The Apple Seed

Guest: Gary Doxey, JD, Associate Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University Law School Appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh seeks Senate confirmation to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, and has brought up his background as a Catholic. Theoretically, a nominee’s religious beliefs aren’t supposed to be part of decision the Senate makes to confirm or reject a Supreme Court nominee. But Kavanaugh’s confirmation would make the Supreme Court solidly conservative and, potentially, open to new interpretations of the law on moral issues like abortion and same sex marriage that matter a lot to religious groups. So, should Judge Kavanaugh’s Catholicism be part of the decision to confirm him, or not?

Guest: Justin Brashares, PhD, Professor and G.R. & W.M. Goertz Chair, Department of Environmental, Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley It wasn’t until the dinosaurs died out some 65 million years ago that scientists believe the Earth’s smaller, furry creatures started feeling bold enough to venture out during daylight hours. They’d been nocturnal while the dinosaurs roamed. Now, it seems we humans are having a similar effect: our presence is driving mammals back into the cover of night.

Guest: Nathan W. Twyman, PhD, Assistant Professor, Business and Information Tech, Missouri University of Science and Technology Don’t you think there’s bound to be a better way to root out terrorists at airports than making every single passenger take off their shoes and belt and put all their liquids in tiny bottles? Why can’t TSA figure out who in that long line of passengers is most likely to have contraband in our pockets and then just screen them intensely? Maybe we can enlist a little automated help.

Guest: Nancy Koehn, PhD, Historian, Professor of History, Harvard Business School, Author, “Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times”  The 12 young soccer players and their coach who were rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand spoke publicly for the first time today about their ordeal. It was miraculous how an international team of cavers, divers and Thai Navy Seals somehow managed to get every single one of the boys and their young coach out through two-and-a-half miles of flooded, pitch-black passages so tight in some spots they had to remove their oxygen tanks to squeeze through. But a major contribution to the miraculous rescue came from the team’s coach, who managed to keep his players calm, focused and alive.

Guest: Anmar Mirza, National Coordinator, National Cave Rescue Commission At a press conference today, the 12 young soccer players and their coach who were rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand shared how they’d decided to go into the cave on a whim and only planned to be there for an hour or so. They brought no food or water. They didn’t tell their parents where they were going. What's the safe way to explore caves, and what goes in to a cave rescue?