Parent Previews: Peanuts and Spectre

Guests: Dr. Yahya Al-Btoush, Grand Mufti, Jordanian Armed Forces; Father Nabil Haddad, Founder and Director, Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center 

Guest: Jordan Bass, PhD, Assistant Professor of Physical Education and the Sports Management Program Director at the University of Kansas  Sports are the public face of so many universities – the first impression and the tie that keeps alumni excited about their alma mater. They’re also not funded the way most people assume.  Meaning, big athletics departments are not the big money makers a lot of people imagine. A team at the University of Kansas recently published a detailed study of how college athletics are funded in the U.S. Dr. Bass has co-authored a monograph on the subject, explaining how many teams can’t financially sustain themselves any longer.

Guest: Joshua Schiffman, MD, Professor of Pediatrics and Adjunct Professor of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah  Here’s a scientific mystery to chew on - Elephants have 100 times as many cells as humans. So, it would be reasonable to assume that their chance of having any cell turn cancerous is 100 times more likely than a human’s. But turns out that elephants rarely get cancer.  Recently, researchers have been trying to figure out why, hoping the elephants might provide an answer that could help far-more-cancer-prone humans.

Guest: Louis Jacobs, PhD, Vertebrate Paleontologist, Professor at Southern Methodist University  A pre-historic hippo-like sea creature that sucks up plants from the shore. Desmostylia – or desmos, as they’re often called – are getting some new attention thanks to fossilized bones uncovered on an Alaskan island when villagers started turning earth to dig a new school.

Guests: Dave Busath, Biology Professor at BYU; Mike Alder, Technology Transfer  It’s flu season. And the good news is this year’s flu vaccines are expected to work better than last year. There’s an element of guessing when scientists cook up the vaccine each year. . . they’re never entirely which flu strains will be most bothersome until the season arrives.  Influenza is a virus, as you may know. Especially if you visited the doctor with it recently and were told, no an antibiotic will not help, because what you have is not a bacterial infection. Rather, influenza has to be treated with antiviral medications. But, just like bacteria, viruses are capable of mutating to become resistant to those drugs.