The Pirate Next Door—Myths and Unexpected Truths

Guest: J.B. Silvers, PhD, Professor of Health Care Finance, Case Western Reserve University The effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is moving again. The bill House Republicans passed earlier this month now has an official price tag from the Congressional Budget Office, which means the Senate can get to work on it. Here’s the bottom line: the changes to healthcare will reduce the federal deficit and lower premiums for many people. But it will also raise premiums for many people and leave more Americans uninsured. So you’ll either love it or hate it, depending on your age, income and health.

Guest: Alessandro Vespignani, PhD, Professor of Physics, Computer Science and Health Sciences, Northeastern University Have you ever been so miserable with the flu, complete with fever, stuffy nose, body aches, coughs that keep you up at night, that you felt like you had to tweet about it? Well if you ever have, someone may have used your tweet to track the flu in real time. And that someone could be Alessandro Vespignani, a professor of physics, computer science and health sciences at Northeastern University. He has successfully answered the CDC’s 2013 challenge to figure out how to predict the influenza season and his method involves social media, not doctors’ reports.

Guest: Tasha Eurich, PhD, Organizational Psychologist, Researcher and Author of “Insight” “Know thyself” is the ancient Greek adage, and from the looks of our modern social media behavior, we’re doing pretty well at it. We take selfies, make Instagram journals, and sometimes post vulnerable insights from therapy on our Facebook feeds. Being in-touch with oneself has become a point of social pride.   But organizational psychologist and best-selling author Tasha Eurich says we’re not nearly as self-aware as we think. All our navel-gazing doesn’t tell us anything about how other people see us. And without that kind of self-awareness, we’re pretty much just stumbling around in the dark.

(Originally Aired Dec. 7, 2016) Guest: Kate Dicamillo, Newbery Author Author Kate DiCamillo has won the Newbery Medal twice and two of her books have been made into movies—"The Tale of Despereaux" and "Because of Winn-Dixie." Her heroes are as endearing as they are unlikely: a mouse with ears too big for his body, a worn-out stuffed rabbit, a young girl who thinks that she can save her parents’ marriage if only she can learn to twirl a baton and win the local pageant. That’s Raymie, the hero of “Raymie Nightingale,” one of Kate DiCamillo’s latest novels for older children. She also has a chapter book out for younger readers called “Where Are You Going, Baby Lincoln?”

(Originally Aired Jan 25, 2017) Guest: Mark Gladwin, MD, Chair of the Department of Medicine and Director of the Pittsburgh Heart, Lung, Blood, and Vascular Medicine Institute, University of Pittsburgh Thousands of people every year are sent to the emergency room as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning, often from a heater, generator, or fireplace. Carbon monoxide is invisible – you can’t taste, smell or see it. There’s no known antidote for it, but research led by critical care physician/scientist Mark Gladwin at the University of Pittsburg School of Medicine has discovered a promising lead. They were able to reverse a fatal dose of carbon monoxide in mice by giving them a mutated brain protein they’ve made in the lab.