HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC — a program in VOA Special Englishabout music and American life. And we answer your questions.
(THEME)
This is Doug Johnson.
On our show today, we answer a question about a tall building inNew York City, and play some music by a group nominated for a GrammyAward.
But first, a report about a recent student science competition.
Siemens Westinghouse Competition
HOST:
The winners of the SiemensWestinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology wereannounced last month. The Siemens Foundation created the competitionto improve mathematics and science studies among American highschool students. The competition awards two top prizes ofone-hundred-thousand dollars each to pay for college. The money goesto one individual and one team. Jim Tedder tells us about the topwinners.
ANNCR:
Seventeen-year-old Yin Li of New York City received theindividual award for his work in brain research. Mister Li didresearch on nerve cell activity in mice that could help improveunderstanding of the human brain.
Experts say his project represents progress in understanding howneurons communicate. Mister Li discovered a protein that could belinked to neurons. His project explores how nerve cells work and howthe strength of their connections may be ruled by the action oflocal proteins.
Mister Li was born in Shanghai, China and came to the UnitedStates at the age of nine. He said that he has always beeninterested in the brain, especially since reading a speech given byNobel Prize-winning scientist Eric Kandel. Mister Li did hisaward-winning research at Mister Kandel’s laboratory at ColumbiaUniversity.
The team award went to two brothers from the state ofConnecticut. Eighteen-year-old Mark and sixteen-year-old JeffreySchneider studied the West Nile virus. They developed a modeldescribing the spread of the virus in order to study ways to preventand control it. Such models can help public health officials studydifferent ways to stop the spread of viruses. The experts say thebrothers’ work may help public health professionals make betterdecisions about the growing threat of West Nile disease.
The Schneider Brothers said they chose to study the West Nilevirus as a result of personal experience with the problem in theirhome town of South Windsor, Connecticut. And they reportedly enteredthe science competition as a result of seeing the movie, “OctoberSky.” In the movie, high school students in the state of WestVirginia learn to build rockets and win a national science contest.
Empire State Building
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Vietnam. Ngoc LienNguyen would like to know about the Empire State Building.
That famous building has been animportant part of New York City since it was completed innineteen-thirty-one. It reaches more than four-hundred-forty-threemeters into the sky. For many years, it was the tallest building inthe world. That is no longer true.
Construction of the building began on March seventeenth,nineteen-thirty. It was completed in just one year and forty-fivedays. It has one-hundred-three levels and six-thousand-five hundredwindows. Visitors can ride in one of seventy-three elevators thattake them from the bottom to very near the top of the building. Someof these elevators are very fast, reaching the eightieth floor inonly forty-five seconds.
The heads of government of almost every nation in the world havevisited the Empire State Building.
These important people are just a few of the millions who haveridden to the observation area near the top of the building eachyear. From there, visitors can seen almost all of New York City.They can see across the Hudson River into the state of New Jersey.They can see ships in the East River.
People all over the world have also seen the Empire StateBuilding in many movies. It has played an important part in at leastthree American movies. One is about a giant ape that escapes andclimbs the building. That movie is “King Kong.” It was made innineteen-thirty-three.
Another movie is “An Affair to Remember,” with Cary Grant andDeborah Kerr. It was made in nineteen-fifty-seven. In that movie,two people in love plan to meet at the top of the Empire StateBuilding. But the woman is injured and is not able to go to thebuilding. The man tries to find out what happened to her.
The end of the movie “Sleepless in Seattle” also takes place atthe top of the Empire State Building. It was made innineteen-ninety-seven. It involves a man and woman played by TomHanks and Meg Ryan. They meet for the first time at the top of thefamous building in New York. So if you can not get to New York andwant to see the Empire State Building, you can watch one of thesemovies!
Fountains of Wayne
HOST:
Last month, the American music industry nominated artists for itsyearly Grammy Awards. One of the groups nominated for Best NewArtist is called Fountains of Wayne. Phoebe Zimmermann tells usabout the group.
ANNCR:
Fountains of Wayne is named for a store near the New Jersey homeof group member Adam Schlesinger. He and Chris Collingwood startedthe group after they met at Williams College in Massachusetts.
Their first album was called “Fountains of Wayne.” One of thesongs on that album became a hit in Great Britain. It is “RadiationVibe.”
(MUSIC)
Fountains of Wayne was not a great success at first, and itsmembers went on to do other things. But they re-formed and wrotemore songs. These songs are on their new album, “Welcome InterstateManagers.” One of these is about a high school football player. Itis called “All Kinds of Time.”
(MUSIC)
Another new song written by Schlesinger and Collingwood is abouta friend’s mother. This song already has become a top ten hit. Weleave you now with the Fountains of Wayne performing “Stacy’s Mom.”
(MUSIC)
HOST:
This is Doug Johnson.
This program was written by Nancy Steinbach and Paul Thompson.Paul Thompson was the producer. And our engineer was Andrius Regis.
I hope you enjoyed AMERICAN MOSAIC. Join us again next week forVOA’s radio magazine in Special English.
Once again, here is the group “Fountains of Wayne” with one moresong: “Hung Up On You.”
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