Veteran Depression, Diabetes, PTSD, Water Pricing

Depression in Veterans (1:04) Guest: Raymond Novaco, Ph.D., UC Irvine professor of Psychology & Social behavior.  Some two-and-a-half million American men and women fought in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade. Of those, more than a third were deployed more than once. With this new generation of veterans has come a stronger focus on helping returning service members deal with their mental and emotional wounds.  Diabetes (21:41) Guests: Jeff Tessem, Ph.D., Assistant professor of Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Science at BYU.  Ben Bitner, BYU student and research assistant at the Tessem Lab.  Diabetes afflicts nearly 400 million people around the world, according to the International Diabetes Federation. It’s a staggering figure, and despite decades of research and billions of dollars, a cure remains elusive. Scientists and BYU and Duke University have just published research identifying a gene that appears key in triggering the cellular malfunction that leads to diabetes.  Veterans and PTSD (36:27) Guest: Catherine Caska Wallace Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the Seattle VA Hospital.  The Department of Veteran’s affairs estimates as many as 20 percent of veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychologist Catherine Caska Wallace has been studying the effects of a soldier’s PTSD on his or her partner and family.  American Heritage (51:21) Guest: Grant Madsen, Ph.D., History professor at Brigham Young University  BYU history professor Grant Madsen shares his insights from the introductory American History course he teaches. So, we’ll get a college history lesson, but we don’t have any homework or quizzes! Each week features a new topic and a deeper understanding of our past.  This week Marcus Smith talks with Professor Madsen about the birth of consumerism—something alive and well today in American culture.  Water Pricing (1:17:32) Guest: Ariel Dinar, Ph.D., Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy at the University of California, Riverside, and co-author of Water Pricing Experiences and Innovations.  The US Drought Monitor has a map right on the front page of its website showing the relative dryness of the nation on any given day. At the moment – and as it has been for several years now - there’s a deep red gash covering much of California, with rings of orange, brown and yellow emanating, as if from an epicenter. Red signifies exceptional or extreme drought – those are two separate categories of parched. Orange and tan mean severe and moderate. Yellow means abnormally dry. The entire Western United states is encircled in this visual ring of fire.  A combination of changing climate factors and booming population over a period of decades has brought a water crisis to the region. California Governor Jerry Brown has ordered a 25% reduction in water use for his state.  That’s one way to go about conserving water: Ask people to use less and threaten them with fines if they don’t. Another possibility is to give people an incentive to conserve without being forced.