Stories from The Apple Seed

Guest: Kelly Patterson, PhD, Professor of Political Science, Brigham Young University  After each tragic mass shooting comes a spin cycles that’s now familiar: Gun control advocates press for restrictions on access to firearms and blame the NRA for blocking them. Meanwhile, the NRA goes silent. Up until Friday of last week, the NRA was posting multiple times daily on its Facebook and Twitter feeds. Since the shooting in Las Vegas, nothing. No public statements from the NRA in the press, either. And allies of the NRA in Congress say now is not the time to talk about gun laws, it’s the time for “thoughts and prayers.”  If the recent past is any indication, when the time to talk about gun laws does come, Congress is unlikely to make changes. How much credit can the NRA take for that?

Guest: Mark McCareins, JD, Clinical Professor of Business Law, Co-Director of the JD/MBA Program, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University Got a great idea for a startup? Some brilliant new software? Entrepreneurs often live on a shoestring and plow their savings into their projects. So, they may not place “get a trademark or patent” at the top of the to do list before, say, “building an app that works.” Besides, doing a patent right can cost thousands of dollars in legal fees. But, waiting too long to protect your ideas is a fatal mistake.

Guest: T. Bettina Cornwell, PhD, Head of Marketing Department, Director for Sports Marketing Center, University of Oregon The Philadelphia ‘76ers, the New England Patriots, the Los Angeles Rams are just a few of the pro-sports teams with owners branching out into the world of professional gaming--video-gaming. Or “e-Sports,” as it’s called these days. A stamp of approval from an NFL, NBA or NHL investor seems as sure a sign as any that eSports are here to stay.

Guest: Jeffery Tessem, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science, Brigham Young University We’ve heard a lot about how the chemicals in dark chocolate can have health benefits, and BYU researchers wanted to find out how these compounds, called flavonols, might work specifically to help people with type-2 diabetes.

Guest: Alyssa Bandford Witting, PhD, Associate Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy, Brigham Young University If you check out the crowdfunding site GoFundMe, you’ll see people raising millions of dollars to support victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas and for recent hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. After a traumatic event or disaster, the physical recovery is expensive. And what about emotional recovery? How does an entire community heal from mass trauma, whether it’s natural disaster, war or violence?

Guest: Maryn McKenna, Journalist, Author of “Big Chicken” The emergence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics has become a global health crisis. We’ve heard about the need to stop using antibacterial soaps and how harmful it is to take antibiotics unnecessarily. But did you know that what we eat is also part of the problem? In particular, the US chicken industry has played a part in the rise of drug-resistant bacteria. It’s a strange and fascinating story, which journalist Maryn McKenna explores in her new book, “Big Chicken.”