White House Investigation, Brain on Soda, Secret to a Long Life

Guest: Russell Riley, PhD, Associate Professor at Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Co-chair of Presidential Oral History program President Donald Trump’s first trip abroad has, for the moment, shifted attention away from the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign was involved in it. The President has complained loudly about the investigation as a “witch hunt” and a major distraction from his efforts to govern.  Presidential historian Russell Riley has some bad news from Trump on that score: it’s about to get worse now that a special prosecutor has taken over the investigation.

Guest: Jeff Niederdeppe, PhD, Associate Professor of Communications in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University For decades we’ve been trying to figure out how to stop drunk driving. Mothers Against Drunk Driving supports locking the ignition of a car unless a driver with a previous DUI can pass a breathalyzer test. Another approach is to lower the blood alcohol legal limit – Utah just took its limit to .05, making it the lowest in the nation. But Cornell communications professor, Jeff Niederdeppe, has data to prove that airing “don’t drink and drive” ads at the right times can actually save lives.

Guest: Matthew Pase, PhD, Visiting Research fellow in Neurology, School of Medicine, Boston University, Senior Research Fellow at Swinburne University, Australia  Soda is bad for your bodyweight and your heart, and we’re all pretty aware of that, which is why many of us drink the diet versions, instead. But now comes evidence from the Boston University School of Medicine that soda is bad for our brains, too. Even diet soda is correlated with increased risk of stroke and dementia.

Guest: Thomas Fritz, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of British Columbia Cubicle workers everywhere can relate to the frustration of having someone pop in and interrupt when you’re deep into the flow of a project. To avoid that, many people might try block-out techniques like wearing headphones most of the day to send the message, “don’t interrupt, I’m focusing.”   But University of British Columbia computer science professor Thomas Fritz has a different solution. It’s a traffic light, basically. When it’s green, coworkers know you’re okay to interrupt. When it’s red—or the more serious pulsing red—they know to stay away. And you don’t set the light yourself—it actually tracks your computer activity and sets itself based on that.

Guest: Rod Gustafson, reviewer for http://parentpreviews.com/ A new installment in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series arrived in theaters over the weekend. It’s a road trip gone-wrong story line, starting with a surprise announcement by the mom.  Also, is there anything, anything to recommend Everything, Everything?

Guest: John Chaston, PhD, Assistant Professor of Genetics, BYU We heard earlier in the show about how soda shortens your life—or at least shortens the quality of it, since it puts you at risk for stroke and dementia. Turns out the old adage, “You are what you eat” is still true. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could take a supplement that turns unhealthy food into something harmless in the body? BYU genetics professor John Chaston’s research is based on that very concept.