seems to have arisen from secret lingo popular in parts of the gay community in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. The term may derive in turn from a Romany term, zhouzho,  meaning to "clean" or "neaten."


Some succinct words of wisdom from English poet Robert Southey: If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams -- the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.


Brian in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reports that whenever someone dropped a fork in his house, his mother would say Fork to the floor, company's at the door. She'd also say If your palm itches, you're going to come into money, and If your nose itches, you're going to kiss a fool, and often repeated a superstition that if the first person to enter your house on New Year's Day was a dark-haired person who gave you silver, you'd have good luck the rest of the year.


Jordan from Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada, says that when he used the word gitch, his colleagues from the United States had no idea it meant "underwear." The Second Edition of A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles has a great entry that includes this term. It's more commonly seen as gotchies, with several variants, including gotch, gonchies, gaunch, gauch, and gitch. The term derives from similar-sounding Eastern European terms for "underwear."


This episode is hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette.

Ozark Highlands Radio is a weekly radio program that features live music and interviews recorded at Ozark Folk Center State Park’s beautiful 1,000-seat auditorium in Mountain View, Arkansas.  In addition to the music, our “Feature Host” segments take listeners through the Ozark hills with historians, authors, and personalities who explore the people, stories, and history of the Ozark region.

This week, Grammy Award winning North Carolina modern bluegrass supergroup The Steep Canyon Rangers recorded live at Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, Arkansas.  Also, interviews with the band’s leader and mandolin Jedi Mike Guggino.

“Steep Canyon Rangers are Asheville, North Carolina’s GRAMMY winners, perennial Billboard chart-toppers, and frequent collaborators of the renowned banjoist (and occasional comedian) Steve Martin.

The Rangers are made up of Woody Platt on guitar and vocals, Graham Sharp on banjo and vocals, Mike Guggino on mandolin/mandola and vocals, Nicky Sanders on fiddle and vocals, Mike Ashworth on drums and vocals, and Barrett Smith on bass and vocals.

Steep Canyon Rangers have been on a journey that is uniquely their own. The band started in college at UNC-Chapel Hill, then dove head first into bluegrass in its most traditional form, and over the years have risen to the top of the bluegrass genre headlining top festivals such as Merlefest and Grey Fox Bluegrass.  Only to then be discovered by Steve Martin, famous actor and banjo player.  Martin has taken the Rangers on a nearly decade long tour introducing them to hundreds of thousands of new fans and giving them prime time TV exposure.  This has helped SCR become the most recognizable modern name in bluegrass music.  The band has continued to tour extensively on their own, without Martin, and have expanded their genre into country and Americana with the addition of a drummer, alongside an incredibly versatile bassist - to accompany the original core band.  The Rangers are big players in the bluegrass/country and Americana scene today.  They are often compared to predecessors The Band, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the modern Zac Brown Band.” - https://www.steepcanyon.com/about  

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator, and country music legacy Mark Jones offers a 1978 archival recording of Ozark originals Frank Ellis, Cathy Barton, and Taylor McBain performing the classic tune “Grey Eagle” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.

It is always such fun to welcome back Andy Weir. The author of The Martian and Artemis has just published his most entertaining and inventive novel yet. Project Hail Mary gives an unlikely protagonist the job of saving humanity. Andy also shares his thoughts about the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, and his low opinion of “the goldilocks zone” for life. Someone will win the book in Bruce Betts’ space trivia contest. Hear and discover more at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/andy-weir-project-hail-mary

Earth Day, eco activists on TikTok and nuclear energy post-Chernobyl - In this episode of Living Planet, we hear about some of the different ways ordinary people relate to environmental issues in different parts of the world. Climate activists talk about using TikTok to reach Generation Z. And 35 years after the Chernobyl disaster, we'll hear how people in Russia and China view the future of nuclear energy.

ClassicalWorks (Episode 275)

Where is Armenia, the place, the idea? Where then? Where now? And how come the delight on top of the darkness in saying “I am Armenian”? Armenians were a tiny, ancient Indo-European people, between East and West, the first Christian nation, when Turkey wiped most of them off the map in 1915. It was the twentieth century’s grotesque model of mass slaughter of a people, a genocide by any measure. Yet there the Armenians are today—6, 7, maybe 8 million people in 80 countries of the world: a lively, secret club, somebody said: invisible to non-members but instantly recognizable to other Armenians. A world people with their own alphabet, language, cuisine, music, nightmares abounding—but art, too, and humor, despite everything.

The mass slaughter of Armenians in Turkey starting in 1915 is a bone still stuck in the throat of history. And it’s a jagged scar, an area of darkness in the hearts of a global diaspora. More than a million people were killed, much more than half of the Armenian nation, a century ago. It’s an atrocity brazenly denied ever since by the government of Turkey, a crime unrecognized by most nations, acknowledged finally as a genocide this spring by President Biden. Both branches of Congress voted that verdict against Ottoman Turkey two years ago. We’re listening this radio hour not for the politics of the story but for the personal experience of unspeakable loss among survivors and their descendants—family histories too horrible to be forgotten, or remembered. 

Even with the impact of the coronavirus on music life in Germany, we've been able to fill most of the programs with fresh concert recordings. But this time we're taking a look back at Deutsche Welle's two decade-long year media partnership with the Beethovenfest in Bonn. In a "Best of the Beethovenfest," Beethoven, Haydn, Franck and Bruckner are brought to life by Harnoncourt, Dudamel, Brendel, Rattle, Masur and Norrington.