Refugees Are Not the Problem, Decline in U.S. Life Expectancy

Guest: Nathaneal Molle, Co-Founder of Singa President Trump’s new executive order suspends all refugee applications to the United States for the next four months. It takes effect next Thursday and applies to refugees from all countries. The pause is intended to give the Trump administration time to review the process for identifying refugees that pose a threat to US security. The underlying message is that refugees are a problem from which Americans need protection.

Guest: Craig Malkin, PhD, author of “Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad—and Surprising Good—About Feeling Special,” Clinical Psychologist and Lecturer, Harvard Medical School To call someone a narcissist is very much in vogue right now. Whole books have been written about Millennials and their obsession with selfies and hunger for approval. Many a pundit has lobbed the label as our new President, too. Anybody who’s overbearing or obnoxious or egocentric is liable to be called a narcissist.

Guest: Gordon Lindsay, PhD, Professor of Health Science, BYU How do you think the United States compares in life expectancy to other developed countries? Near the top? Somewhere in the middle? It turns out, among 17 of the wealthiest democracies in the world, we’re dead last, according to a report from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.  Did that come as a surprise? If it did, you’re not alone.  A national survey asked the same question. Not even five percent of respondents correctly responded that U.S. life expectancy falls at or near the bottom of the rankings. Now, the question here is why does it matter whether Americans know how poorly we compare to other countries on health measures?

Guest: James Weatherall, PhD, Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine, author of “Void: The Strange Physics of Nothing” When we lament that we have “nothing to wear,” or there’s “nothing in the fridge,” we don’t mean literally nothing. But let’s say we did. A fridge with shelves completely empty – not even a cube of butter or a half-full ketchup bottle? If we took out all the shelves and the light bulb and sucked the air out of the fridge, then would it be completely empty?  This question of “what is nothing?” has bedeviled physicists for centuries – and it still does, frankly. You might wonder why they care all that much. Isn’t something more important than nothing?

Guest: Charles Gerba, PhD, Professor of Microbiology and Environmental Sciences, University of Arizona All you germophobes prepare to be grossed out here for the next few minutes, because we’ve got microbiologist Charles Gerba on the line to offer some insight on the most contaminated things in our daily lives. A little spoiler here - the worst offenders aren’t even in the bathroom.

Guest: Rachel Wadham, Host of BYUradio’s “Worlds Awaiting”  Rachel Wadham is the education and juvenile collections librarian here at BYU and host of Worlds Awaiting on BYUradio. It’s a show dedicated to encouraging a love of reading and discovery in children. It airs Saturdays at 1:30 p.m. Eastern and you can also hear it weekdays at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on BYUradio.