Doping and Olympics, New Moms on Facebook, Shanghai Disney

Doping and Olympics, New Moms on Facebook, Shanghai Disney

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

  • Jun 21, 2016 9:00 pm
  • 1:42:15 mins

Doping and the Olympics Guest: John Gleaves, PhD, Professor of Kinesiology at California State University, Fullerton; co-director for The International Network for Doping Research Russia’s track and field team will not be allowed to compete in the Rio Olympics this summer because of widespread doping allegations. The punishment is a first in Olympic history and prompts more questions about how common doping is among the world’s elite athletes and whether or not there’s any way to ensure they are competing on their own steam and not the boost of a drug coursing through their veins. New Moms on Facebook Guest: Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, PhD, Professor in the Department of Human Sciences and Psychology at Ohio State University It’s normal to see women in our Facebook circle of friends having babies. They often post photos of the newborn within hours of birth. Which amazes me, because the last thing you might think after the ordeal of a birth is, “Hey, get my phone and let’s get a picture for social media.” A study of new mothers conducted at The Ohio State University finds Facebook can be a double-edged sword, particularly for women who feel pressure from society to live up to a certain standard of motherhood. Shanghai Disney Guest: Elliott Weiss, PhD, Professor of Business Administration and Operations Management at the University of Virginia Mickey Mouse opened his largest outpost yet in Shanghai last week. It’s the first Disney resort in mainland China – joining Magic Kingdoms in Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong. It is, after all, a small world. But does a smile really mean friendship to everyone? Each time Disney has opened a resort overseas, it has encountered significant challenges adapting its quintessential American-ness to the local culture and customs. Shanghai Disneyland could prove the biggest challenge yet. Human Organs on a Chip Guest: Collin Edington, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate at MIT Before a drug makes it to market, it’s typically been tested for years on isolated cells in a petri dish and in various animals before clinical trials on humans take place. The process is lengthy, expensive and not as efficient as we’d like it to be. It’s a big leap from testing a drug on liver cells in a dish to testing it on a rat to seeing it actually work in the complicated environment of a human body. To address that disconnect – and eliminate the need for animal testing – cutting edge research happening at Harvard and UC Berkeley and MIT has figured out how to create miniature human organs – livers, hearts and lungs – inside tiny plastic chips the size of a thumb drive or smart phone.  The ultimate goal is to string a bunch of these organs-on-chips together with channels for blood and fluids to pass and basically replicate the entire human body in miniature. Check out MIT's Human Physiome on a Chip Project here. Watch a video of Harvard's lung-on-a-chip here. Training Robots Like Animals Guest: Matthew Taylor, PhD, Professor in Washington State University’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science In the not-too-distant future, when robots are cooking our meals and cleaning our houses, how do you suppose we’ll train them to do things the way we like them? To add that extra dash of spices right at the end? Or tuck the bed sheet corners in the way we like them? Or put the clean dishes away in the right cupboards? I’ve never really thought about how much personalization will be required after we bring our helpful new robots home from the store. How will the non-computer programmers among us tweak the robot behaviors to our needs? The Heart Can Literally Break Guest: Gregory Dehmer, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Texas A&M University College of Medicine and Chief of Cardiology at Baylor Scott & White Health, Central Texas We mean it metaphorically, when we talk of a broken heart: the pain of loss is real, but the heart does not tear in two along jagged lines like a spurned Valentine’s card. Did you know, however, that there is such a thing as a literal broken heart brought on by extreme emotional distress. It’s a condition first documented among Japanese women in the 1990s. And research suggests that up to five percent of women who are thought to be having a heart attack, actually have broken heart syndrome instead.  Strengthening Opinions by Citing Morality Guest: Andy Luttrell, PhD student in Social Psychology at The Ohio State University Most of us have opinions that are pretty set-in-stone and some that are a little more flexible. Some prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla, but depending on the quality of the ice cream and the mood on a given day, that opinion can change. On the other hand, most people view murder as wrong and you’re not likely to convince them otherwise. It’s an opinion based on my fundamental moral beliefs about right and wrong. Social science research has shown that we tend to stick more firmly to attitudes and opinions when they’re tied to moral beliefs.