The Poison Squad, Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind

The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety (0:35) Guest: Deborah Blum, Author of "The Poison Squad", Director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, MIT,  In the 1880s if you walked into a grocery store and bought milk, bread and butter, it was “buyer beware.” The milk was likely diluted, quite possibly with dirty water, and then thickened with chalk. The bread might have sawdust in it and the butter might be preserved with borax, which is a poison, of course. It wasn’t until 1906 that the US finally got the Pure Food and Drug Act, which led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, and the expectation that our food should be safe to eat. The battle to get to there was both grisly and exhausting. (Originally aired 12/5/2018) The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind (24:01) Guest: Barbara Lipska, PhD, Director of the Human Brain Collection Core, National Institute of Mental Health, Author of "The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind" Neuroscientist Barbara Lipska spent her career studying mental illness, and then she lived it. Tumors in her brain brought on all the confusion, irrationality and anger common in people with schizophrenia, which is the exact disease Lipska specializes in studying. Luckily, cutting-edge treatment saved Lipska’s life and restored her mind. She now considers her brain cancer a “priceless gift,” because suffering through mental illness taught her more about how the brain works than dissecting one in a lab ever could. (Originally aired 5/2/2018) Diversity in the Workplace May Be Easier to Solve Than You Think (50:43) Guest: Olga Stoddard, PhD, Assistant Professor of Economics, Brigham Young University IBM chief Ginni Rometty just announced that she’s stepping down, which leaves one less female CEO of a Fortune 500. There will not be just 34. Even fewer are people of color – male or female. Corporate America talks a lot about increasing diversity within its ranks, but still struggles to deliver. A team of economists has come up with a cheap,