World Events, Solitary Confinement, Advertainment

Three World Events That Matter (1:04) Guests: Quinn Mecham, BYU political science professor As we speak, some 900 migrants are feared dead in a shipwreck of the Libyan coast and European foreign ministers are meeting to answer urgent calls for a new approach to deal with a surging wave of refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. We also analyze the elections in Nigeria and the Civil War in Yemen. "The number of deaths are much higher this year because there are fewer out there to patrol and rescue. So many are coming because they think their only real chance to escape poverty is to make a bold move. (Risky with payoffs)," says Mecham on European refugees. Mecham says the elections in Nigeria are "Groundbreaking this year because this is the first time ever in Nigerian political history where an incumbent president has been ousted in a democratic election." "Last month a thousand people were killed, a thousand injured, and 150,000 people displaced. I am worried that we are just at the tip of a humanitarian disaster," says Mecham on the Civil War in Yemen. DUST Game (21:04) Guest: Derek Hansen, IT Professor at BYU. He researches interactive systems and human-computer interaction DUST was the name of the exercise, a game really, consisting of online and real-world interaction that unfurled in real-time with some 2000 people participating. The game was designed to engage teenagers in the scientific process. It was created by BYU in collaboration with the University of Maryland and funding from the National Science Foundation. "DUST is a new genre of game with stories that play out over time. As you solve puzzles, the next story elements get revealed. What’s neat is that it’s a fictional story where you interact with the characters, as yourself," says Hansen. The Apple Seed (40:56) Guest: Sam Payne, host of the Apple Seed Sam Payne tells us the story of his lost iPad. "I left my iPad on the plane when flying back from Oregon. While waiting to hear from the airlines, I called Apple and they showed me how to log into the website and find my pad (I could see it as a green dot out in America somewhere!) I found it on 102nd Street and 6th Avenue in Queens," recalls Payne. Solitary Confinement (50:12) Guest: Robert Morris Solitary confinement is one of the toughest punishments prisons have to discipline offenders. It usually means keeping a prisoner in a small cell for 23 hours a day, denied all human contact. And new research by criminologist Robert Morris finds it doesn't work - at least if the goal is to get prisoners to straighten up and stop acting out behind bars. "We’ve discovered there’s no deterrent benefit from exposing inmates to solitary confinement following a violent act and we also don’t find an aggravating effect," says Morris. Virtual Traffic Lights (1:03:44) Guest: Ozan Tonguz, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University I'm sure this has happened to you: you've arrived at an intersection to find yourself the only car, sitting there waiting impatiently for the red light to turn green, while not a single car passes in the opposite direction. Suppose, instead of waiting your turn at a light suspended over an intersection, the traffic lights was in your car, and the other cars on the road. And those cars communicated with each other. When multiple cars arrive at an intersection, the virtual traffic light system would display red or green arrows on your windshield, telling you when it's your time to drive through. Such virtual traffic lights would make roads safer and more efficient according to Ozan Tonguz, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University who developed the concept. Advertainment on the Rise (1:17:33) Guest: Storm Gloor, author of the recent study, "Songs As Branding Platforms? A Historical Analysis of People, Places, and Products in Pop Music Lyrics." He is an associate professor of Music Business Professor at the University of Colorado-Denver Pop music and pop culture have always been intertwined. But University of Colorado-Denver music business professor Storm Gloor has just completed an exhaustive research project that finds what we listen to is more closely tied to what we wear and drive than ever before. "Advertainment is the idea of using what we typically refer to as entertainment media (songs, movies, etc.) to advertise. Example: The pop song, ‘My ADIDAS,’ sung by Run-D.M.C, is all about ADIDAS shoes," says Gloor.