Tariffs and Trade Wars, Breakup w/ Your Smartphone, Wrinkle in Time

Guest: Scott Bradford, PhD, Associate Professor of Economics, Brigham Young University President Trump surprised America’s trading partners and many Republicans in his own party when he announced plans to place a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum coming into the US from other countries. When the EU, Canada and Mexico responded with anger to the announcement, Trump doubled down on Twitter saying, “To protect our country, we must protect American Steel. AMERICA FIRST!” And he even suggested that he’d welcome a “trade war.”

Guest: Catherine Price, Author, “How to Break Up With Your Phone” Think back to the last time you accidentally left your phone at home. How did you feel being without it for the day? Anxious? Did you have to go home to get it? Most of us have a dysfunctional relationship with our phone: we can’t live without it, but we know it doesn’t always make us feel great and wastes our time. Catherine Price came to this realization and wrote a book about it called “How to Break Up With Your Phone.” You can learn about her 30-day challenge here.

Guest: Su Kahumbu, Founder of iCow, CEO, Green Dreams Tech Limited According to USAID, 75 percent of Kenyans make at least some of their living from farming. But Kenyan farms don’t produce as much as they could. Su Kahumbu has come up with a simple solution for Kenyan farmers to improve their productivity using technology they already have in hand—their cell phones. It’s called iCow and it delivers information to farmers one text message at a time. Listen to Kahumbu's TED talk

Guest: Karen Lloyd, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville The average depth of the ocean is more than two miles deep. And down that far you’ll find mud that’s hundreds of feet thick. And in that mud, scientists have recently discovered a whole universe of microbes. Somehow, without sunlight, without oxygen, without obvious sources of food, these microscopic life forms manage to exist. If we could crack their secrets, we might have new solutions for improving life up here on land.

Guest: Tony Leonard, Captain, Georgia Tech Police Department Texting while driving is terrible. We all know that. Texting while walking isn’t as bad, is it? Well it’s problematic enough that if you do it while crossing the street in Honolulu you could get a ticket. Quite few other US cities are thinking about outlawing texting while walking – especially when you’re walking across a street. At Georgia Tech, campus police have started a campaign to get students to look up from their phones while walking.

Guest: Rachel Wadham, Host, Worlds Awaiting, BYUradio Rachel and Julie revisit the staying power of the classic tale ahead of the movie's release this weekend.