The Apple Seed

Guest: Chuck Newhall, Vietnam Veteran and Author of “Fearful Odds: A Memoir of Vietnam and Its Aftermath” Doctors during the Civil War-Era called PTSD soldier’s heart or nostalgia. By World War I, it was referred to as shell shock. Soldiers back from Vietnam were the first combat veterans to get the official diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. More than 20-percent of veterans returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to have mental health conditions including PTSD, anxiety disorder or depression.

Guest: Farr Curlin, Ph.D., Medical Humanities Professor from The Divinity School at Duke University When facing the end of life, many people and their families turn to faith for comfort and answers. But when those moments happen in a hospital, doctors and nurses are rarely inclined to engage in a religious conversation. Researchers from Duke and the University Pittsburgh tracked a couple hundred of end-of-life discussions between health care professionals and the families of dying patients in Intensive Care Units. During the majority of conversations, when family members brought up faith or religion, doctors and nurses either changed the topic or quickly brushed off the comments.

Guest: Steven Abrams, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Every five years, the US government assembles a committee of scientists and medical experts to reassess recommendations for a healthy diet. The food pyramid you learned about as a kid and the healthy plate diagram kids are taught today are based partly on the recommendations of this every-five-years committee.

Guest: Jason Mark, Environmental Journalist and Author of “Satellites in the High Country" If you want to wade into a truly heated debate, find a community where a national park or wilderness preserve is being proposed. The divisions that spring up between landowners, recreationists and conservationists – and even within those groups – expose the problem of defining what wild means in the modern day.