Midday on WNYC

Director Wong Kar Wai discusses his long-awaited latest film, “The Grandmaster.” It’s about Ip Man, the grandmaster who trained Bruce Lee, and it fuses king fu with romance. Hong Kong heartthrob Tony Leung plays Ip Man, and Zhang Ziyi plays a beautiful Bagua master, who Ip Man falls in love with. The film is a thoughtful meditation on love, loss, and 20th-century Chinese history. It opens in New York August 23 at Lincoln Plaza, the Angelika, and AMC Empire.

Singer-songwriter Amy Grant discusses her new album, “How Mercy Looks From Here,” which features collaborations with  Carole King, Sheryl Crow, James Taylor, and Vince Gill. It’s her first full-length studio album in 10 years. She’ll be performing at  Irving Plaza on August 23.

We can see the moon is up there in the sky most nights, but how much do we really know about it? Dr. Juliane Gross, a research scientist in the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, tells us all about the moon--how it got there, why it orbits the earth, and what a blue moon—the kind of full moon we had on Tuesday—is.

Temple Grandin talks about how cattle feed additives, like popular weight-gaining supplements, are changing cattle behavior, health, and the meat we eat. American beef cattle have been exhibiting some strange behavior lately. Some scientists are blaming a type of feed additive called beta-agonists. These drugs, normally used to treat asthma in humans, are now popularly used to promote weight-gain in cattle, especially since the price of grain in the US began to rise. One of those concerned scientists is Temple Grandin, Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University and leading livestock industry consultant. “I’ve been in cattle in 40 years and these problems never appeared before beta-agonists were introduced,” she says. Grandin explained that while not all cattle seems to be affected by the drug, the ones that are walk with their heads down. Other symptoms include a stiff gait, foot soreness and reluctance to walk. "These animals are in pain and that has to stop," she says. The problem is bad enough that she believes it renders her work to make slaughter plants more humane moot. One of the more drastic incidents that some attribute to beta-agonists recently occurred at a Tyson Foods plant, when 21 head of cattle had their hooves fall off. While the drugs were approved for use in cattle by the FDA and pose no safety risk to humans, Grandin does say it makes the meat tougher.

The documentary “The Trials of Muhammad Ali,” examines Ali’s life outside the boxing ring, beginning with his conversion to Islam and decision to change his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali. Director Bill Siegel talks about Ali’s role as an activist, his the controversies spurred by his objections to the Vietnam War. “the Trials of Muhammad Ali” opens August 23 at the IFC Center.

Nicholson Baker makes a case against requiring algebra 2 and asks “why, if math is so great and timeless and beautiful, do millions of people hate it so much?” During his conversation with Leonard brought up a 2002 survey that found a very high correlation between people who took and succeeded algebra 2 and those who made money and were successful later in life. Baker said, “It isn’t more than a statistical correlation, but people pounced on this and said, my god! Algebra 2! It’s the mystic door! If we force every child go through this door successfully, if we make them do it and we make them succeed, then they’ll all be above average and the world will be a better place.” But he argues, that making it a requirement for everyone for college admission is “not just a waste of time but a real source of suffering for many people.” Baker noted that it shouldn't be removed entirely from the high school curriculum, but that it shouldn't be required for every student, especially for otherwise good students who are struggling to pass it. "I think kids should be compelled to take some algebra...so you get a sense of what's out there and whether you have a head for it," he said. Many callers and commenters defended algebra, saying it teaches problem-solving and intellectual discipline, but a number of people agree with Baker that not every student should be forced to take algebra 2 if they're struggling to pass it. Nicholson Baker's article “Wrong Answer” is in the September 2013 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

Sequestration began in March and a second round of cuts is looming for October. Ron Nixon, a New York Times Washington correspondent who covers the impact of legislative and regulatory policy on consumers, tells us how the sequester is affecting the Postal Service, food and agriculture policy, and consumer safety.

On Wednesday, an Egyptian court ordered that former president Hosni Mubarak be freed from prison. It’s the latest piece to of Egypt’s post-revolution political order to fall, after a military coup earlier this summer ousted Pres. Mohammed Morsi from office and led to a crackdown on protesters that has left some 1,000 Morsi supporters dead. Ashraf Khalil, Cairo-based correspondent for the Times of London, Foreign Policy, and other publications and author ofLiberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation, and Charles Levinson, Middle East Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, fill us in on the latest from Egypt.

Eggplant is versatile, but it can also be mysterious and challenging to prepare. Melissa Clark shares her suggestions for how to prepare eggplant, now that it's in season. She's New York Times Dining Section columnist and cookbook writer, and her most recent cookbook is Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make.  

Security dog trainer Zane Roberts and Forbes contributing editor Joshua Levine talk about how dogs are trained to search for bombs and other hazardous substances and how they’re used. Joshua Levine wrote about it in “The Education of a Bomb Dog” in the September issue of Smithsonian magazine.

Psychologist Gina Perry tells the full story of a controversial experiment by psychologist Stanley Milgram and its repercussions. In the summer of 1961, Milgram invited volunteers to take part in an experiment at Yale, and he reported that 65 percent of the volunteers had repeatedly administered electric shocks of increasing strength to a man they believed to be in severe pain, even suffering a life-threatening heart condition, because they had been ordered to by an authority figure. In Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments, Perry interviewed the original participants—many of whom remain haunted about what they did—and pieces together a more complex—and more troubling—picture of these experiments and what they reveal about us.

For every lost cat poster, there’s a story of heartbreak and loss and, one hopes, reunion and relief. When her orange tabby, Zak, disappeared, Nancy Davidson did made a lost cat poster, and, after days of frantic searching, she found him. The experience made her acutely aware of lost cat posters, and she writes about them and the stories behind them in The Secrets of Lost Cats: One Woman, Twenty Posters, and a New Understanding of Love.

Physicist Dave Goldberg explains symmetry in physics, and tells the story of a holocaust escapee named Emmy Noether whose theorem relating conservation laws to symmetries is widely regarded to be as important as Einstein’s notion of the speed of light. But because she was a woman, she was unrecognized, even unpaid, throughout most of her career. In The Universe in the Rearview Mirror Goldberg makes science comprehensible, relatable, and gripping. 

Marisha Pessl talks about her new novel, Night Film, a suspenseful literary thriller. A beautiful young woman is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Her death is ruled a suicide, but investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise.

Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck performs live in our studio and talks about his new album, “The Impostor.” On it, he performs with an orchestra and with a string quartet.