Ambassador Ryan Crocker (1:03) Guest: Ryan Crocker, Dean of the George Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University, US Ambassador six times to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon This week, National Intelligence Director James Clapper said, “Unpredictable instability has become the new normal,” in his annual assessment of security threats facing the United States. Much of that instability emanates from the Middle East, where sectarian violence, brutal dictators and the strength the Islamic State terror group are driving millions of people from their homes and countries. The troubling truth is that America’s own actions have contributed to the problem. Baby Language Acquisition (27:58) Guest: Julie Gros-Louis, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Iowa When babies babble during story time, they’re working out the fundamentals of language, and how adults respond is a crucial piece of the process. A study of mothers reading to their one-year-olds conducted at the University of Iowa offers some insight into why reading – even more so than talking back and forth as parents and children play with toys - is an integral part of language acquisition in children. The next time you read to your baby, you might want to pay more attention to their babbling. Roominate (41:38) Guest: Bettina Chen, Co-creator of the toy Roominate Among the so-called STEM fields – science, technology engineering and math, it’s the E – engineering, where women lag particularly, far outnumbered by men. Getting more women into the field, means getting more girls to consider it, even if just in subtle ways. Bettina Chen is an electrical engineer with degrees from Caltech and Stanford who’s invented a dollhouse-building toy to turn girls into engineers. The toy – called Roominate, was a big hit on the TV show “Shark Tank.” Since making that deal, Chen and her partner have cut a deal for Roominate to be sold at Wal-Mart and Forbes lists it among the “Top 10 toys that kindle creativity.” Middle East Panel (52:18) Guests: Steven Lobell, PhD, Political Science Professor at the University of Utah, Author of six books on International Relations and Middle Eastern studies; Michael Stathis, PhD, Professor of Political Science at Southern Utah University; John Macfarlane, PhD, Adjunct Political Science Professor at Utah Valley University Terror threats and doomed peace talks in Syria are on the table as we welcome our monthly panel of international affairs experts is back to consider the latest from the Middle East. Love Notes (1:31:46) Guest: Hyong Yi, Assistant City manager in Charlotte, North Carolina, Author of the 100 love notes that have become a social media phenomenon Last November 20th, Hyong Yi and his two children spent their morning handing love notes to complete strangers in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. They were marking one year since their wife and mother, Catherine, died of ovarian cancer. Their story has since been covered by media around the world – India, Korea, Italy and beyond – and countless people have joined in, sharing their own love notes on social media using the hashtag 100lovenotes. Read them at www.100lovenotes.com.