Love Stories Are Not Good for Us

Guest: L. Gordon Flake, CEO of the Perth USAsia Center, University of Western Australia North Korea’s escalating threat of nuclear war is at the top of the list. But head across the South China Sea to the Philippines and violent attacks by terrorists linked to ISIS have caused President Rodrigo Duterte to declare martial law on an island of 22 million people. And to the Northeast in Myanmar, also known as Burma, human rights groups say a Muslim minority known as the Rohingya are being systematically tortured, killed and forced to flee their homes. Myanmar has blocked UN investigators from visiting the region.  Meanwhile, American policy in Asia is absent, and China is stepping in to fill the void.

Guest: Chris Sagers, JD, Professor of Antitrust Law, Cleveland State University Nearly two out of every three Americans get some of their news from social media sites like Facebook. But the newspapers who pay the reporters to do that journalism don’t get money from the ads Google and Facebook shows while you’re reading those stories. Is that fair? An alliance of newspaper companies says it’s not and they’re asking Congress for permission to join forces and negotiation with Facebook and Google as a single entity to get a fairer shake. That violates antitrust laws – hence the need to get permission from Congress.

Guest: Martin Reimann, PhD, Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Arizona You know somebody who’s really trusting, don’t you? Where does that come from? Is it genetics? Or maybe they’ve never been disappointed or betrayed by someone? That seems unlikely. Research looking at levels of trust and distrust in pairs of twins offers some intriguing answers.

Guest: Sam Payne of BYUradio’s “The Apple Seed” For his weekly visit, Sam Payne shares folktales about foxes.

Guest: Diogo Verissimo, Conversation Research Fellow, Johns Hopkins University When you donate to the World Wildlife Fund, you can get a tote bag with an unbelievably cute and cuddly Giant panda on it. You can even get a stuffed Panda to cuddle. Would you be as keen to donate if that tote had a blobfish on it? I mean, the gelatinous pink blobby fish with a big nose and grumpy frown is so ugly I dare you to look at a picture of it and not cringe.  But the blobfish is endangered, just like the Giant panda. Ugly creatures deserve saving, too, right? But how to get people to donate for them is the question. Conservation research fellow Diogo Verissimo at Johns Hopkins University is convinced the answer is marketing. Maybe the blobfish or the purple frog – seriously, look that one up, it’s hideous – just need some spiffy spin to get donors in their corner.