Cuba’s Ambassador on the Escalating US Sanctions (0:31) Guest: Jose R. Cabanas, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to the United States Since President Donald Trump took office he has steadily re-imposed sanctions and travel restrictions on Cuba that Obama Administration had lifted. Recently, the Trump Administration has imposed additional sanctions because of Cuba’s support for the Maduro government in Venezuela. Cuba, Russia and China continue to back Nicolas Maduro, while the US, European Union and most Latin American countries recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president and want Maduro to step down.  Fast Answers to Questions Aren’t Necessarily More Truthful (12:33) Guest: John Protzko is a Cognitive Scientist in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara If you ask someone a question and they answer quickly, that must mean they’re telling the truth, right? Because they don’t have time to come up with a lie? Well, not necessarily. Turns out that people can -and will -lie when under pressure. How American High Schools can Promote Greater Learning (22:25) Guest: Sarah Fine, Co-Author of “In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School”, Program Director at High Tech High Graduate School of Education Think back to high school for a moment, if you can bear it. Where did you do your most engaged learning? Was it in particular subject, or with a particular teacher? Maybe it wasn’t even in class, but during extracurricular activity. That’s how it was for me. I worked on the school newspaper. No surprise there, I guess. Education researcher Sarah Fine spent hundreds of hours shadowing high school students in some of the nation’s best schools to figure out the special ingredients for what she calls “deeper learning.” I Can Do Science (39:30) Guest: Marjorie Rhodes, Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University A lot of kids -- especially girls and minorities -- dream of "doing" science but they have a hard time believing they can be scientists. One reason could be because of the way we talk about science with kids. Maya Swamps and Irrigation May Have Supported a Much Bigger Population (50:38) Guest: Timothy Beach, Ph.D., Geoarchaeologist, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin Just how large were the ancient Mayan cities of Latin America, and how advanced were their farming practices? The two are connected because a civilization can only be as large as it has food to sustain itself –either by growing it or importing it. So that’s why geoarchaeologist Timothy Beach spends so much time puzzling over the Maya farming question. Recently he and his team used airplanes equipped with radar to make some startling discoveries about the scale of Maya agriculture a thousand years ago. Your Kid Might Have a Good Reason to Whine (1:04:39) Guest: Rose Sokol-Chang, PhD, Journal Publisher at the American Psychological Association “How do I stop my kids from whining?” is one of the top questions parenting experts get. But Rose Sokol-Chang studied whining at Clark University and she says it’s actually an important part of a child’s social development. That it’s even a sign of love and affection and parents should pay attention to. Movies about Female Villains (1:17:53) Guest: Kirsten Hawkes, ParentPreviews.com Why is it that Disney’s princesses are nearly always up against a female villain? A villainess if you will. The Evil Queen, Ursula the Sea Witch, the Wicked Stepmother. . . Maleficient. With the second Maleficient film out in theaters, Kirsten Hawkes of ParentPreviews.com has been giving some thought to the phenomenon of the female villain. What motivates them? Which are the most villainous –and why?