Device KPBS Explore / Emily T. Griffiths

From KPBS and PRX, "Port of Entry" tells cross-border stories that connect us. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, or here: www.portofentrypod.org.

We want to tell you about an exciting new season of KPBS Explore podcast, "Rad Scientist."

Recent events involving the killing of unarmed Black people have brought discussions about racism to the forefront, including at scientific institutions. This season of KPBS Explore podcast "Rad Scientist" is centered on Black scientists, from graduate students to faculty to those who have left the ivory towers. They study bug microbiomes, autism, neural prosthetics and more. But they will also discuss how racism has impacted their scientific journey. First episode drops Sept. 2.

Subscribe here: https://www.kpbs.org/podcasts/rad-scientist/

California's sardine fishery crashed in the late 1930s, much like how Mack and his gang crashed Doc's labortory in John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Device heads to sea to speak with the biologists and oceanographers on how the sardine bounced back.

Ragle Gumm discovers he’s living in a simulated reality, and is pretty sure he’s starting to "go sane." In "Time Out Of Joint," author Phillip K. Dick envisioned a future where we would be walking on distant planets by the 1990s, as NASA did when the U.S. Spaceflight Program was created in 1958. The San Diego Air & Space Museum provides some history on NASA’s ambitions. Virtual reality developer E McNeill chats with host Emily T. Griffiths and producer Derrick Acosta about current VR technology and how it has its roots in NASA’s exploration research. Cover art is a still frame from "Auralux: Constellations," from indie game designer E McNeill.

In "The Poisonwood Bible," author Barbara Kingsolver takes us to 1950s Belgian Congo via the Prices, a missionary family. While this novel is great historical fiction, it’s embellished scientifical fiction when a horde of driver ants attack an African Village. David Holway from UC San Diego gives us the rundown on local ant species while Michael Wall from the San Diego Natural History Museum highlights insect appreciation, something Kingsolver could have been better at.

Shane Haggard and Lisa Will from San Diego City College discuss what would happen to the Earth if a meteor knocked the moon closer to us, and what happens to Miranda Evan's family in "Life As We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer.