Memory Thief

Guest: Caitlin King, Line Producer at BYU Broadcasting 

Guest: Timothy Dilliplane, Col. (Ret.), Assistant Professor at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and Co-Principal-Investigator of the Neva Project  In January of 1813, a Russian ship called the Neva wrecked off the coast near Sitka, Alaska. More than a dozen of the ship’s crew had already died in the difficult journey from Siberia. Another 32 died when the ship broke apart on the rocks. But 28 men made it to shore alive. And then what? It was mid-winter in Alaska. They had nothing but what they could forage on land and scavenge from the wreckage. Remarkably, 26 of the men were still alive when they were finally rescued a month later.  The story of how they survived has remained a mystery, until now. Researchers from the US and Russia - funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation - believe they’ve found the campsite of the shipwreck survivors.

Guest: Cameron Hopkin, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at BYU  We think of religion as a spiritual practice, but it’s also found to have a large effect on people’s physical health. For instance, research in the last 20 years has found people who are religiously observant are less likely to abuse substances or engage in risky sexual behavior. They’re also less like to have cardiovascular disease and cancer. The question is WHY? What is it about being religiously observant that leads to positive health outcomes?

Guest: Rod Gustafson, Film Reviewer at ParentPreviews.com  Director Robert Zemeckis’ new movie “The Walk” is about the Frenchman who famously walked a high wire between New York’s Twin Towers in 1974, and it’s so realistic it’s apparently giving movie-goers vertigo.  “The Martian” features Matt Damon playing an astronaut left for dead during a manned mission to Mars.

Guests: David Long, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at BYU; Andre Brummer and Nicholas Moller, Representatives of Niivatech; Spencer Rogers, Member of BYU’s Technology Transfer Office.  Over the last decade years, an average of 27 people have died in avalanches each winter in the United States, according to statistics gathered by the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. Ski resorts and federal land management officials spend a lot of time and effort attempting to predict where the next avalanche will happen, so they can prevent death, injury and damage to property.  BYU electrical engineering professor David Long and his students have developed an approach to predicting avalanches that entails radar 3D imaging.  More information about technology developed at BYU is available at techtransfer.byu.edu.