The Apple Seed

Guest: Quinn Mecham, PhD, Professor of Political Science, BYU President Donald Trump on Tuesday made his second address to the UN General Assembly, reiterating his “America First” views: “I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return." Trump also called out China and Iran specifically. How did the UN respond?

Guest: John Battelle, CEO, NewCo, Co-Founder, Wired Magazine When you buy a new phone, your choice is basically an iPhone or something else. Most of your non-iPhone options, say a Samsung or LG phone, are actually powered by Google through their Android operating system. Apple, of course, has its own operating system called iOS. Both of the systems pre-load your phone with their own apps for things like email or web browsing – and Apple won’t even let you change those. But Google is the one in trouble over in Europe for doing this. Why is that? And more importantly, why are Google and Apple the only choices we have to power our phones?

Guest: Evangelia Vamvaka, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher in Plant and Microbial Biology, UC Berkeley While the spread of HIV and rates of treatment for the virus have improved dramatically over the last 20 years, women and girls remain at serious risk. The majority of new HIV infections globally are among women and young women, in particular, are twice as likely to acquire HIV as young men the same age. This imbalance is driven by sexual violence and the inability of women in some cultures to demand that an infected partner take precautions to prevent the virus from spreading to her. Could a newly engineered strain of rice inhibit the tranmission of HIV through sexual intercourse?

Guest: Bruce Bochner, Professor, Medicine, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine Nearly 15 million Americans have potentially life-threatening food allergies. Many live in constant fear that an allergen will sneak into their food and cause possibly fatal anaphylaxis.  For food allergies like that, there really isn’t much that can be done to alleviate that fear. Now, a team of scientists is repurposing a cancer drug that may have broad capacity to block allergies. Ibrutinib (eye-broot-in-ib) is a cancer drug used to treat Leukemia through less-toxic means than chemotherapy. Could it also tackle allergies? It’s all very preliminary, but early results are promising.

Guest: Doris Santoro, PhD, Associate Professor, Education and Chair of the Education Department, Bowdoin College Many of America’s teachers are unhappy. In states across the country, from West Virginia to Washington State, teachers have marched on state capitols and held strikes this year. They want better pay, smaller classrooms, better financial support for programs. Many oppose state and federal rules that require teachers to use certain textbooks or give their students high-pressure tests. But when teachers are protesting, they’re not in the classroom doing their jobs. Is it possible for teachers to resist and press for change in their profession without derailing the education of the children in their care? Listen to