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TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE

from Wisconsin Public Radio

September 10, 1995 Programs

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1100 - 1159

Women

1200 - 1259

Evolution

1300 - 1359

Death

PROGRAM RUNDOWN

Women

SEGMENT 1:

Mallicka Dutt, Associate Director of the Rutgers Univerity Center for Women's Global Leadership, and a delegate to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, tells Judith Strasser why many international women's issues are fundamentally human rights issues. Also, Mohini Malhotra explains to Jim Fleming the use of micro-loans as a development resource for women. Malhotra administers the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest, a project of the World Bank.

SEGMENT 2:

Judith Strasser speaks with two high shool seniors from Duluth, Minnesota who are delegates to the U.N. conference in China. Sarah Vokes and Alison Pflepson say they're impressed with the global nature of the women's movement, and that the opinions of young women matter, too. Also, Janet Nelson, who heads the UNICEF section that handles non-governmental organizations, tells Margaret Andreasen that the women's movement's efforts to improve the livs of women are sabotaged by consistent discrimination against girls.

SEGMENT 3:

Dympna Ugwu-Oju, an Ibo-American woman born in Nigeria, talks with Steve Paulson about her efforts to balance the traditional way she was raised with her modern ideas about women's rights. Ugwu-Oju is the author of "What Will My Mother Say: A Tribal African Girl Comes of Age in America."

9-10-A

PROGRAM RUNDOWN

Evolution

SEGMENT 1:

Forget the "missing link." Anhropologists have just found fossil evidence of a new species of human ancestor which walked upright four million years ago. Ian Tattersall, head of the Anthropology Department at the American Museum of Natural History, tells Margaret Andreasen about the new find and its significance. Tattersall is the author of "The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Think We Know about Human Evolution." Also, Elaine Morgan, author of "The Acquatic Ape" tells Jim Fleming about the theory that some of our ape-like ancestors spent their days wading in the water.

SEGMENT 2:

According to James Shreeve, Neanderthals have for too long had an unfairly bad reputation. Yes, they were big and strong, but they weren't stupid. Shreeve tells Judith Strasser about Neandertal (not Neanderthal) culture and why their way of being human went extinct. James Shreeve's book is "The Neandertal Enigma."

SEGMENT 3:

Science writer Virginia Morell has written a biography of the most famous family of paleontologists in the world. It's called "Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings." Morell tells Steve Paulson that patriarch Louis Leakey discovered his passion for paleontology while still a child, and that his son Richard, while he may look and sound English, is a true Kenyan.

9-10-B

PROGRAM RUNDOWN: HOUR 3:

Death

SEGMENT 1

Philosopher and animal rights activist Peter Singer tells Steve Paulson why he thinks a new basis for medical ethics is needed. He says we've already moved away from valuing the sanctity of life and should focus instead on the quality of life. Singer's new book is "Re-Thinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics."

SEGMENT 2:

Science writer Natalie Angier tells Judith Strasser that human cells seem to have a suicide program built into their DNA; the only way to be immortal is to be a cancer cell. A collection of Angier's New York Times stories has been published under the title "The Beauty of the Beastly: New Views of the Nature of Life." Also, Chilean novelist Isabel Allende tells Steve Paulson about the death of her daughter Paula. Allende has published a memoir of her daughter, also called "Paula."

SEGMENT 3:

Therese Schroeder Sheker tells Jim Fleming about her work in music thanatology -- the practice of providing live music for the dying based on Gregorian chant and other modal music traditions. Schroder Sheker is based at St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula, Montana.

9-10-C