Flatten the Curve, Extinct Foods, Homeboy Industries

As Hospitals Brace for COVID-19, Americans Work to “Flatten the Curve” (0:35) Guest: Drew A. Harris, DPM, MPH, Assistant Professor of Population Health, Thomas Jefferson University Today, the US government urged all hospitals to cancel elective medical or dental surgeries so they can be ready for a wave of seriously-ill COVID-19 patients. New analysis guiding the Trump Administration’s policies on the pandemic, suggest between 100,000 and more than two-million Americans could die of coronavirus, depending on how aggressive we are about limiting the spread. Do hospitals even have enough staff, supplies and space to treat everyone likely to come down with COVID-19 in the coming weeks? This is why you’ve heard the phrase “flatten the curve” so much lately. Hey Siri, Build Me a New Antibiotic. (17:27) Guest: Jim Collins, Termeer Professor of Bioengineering in the Department of Biological Engineering and Institute for Medical Engineering &Amp; Science MIT Every year, thousands of Americans die from bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics. It’s a problem that’s been building up for decades because we can’t just churn out a new antibiotic every time a germ becomes resistant to an old antibiotic. They’re really hard to create – it takes a lot of time and money. But a team at MIT has come up with a possible solution using artificial intelligence. They’ve already discovered a new antibiotic, and they hope to create more. How Humans Ate Their Favorite Foods to Extinction (31:04) Guest: Lenore Newman, Canada Research Chair in Food Security and the Environment, Associate Professor of Geography and the Environment, University of the Fraser Valley, Author of “Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food.” A little over a hundred years ago, the ultimate American comfort food was pigeon pot pie. Not chicken pot pie. Passenger pigeon pie. The bird was all over restaurant menus, too. And then Americans ate the passenger pigeon right out of existence. It was not the first time – nor will it be the last – that humans loved a food so much they drove it to extinction. Apple Seed (50:45) Guest: Sam Payne, Host, The Apple Seed, BYUradio Storyteller Sam Payne on how people who make a living telling tales to large groups are adapting to social distancing rules. Americans Are $14 Trillion in Debt (1:01:10) Guest: Phil Schuman, Exec. Director of Financial Wellness, Indiana University A recent Federal Reserve report shows, household debt hit an all-time high in 2019.  Americans owe $14-trillion.  The part of that figure that’s credit card debt is also at an all time high. Meanwhile, and this is a little strange, credit scores hit an all time high last year, too. Which must mean that even though we’ve got a lot of debt, we’re being responsible about it? Homeboy Industries – The Power of Compassion (1:16:22) Guest: Greg Boyle, American Roman Catholic Priest of the Jesuit Order, Founder and Director of Homeboy Industries There’s a nonprofit in Los Angeles that hires gang members looking to get their lives on track. Rival gang members find themselves working side by side recycling electronics or baking pastries or serving café diners. Homeboy Industries was founded by Father Gregory Boyle – a Jesuit priest – in the late 80’s and today it’s the largest gang intervention and re-entry program in the world.