Super Tuesday Analysis, Barbie's New Look, How Doctors Die

Guest: Jeremy Pope, PhD, Political Scientist and Co-director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at BYU  Donald Trump won seven of the eleven states up for grabs in yesterday’s Super Tuesday Republican primaries. And Hillary Clinton won with big margins yesterday; she may have all-but sewed up the Democratic nomination.

Guest: Laura Choate, PhD, Professor of Counselor Education at Louisiana State University  This month Mattel plans to release its new line of Barbie dolls with tall, petite, and curvy body types. The toy company hopes the diverse body types – along with new skin tones and hair textures introduced last year – will more closely reflect the world girls live in today. Barbie sales have been dropping in recent years.

Guest: Zara Cooper, MD, Surgeon and Researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston  The fact is we will all die, but very few of us are comfortable accepting that without making every effort to delay it. Our medical system also defaults to lots of interventions when the end-of-life is near – hospitalization, surgery, invasive treatments. And many, many people have a hard time saying no to intervention, no matter how unlikely it is to prolong life. Saying “no” to last-ditch treatment feels like saying “yes” to death.   But the doctors performing those procedures tend to make very different choices when facing their own death. Researchers have long suspected that doctors chose to die differently from the rest of us.

Guest: Kathryn Pole, PhD, Assistant Professor in Literacy Studies at the University of Texas Arlington  Who doesn’t love getting mail? I mean a REAL hand-written letter? But we send them so rarely that children today hardly know what it feels like to get a letter from grandma. However, one kindergarten teacher found that when she introduced a letter-writing project into her classroom, not only did the kindergartners’ writing skills evolve dramatically, but they tapped into a new way of recording family history.

Guest: Alaa Murabit, Peace Activist and Founder of “The Voice of Libyan Women”  In 2005 Alaa Murabit moved with her family from Canada to Libya, where she says she was surprised to discover that women are not treated equally to men in that country. She was 15 and had grown up learning from Islamic scripture that all are equal in the eyes of God.  The disappointment she felt in being treated as a lesser person because of her gender has propelled her to become an activist and peacebuilder in Libya. She was active with other women in agitating for change during the 2011 Libyan revolution. Murabit has since formed an organization called “The Voice of Libyan Women” to promote equality and “improve the political participation and the economic empowerment of women in Libya.”

Guest: Deborah Fein, PhD, Head of Clinical Division in the Department of Psychological sciences at the University of Connecticut  A growing number of American children are being diagnosed with autism: one in sixty-eight kids are on the autism spectrum, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Early intervention can be key to helping these child, but often such intervention is too expensive for families or not available until a child is several years old.  The good news is there’s a lot parents can do to help an autistic child make up some of the ground in social and verbal areas where they lag. Child development expert Deborah Fein of the University of Connecticut has co-authored a how-to book of activities parents can do with an at-risk baby or toddler and she’s on the line now.