St. Louis on the Air

A new study published in the Nature Connections journal looks at the particular phenomenon of brood parasites. These are birds that try to trick other birds into raising their eggs. They parasitize other nests by “squatting and dropping” their eggs there instead of using their own. Washington University assistant professor in biology Carlos Botero explains why birds do this in the first place and how it impacts Missouri’s ecology.

August is Black Business Month, and for Delmar Loop-based bakeshop owner Stephanie White, the 31 days of attention to small businesses like hers are a particularly welcome event this year. White, who opened Sugar Momma’s at 6016 Delmar Blvd. in 2016, hasn’t seen as much foot traffic as she’d hoped for the past few years. And once COVID-19 entered the mix, the challenges escalated. But Sugar Momma's is still hanging on.

Senator Kamala Harris' acceptance of the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nomination marked the culmination of one of the longest and most critical vice presidential searches in the nation’s history. Host Sarah Fenske talks about the selections Joel Goldstein. He is a professor of law emeritus at St. Louis University School of Law and the author of “The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden.”

As a young man in the early 1980s, Wiley Price was spending many hours a day in the darkroom at the University of Missouri-St. Louis — and freelancing for local newspapers as well as the Associated Press. As he honed his craft, he also noticed something lacking in the industry. “I wanted to start seeing our people in the news,” Price, who is Black, explains. Four decades later, the 64-year-old is still “documenting Black St. Louis history in real time,” as a recent St. Louis American profile of him puts it, even amid a pandemic.

Comedian Alonzo Bodden of “Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!” fame and host of the podcast “Who’s Paying Attention?” will be performing in St. Louis this week at Helium Comedy Club. In this interview, host Sarah Fenske talks with Bodden about how the pandemic has impacted his work as a panelist on “Wait Wait” and as a comic.

Of the many industries decimated by the coronavirus, the arts may have been hit the hardest. Host Sarah Fenske discusses the arts and culture climate in St. Louis, and hear from an artist about her hardships throughout the pandemic and how she’s remained busy.

Earlier this summer, Missouri paleontologist David Schmidt and a small team unearthed a rare triceratops skull in the South Dakota Badlands. Schmidt describes what the excavation process was like and what he and his fellow researchers hope to learn from the bones of the dinosaur they named “Shady.”

Earlier this month, when Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton announced a plan to overhaul the state’s juvenile justice system, she repeatedly used a word that stood out to ProPublica reporter Duaa Eldeib: "love." In this interview, Eldeib talks about her reporting on Illinois’ plan and how it may have been influenced by what’s known as the “Missouri Model.”

Researchers at Washington University's Institute for Informatics are using Facebook’s Social Connectedness Index to study the potential impact of students and faculty returning to various counties within Missouri. Can Facebook connections predict the spread of COVID-19?

Unlike most area high schools, Lutheran High School South in Affton will be open for in-person instruction five days a week. Principal Jonathan Butterfield explains how, and why his own children will be among those returning to class this week.