On Second Thought For Wednesday, November 1, 2017

The terms “alt-right,” “far-right,” and “radical right” get thrown around a lot these days. But there’s actually very little research on what those terms mean and who the people are identifying with them. Cas Mudde, Professor in the Department of International Affairs at UGA, is looking to change that. His new book is “The Far-Right in America.” He joins us to analyze the movement and its many subsets.

Militias are named in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. Many of the groups bearing that name today self-identify as members of the alt-right movement. Filmmaker James Burns spent time embedded with a Georgia militia for a VICE.com documentary. We talk with him about the rise of right-wing militias.

In August, scientists at Georgia Tech discovered yet another gravitational wave. This one was 130 million years old, and for the first time, it came with a flash of light as well as a chirping sound. The wave is thought to be a result of a collision between two neutron stars, which blasted tons of gold into space. We talk about the discovery with Laura Cadonati, Professor of Physics at Georgia Tech and Spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. James Clark, a postdoctoral researcher at Georgia Tech, also joins us.

Georgia Tech is not just looking at interstellar space, it’s also traveling through it. Georgia Tech student Michael Staab is a spacecraft flight controller for NASA. He piloted the Cassini spacecraft, which travels around Saturn and nearby moons collecting data. The spacecraft finished its mission in September, and plunged head first into its final resting place: Saturn. We catch up with Michael Staab about Cassini’s grand finale.