Access Utah

Latest Episodes:

The When, Where and How of the August 21 Total Eclipse on Thursday's Access Utah Jul 27, 2017

Show notes

Thursday, Tom Williams’ guest for the hour is journalist, author and public radio broadcaster David Baron. Baron is an avid umbraphile who has witnessed five total solar eclipses; he has crossed the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia to catch the shadow of the moon. On August 21, Baron will be in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to witness the first total solar eclipse to cross the country from coast to coast in 99 years. We talked about the history and science of eclipses and share some tips for the best way to experience the upcoming eclipse.

"Likes vs. Life: Getting A 'Like' Over Having A Life," On Wednesday's Access Utah Jul 26, 2017

Show notes

A new study by Joseph Grenny and David Maxfield, co-authors of four New York Times bestsellers on interpersonal communication and influencing human behavior, reveals that more and more of us are losing connection with our lives in order to earn “likes” and social media praise. We have, in a sense, turned into social media “trophy hunters.”

Dementia, Identity and Self-Reckoning: Gerda Saunders on Thursday's Access Utah Jul 20, 2017

Show notes

In her memoir, "Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia,” Gerda Saunders writes: “When I was diagnosed with early- onset dementia just before my sixty- first birthday in 2010, I kept my hurt, anger, fear, and doubts under wraps. I had no choice. I had a job, a husband, children, grandchildren, friends. I had a life. However, there is nothing like a death sentence— in my case, the premature death of my mind— to provoke questions about life. What, actually, is memory, personality, identity? What is a self? Will I still be (have?) a self when my reason is gone? For me, the place to work out such questions has always been in writing. From that place of self- reckoning, then, came this book.”

"Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War" With Author Mary Roach on Wednesday's Access Utah Jul 19, 2017

Show notes

Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, flies, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Roach visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, she discovers that diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Back in the US, fashion designers at U.S. Army Natick Labs explain why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.

Discussing Salt Lake's Homeless Problem With Tribune Reporter Chris Smart on Monday's Access Utah Jul 17, 2017

Show notes

Salt Lake Tribune reporter Christopher Smart reports that “News is spreading across the country on the state of homelessness in downtown Salt Lake City — and it isn't pretty.

Dinosaur Discoveries in Utah On Thursday's Access Utah Jul 13, 2017

Show notes

Today’s program is by request. Aleq in Southern Utah emailed us to ask for more science on Access Utah and to suggest that we talk about the great work being done in Utah in paleontology.

"Behaving Badly" With Author Eden Collinsworth on Wednesday's Access Utah Jul 12, 2017

Show notes

To call these unsettling times is an understatement: our political leaders are less and less respectable; in the realm of business, cheating, lying, and stealing are hazily defined; and in daily life, rapidly changing technology offers permission to act in ways inconceivable without it. Yet somehow, this hasn’t quite led to a complete free-for-all—people still draw lines around what is acceptable and what is not. In her new book "Behaving Badly: The New Morality in Politics, Sex, and Business," Eden Collinsworth sets out to understand how and why. In her quest, she seeks out, among others, a prime minister, the editor of the Financial Times, a holocaust survivor, a pop star, and a former commander of the U.S. Air Force and grapples with the impracticality of applying morals to foreign policy; precisely when morality gets lost in the making of money; what happens to morality without free will; whether “immoral” women are just those having a better time; why celebrities have become the new moral standard-bearers; and if testosterone is morality’s enemy or its hero.

Partisnahsip In Journalism With NYU Professor Mitchell Stephens On Tuesday's Access Utah Jul 11, 2017

Show notes

NYU professor Mitchell Stephens’ recent article in “Politico” is headlined “Goodbye Nonpartisan Journalism. And Good Riddance.” Stephens says that “journalism in the United States was born partisan and remained, for much of its history, loud, boisterous and combative. He says that this changed in the 1930s and 40s beginning with influential radio newsman Lowell Thomas who “intuited that the best way to hold [his] large audience was to avoid excessively offending any major political group. He tried to play it, as he put it, ‘down the middle’ ... “And Thomas’ main successors in the role of national newsmen—David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw—aimed for somewhere around “the middle” too.

Summer Book Show And Good Reads On Monday's Access Utah Jul 10, 2017

Show notes

UPR listeners are avid readers, so our periodic question to you isn’t if you’re reading, but what are you reading? We hope you’ll share your booklist with us and we’ll compile a UPR list and post it on www.upr.org You can share your booklist by email to upraccess@gmail.com or on Twitter @upraccess. We’re also asking if you have any suggestions for beach or camping or summertime reading. And what do your children read during the summertime? Elaine Thatcher will join Tom Williams in studio for the hour and we’ll be talking with Betsy Burton from The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City and Andy Nettell from Back of Beyond Books in Moab.

Revisiting Land On Fire: The New Reality Of Wildfire In The West: Gary Ferguson On This Access Utah Jul 03, 2017

Show notes

With wildfires raging in Utah and other areas, we’ll turn to writer Gary Ferguson for a timely discussion about wildfires on Monday’s Access Utah. Wildfire season is burning longer and hotter, affecting more and more people, especially in the west. Ferguson’s book Land on Fire: The New Reality of Wildfire in the West explores the science behind this phenomenon and the ongoing research to find a solution and details how years of fire suppression and chronic drought have combined to make the situation so dire. Ferguson also brings to life the extraordinary efforts of those responsible for fighting wildfires, and explains how nature reacts in the aftermath of flames.

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