Last week, we played a few sets of songs about coal mining. Then the folk music police saw our playlist and informed us that we needed to be more inclusive, so this week we've diversified a bit and included a few songs about hard rock miners too. But mostly more songs about coal from the likes of Jean Ritchie (pictured), Jez Lowe, Caroline Herring, Doc and Merle Watson, Merle Travis, and Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard.

Imagine that you want to speak, but you can’t, because a stroke or disease has robbed you of the ability. Two researchers at UC Davis are helping to create a “brain-machine interface” that would use a brain implant and technology to recreate an individual's ability to talk. That advance would be profoundly important to the individual, of course, and for all of us, it’s a promising use of technology.

Today on Davisville we talk with Drs. David Brandman and Sergey Stavisky about their research, how the interface would work, who it can help, recent advances in neuroprosthetics, the novel leadership set-up of their lab, and what brought them to UC Davis.

(This UC Davis Health photo shows members of the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab, with Sergey Stavisky at the far left, and David Brandman second from right.)

No, we didn't play any songs about Joe Manchin. But we were inspired by the new BBC miniseries "Sherwood," which deals with the murderous aftermath of a miners' strike in the coalfields near Nottingham -- yes, that Sherwood Forest -- when the Thatcher government decided to kill the unions, in part by embedding undercover police among the striking workers.

Ballads about coal mining have long been associated with the folk tradition of northern England and the Appalachians, and we played tracks from the Ian Campbell Folk Group (pictured here) whose music was featured in "Sherwood," as well as music by Offa Rex, John McCutcheon, The Pitman Poets, and others.

Paul Smaldino is the lead singer of The Small Dinosaurs, a strange band dedicated to singing songs about the little things that matter. Their first album, Household Songs, is entirely about household chores, and is available everywhere on the internet. Their second album, Dad Songs, is due out in 2023.  Listen in, get to know Paul, and learn a bit about little things that matter.