Antibiotics, Retirement Savings, Short-Term Memory

Antibiotics, Retirement Savings, Short-Term Memory

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

  • May 10, 2016 9:00 pm
  • 1:40:37 mins

Resisting Antibiotic Resistance Guests: David Hyun, MD, Senior Officer for Pew Research’s Antibiotic Resistance Project; Adam Hersh, Associate Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah and Primary Children’s Hospital Health officials are warning – with increased alarm – of the rise of “super-bugs” resistant to antibiotic treatment. They say the problem is tied to the overuse of antibiotics for things like colds or viral flus that aren’t bacterial and thus, don’t respond to antibiotics. But until now, we’ve not had clear data on just how often doctors are prescribing antibiotics inappropriately in the United States. The answer – according to the first study quantifying the problem – is that nearly one out of every three antibiotics prescribed in doctor’s offices and emergency rooms in the US is unnecessary. Making Retirement Saving Automatic Guest: Bob Pozen, JD, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Nearly half of Americans said in a Federal Reserve Board survey that that could not come up with $400 on the spot to cover an emergency expense. Not only are we not saving for the here and now. We’re not saving for the future. Nearly a third of us have nothing saved for retirement. Zip. Why Disaster Plans Should Include Pets Guest: Ragan Adams, DVM, Extension Veterinarian at Colorado State University When disaster strikes we immediately focus on the safety of those we love – and for more than 60 percent of Americans, that includes a household pet. But in a disaster, emergency responders are typically consumed with evacuating and protecting humans – there’s not always a system in place to consider animals in a household. That became painfully clear during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Hundreds of thousands of pets are estimated to have perished in that disaster. Emergency responders found, time and again, people who refused to evacuate from rising floodwaters in New Orleans because they didn’t want to leave a pet behind.  A year later, Congress passed the PETS Act, which requires state and local emergency responders to have a plan in place for evacuating and sheltering pets in a disaster. Short-Term Memory and Distraction Guest: John Gaspar, Doctoral Student in Psychology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia For some people, every person and conversation that comes within earshot or sight can distract us from what we’re doing or thinking. But not everyone is this way. A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests short-term memory plays an important role on why some people are more easily distracted than others. Arizona's Scorpion Wranglers Guest: Ben Holland. Founder of Scorpion Sweepers February and March set records globally for warmth and ushered in an early spring across the United States. Up popped the tulips. And for those lucky enough to live in Arizona, out popped the scorpions. The Arizona Bark Scorpion is the deadliest variety in North America. They’re out in force right now and keeping scorpion wrangler Ben Holland busy. Yep. He wrangles them, one scorpion at a time, at night. Check it out here. American Views on Marriage and Family Guests: Chris Karpowitz, PhD, Associate Professor of Political Science at BYU; Jeremy Pope, PhD, Associate Professor of Political Science at BYU Americans consistently say their own personal lives and relationships are of higher quality than the rest of the nation. My way is better than your way – that’s the American way of thinking, apparently.  The marriage and family research comes from a study called The American Family Survey published at the end of last year by the Deseret News and Brigham Young University. It polled 3,000 Americans, representative of the nation as a whole, about their attitudes towards marriage, family, parenting and political views on family-related policies.