Approval to Strike Syria, Colonial Cryptography, Pet Food Myths

Guest: Ryan Vogel, Director of Center for National Security Studies, Utah Valley University

Guest:  Sara Georgini, PhD, Series Editor of The Papers of John Adams, Massachusetts Historical Society It's become popular these days in political and media circles – and even among White House staff, reportedly -  to use one of a growing number of apps, such as What's App or Signal, that allow you to send encrypted messages impervious to hackers and government surveillance and your boss who might not be thrilled that you’re leaking information to the press.  Encrypting messages has a long history in American politics. Many of our founding fathers were avid cryptographers and some of the messages they encoded two-hundred years ago have yet to be deciphered.

Guest: Brad Bitterly, Doctoral Candidate, University of Pennsylvania In the TV show The Office, the manager, Michael Scott, was always telling wildly inappropriate or dumb jokes that nobody thought was funny. But he was convinced his sense of humor was a major reason he was such an effective and beloved boss. He was neither of those things, if you haven’t see the show. In preparing for this next conversation I couldn’t get Michael Scott out of my mind.

Guest: Cailin Heinze, VMD, Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionist, Assistant Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University Americans spend 60-billion dollars a year on their pets. Veterinary care, grooming, boarding, cute little sweaters and toys – all of it adds up. But the single largest expense of owning a pet is food, and it’s only getting more expensive as pet owners become convinced that their dogs should only eat what they themselves would be willing to eat. Pet food companies play right into this with their ads.

Guest: Anupam Jena, Ruth L. Newhouse Associate Professor of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Physician in the Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital With furniture and shoes, the old adage, “you get what you pay for” applies: A higher price tag typically means higher quality.  This is not the case in medicine, though. Patients that had more expensive hospital stays, because their doctors ordered more procedures and tests, did not have better outcomes. Plainly put, they were not less likely to die or be readmitting to the hospital than patients with doctors who ordered fewer tests and procedures.

Guest: Glenn Gaudette, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Director of WPI’s Myocardial Regeneration Lab   The science of tissue regeneration has made incredible progress in recent years. Bioengineers can now coax generic cells to specialize into heart cells that beat, for example. But getting those cells to grow into a functioning heart – or even just heart tissue - is a big leap. Researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute think spinach might help. They’ve trained human heart cells to regenerate on a spinach leaf. And no, they’re not trying to create a leafy-green Frankenstein.