Haiti's Unnatural Disaster, Designing Away Terrorism, Selfies

Haiti’s Unnatural Disaster Guest: Jason von Meding, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction, University of Newcastle, Australia Hurricane Matthew killed at least 1,000 people in Haiti, but relief workers say the worst is yet to come. The storm destroyed homes, crops and livestock. Hunger and famine are a real threat. So is cholera. Water sources in Haiti were contaminated by the hurricane, which threatens to worsen a cholera epidemic that has already killed 9,000 Haitians and sickened three-quarters-of-a-million. The epidemic has been traced to UN peacekeepers during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti – one example of how attempts to help can sometimes make things worse.  Click here for more on how to help Haiti. Designing Away Terrorism Guest: Thomas Fisher, Professor of Architecture and Director of the Metropolitan Design Center at the University of Minnesota To protect ourselves from a terror attack, we’ve got metal detectors and body scanners in our airports and government buildings. The NSA and FBI try to detect terror cells and disrupt their plans. But could we organize our cities and businesses differently to make ourselves less of a target? The Pentagon looks like a bulls-eye from the air. The Twin Towers were hard to miss, too, before they were brought down in the 9-11 terror attacks.  Selfies Make You Happy Guest: Yu Chen, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher in University of California, Irvine Department of Informatics When you’re feeling down, the common advice might be to put down the phone and take a walk or talk with someone you love. But hang on - your smartphone might actually be a tool for increasing positive emotions, if used the right way. And that’s the key, because not all smartphone activities will put a smile on your face, but taking a selfie of yourself smiling, or taking a photo of something that makes you happy – those things can actually lighten your mood. Homeschooling in America Guest: Kyle Greenwalt, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Michigan State University, Author of “Home/Schooling: Creating Schools that Work for Kids, Parents and Teachers” “Homeschool” carries a certain stigma as the domain of religious conservatives or social misfits. But today’s homeschoolers are a diverse bunch and as their numbers increase, the movement has gone mainstream. Get Ready for Sequels Guest: Shawn O’Neill, Movie Reviewer Shawn O’Neill, an independent movie reviewer at BYUradio, with some thoughts on how to prepare for some blockbuster sequels coming our way. Nanoscopic Sieves for Detecting Cancer in Blood Guest: Mike Alder, BYU, Director of the Office of Tech Transfer; Rob Davis, BYU Physics Professor, Nick Morrill, Co-Founder of Precision Membranes When astronomers look for other planets that could sustain life, they focus on the Goldilocks Zone where a planet is just the right distance from the star it orbits. Not too close, not too far away. Just the right temperature.  On the microscopic scale, researchers at BYU have been working on a “Goldilocks” puzzle of their own. They’re trying to create a strainer – like the colander in your kitchen – but with super-tiny holes that are just the right size to catch some things but not others, such as cancer cells in a sample of blood.