It Takes One to Tango

Guest: Maithilee Kunda, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Deputy Director, Vanderbilt Center for Autism and Innovation, Vanderbilt University The scientist Temple Grandin has explained that some people with autism, including herself, think in a series of pictures, like a video stream or an old-school slide projector. They don’t think in words. Her work inspired computer scientist Maithilee Kunda to try to design tests that more accurately capture that kind of intelligence, and then to help those people who have it find jobs.

Guest: Maureen Pirog, PhD, Founder and Co-Director, Institute of Family and Social Responsibility, Professor, Policy Analysis, Indiana University Bloomington Babies born to teenagers tend to fare worse in the long run, financially and academically, than babies born to older parents. And social scientists are encouraged because the birth rates for teenaged mothers has been in steady decline. Rates of sexual activity among teenagers has also declined steadily since the 1970s, and the use of contraceptives among teens has gone up. But in her research into teen parenthood, one professor found that there were troubling trends in the rise of teen fathers.

Guest: Sam Payne, Host, The Apple Seed, BYUradio

Guest: Heather Ann Thompson, PhD, Professor, History and Afro-American Studies, University of Michigan, Author, “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971 and its Legacy” Over the last year, inmates in at least half a dozen prisons around the country have gone on strike or risen up in violent protest against the conditions they live in. There have likely been many more protests in prisons we haven’t heard about because very little information about what goes on inside actually gets out. If you call up the warden of your state prison and ask for a tour, you’ll probably be turned down. Even if you’re a reporter – and even if the prison is a government-run institution, as most are – you’re unlikely to get much in response to requests for information about how the prison operates. According to Heather Ann Thompson, this secrecy makes the system ripe for abuse.