Iditarod, Balto the Wonderdog, Diphtheria, Space

What is it like to travel 1000 miles with a team of 10 dogs on the Iditarod trail? Guest: Debbie Clarke Moderow, author, "Fast Into the Night: A Woman, Her Dogs, and Their Journey North on the Iditarod Trail" It might seem a lonely sport to race dogs a thousand miles with little human contact, but when you're surrounded by man's best friend(s), you really don't feel lonely, according to dog mushers who spend months on the ice with their team of canines. The 1925 Sled Dog Run That Inspired the Iditarod Guest: Laney Salisbury, co-author, "The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic" The remote town of Nome, Alaska was home to just 1,400 residents when a deadly strain of diphtheria broke out in 1925. The life-saving antidote lay 1,000 miles away Anchorage and the only way to transport it was a team of sled dogs. Author Laney Salisbury tells the incredible story of the people and canines racing against an epidemic. Diphtheria Guest: Chantel Sloan, Associate Professor, Life Sciences, Brigham Young University We don't hear much about diptheria in North America. What is this disease that almost wiped out the entire town of Nome, and could it pose a similar threat today?  Do we need to worry about an asteroid impact? Guest: Paul Sutter, astrophysicist, Ohio State University, author, and host of “Ask a Spaceman” podcast How likely is it that we could have a catastrophic collision with an asteroid?  Space Mining Guest: Martin Elvis, Senior Astrophysicist, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University As Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk set their sights on space colonization, astrophysicist Martin Elvis is raising the question of mining in space. What’s out there? How much is there? What will we use it for? And most importantly, what happens when we run out? New Horizons Guest: Alan Stern, planetary scientist, principal investigator, NASA New Horizons mission Alan Stern conceptualized and was able to bring to pass one of the most groundbreaking space missions of the 2000's, New Horizons. In an interview with host Julie Rose from BYUradio's Top of Mind, Stern discusses this mission and what it took to send a little probe all the way to the edge of the solar system and beyond.