US Welfare Programs, Vitiligo Treatment, America's Failing Infrastructure

Guest: Ben Gibbs, PhD, Professor of Sociology at Brigham Young University, Academic Visitor in the Department of Sociology at Oxford University President Trump and Republicans in Congress are proposing significant changes to food stamps – officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The goal is to reduce what administration officials call a “tragic state of dependency” that traps millions of Americans. The process is already underway to tighten work requirements for SNAP recipients and the US Department of Agriculture has proposed cutting the monthly food benefit in half and giving families a box of canned goods, instead.

Guest: Brett King, PhD, MD, Associate Professor of Dermatology, Yale University Pop star Michael Jackson was a source of fascination throughout the ‘80s for his eye-popping dance moves, but also because his skin transformed from black to white over that decade. He was accused of bleaching his skin and wanting to be white. In fact, his autopsy confirmed that he suffered from vitiligo, an auto-immune disease that destroys the pigments in skin, leaving random pale patches that spread over time. There are treatments for the disease, but not everyone responds to them, so when Yale dermatologist Brett King was presented with two really stubborn cases, he decided to try out a new course of treatment which could change the way vitiligo is treated in the future.

Guest: Hiba Baroud, PhD, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University President Trump, a few weeks ago, announced his promised plan to rebuild “America’s crumbling infrastructure.” Those are the words he used, and while President Trump is prone to hyperbole, in this case, he’s not overstating things. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the US a D+ - that’s just shy of a failing grade - for the state of our highways, railways, seaports, airports, water and sewer systems.

Guest: John McGann, PhD, Associate Professor, Behavioral and System Neuroscience, Rutgers University You know how certain odors can trigger memories—maybe you smell your mother’s perfume in a department store, and it takes you way back? Or maybe a whiff of popcorn reminds you of baseball games when you were a kid? Even so, we’ve long been told that our human sense of smell is nothing compared to other mammals like dogs. But Rutgers University psychology professor John McGann says that’s just a myth. Our sense of smell is just as good – though maybe a little different.

Guest: Jacob Rawlins, PhD, Assistant Professor, Linguistics and English Language, Brigham Young University It seems a bit silly when a restaurant or retail store has the staff insist on calling everyone a guest, rather than a customer. Or they have some special name for their coworkers – teammates, associates. Or they add some little rhetorical flourish when they answer the phone like the receptionist at my dentist’s office who always says, “This is so-and-so. I can help you.” Not how can I help you? Just the confident “I CAN help you.” These touches seem like gimmicks, but BYU linguistics professor Jacob Rawlins says they come from the stories companies weave about themselves and why they matter. These stories are powerful tools.

Guests: Lois O'Brien, PhD, and Charlie O’Brien, PhD, Entomologists Most people try to keep bugs out of their house. But Charlie and Lois O’Brien added extra rooms onto their Arizona home in order to accommodate the bugs they’ve dedicated collected over 60 years. The O’Briens are leading entomologists – Charlie is an expert in weevils and Lois in planthoppers. Between them they’ve collected more than one and a quarter million insects– many of them rare specimens. They donated the entire collection to Arizona State University last year.