North Korea Summit, Being Awake While You Sleep, Rethinking Poll Reporting

Guest: Eric Hyer, PhD, Associate Professor of International Relations of Asia, Brigham Young University, and Author of “The Pragmatic Dragon: China’s Grand Strategy and Boundary Settlements” President Trump’s summit with North Korea appears to be still in the works for June 12, after the President called it off in a public letter to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un last week. The US currently has a team of diplomats negotiating with North Korean officials in the DMZ and another team of diplomats in Singapore where the meeting is to take place. Meanwhile, one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s top officials is traveling to the US this week to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. That’s an encouraging sign for those hoping the summit happens, since a visit to the US by a senior North Korean official is very rare.

Guest: Daniel Kay, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Brigham Young University It’s not uncommon for people with insomnia to feel like they’re awake when their brain measurements indicate that they’re technically asleep. What does this dilemma mean for getting a good night sleep?

Guest: Catherine Bliss, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, Author of “Social by Nature: The Promise and Peril of Sociogenomics” As DNA testing becomes more common, researchers are on a quest for “genius genes” that will answer once and for all just how much of a person’s intelligence is inherited and how much is due to environmental factors like schooling or home life. But is that knowledge we need? Could a genetic test for IQ backfire, ethically or morally?

Guest: Sam Payne, Host, The Apple Seed on BYUradio Sam Payne shares a work from Syd Lieberman's collection of stories. The late Syd Lieberman was an internationally acclaimed storyteller, as well as a teacher and author. Learn more about his work here.

Guest: Stephen Utych, PhD, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State University As an election approaches, more and more press stories start to pop up about who’s leading in the polls.  It’s the easiest – and maybe laziest – type of story a political reporter can do. And they should knock it off, according to new guidelines published in the Associated Press style guide for journalists. The guidelines are just the latest development in a year-long reckoning by the press and political polling establishment to come to grips with how they got the 2016 presidential election so wrong.

Guest: Ben Abbott, PhD, Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Ecology, Brigham Young University The ice caps in the Arctic are melting, but so is the permanently frozen soil. And that has the potential to really throw the balance of carbon dioxide out of whack. Why does melting dirt pose a problem for the atmosphere?