Showing results by narrator "Neenah Ellis" in All Categories

There are now more 100-year-olds alive than at any other time in history, and longevity studies are finding many of them are active, healthy, and engaged with the world around them. Neenah Ellis set out to meet these people and to hear what insights, memories, wisdom, and just plain common sense tips they have to offer. What she's found will surprise you. The original radio profiles are creatively incorporated into Ellis's reading of her book, and the result is a moving and inspiring audio experience.

Picture life in the 1990s, in the war-torn Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, where shelling from Serbian troops stationed in the nearby mountains is a daily occurrence. There, the most basic activities become dangerous. Even the simple act of walking down the street can get you killed. The independent radio station called Radio Zid caters to the city's youth, broadcasting a mix of alternative rock, educational shows, and news programs.

Producer Neenah Ellis grew up listening to stories and songs about Croatia told by her grandparents and her father. The family came to the U.S. from the island of Šolta, and Ellis's childhood was full of romantic tales about the "Old Country" and the beauty of the island that her relatives missed so much. Her grandfather had been sent to the United States after World War I, to find work that could help support his family back home. In the 1990s, Ellis and her father traveled to Šolta together to visit the family.

Summer afternoon. The two most beautiful words in the English language, according to Henry James. While away the afternoon at a ballgame. Take your kid to the state fair. Go for a ride on a Ferris wheel. It's the one time of year when nature sets out to amuse us. Of course, it's an illusion. You need only be stuck behind a desk and looking out the office window to get a reality check. But if summer is an illusion, at least it's a grand illusion, and well worth the trouble.

The story of Judith slicing off the head of Holofernes has struck the imagination of countless artists, musicians and writers. It is hard not to see why. Judith is a strong woman, who stood up to her town council, colluded with another woman (her maid), used deception for a higher purpose and slew the enemy.

Among the great apes, orangutans are the mystery primates. People are familiar with chimpanzees and gorillas, but the reclusive orangutan is far less well known or understood. Zoos, however, are directing more attention to orangutan captive management. In fact, the zoos in North America consider their captive orangutans one population and have developed a species survival plan.

Thousands of varieties of plants are rapidly disappearing in the United States, especially non-hybrid types of garden vegetables. These are called heirloom varieties, and they're difficult, if not impossible, to buy from commercial sources. The seeds are instead often passed from gardener to gardener, often in families, and they represent an irreplaceable genetic heritage that is being lost. We examine the reasons these seeds are disappearing and the efforts underway to preserve them.

Some call him the father of modern plant genetics, a direct descendent of Darwin, Linnaeus, and Mendel. He shook the world with his concept of biodiversity. He amassed the largest collection of seeds, some 250,000 collections from all over the world, and when he died in 1943, his theories had transformed not only genetics, but botany, agronomy, geography, and anthropology. Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was a Russian geneticist who pioneered what now seems like a very obvious theory.