Marijuana Views, Deep Fakes, Robot Delivery, Hiccups

Guest: Jacob Felson, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology, William Paterson University Two thirds of Americans now support legalizing cannabis, according to Gallup’s polling. That’s a complete reversal from the late 1960s when barely 10 percent of Americans thought marijuana use should be legal. Over that same period, we’ve seen a wave of states legalizing marijuana for medicine and recreation. Why has public opinion swung so dramatically in support of cannabis in the US?

Guest: Hany Farid, Professor of Computer Science, Dartmouth College If there’s a video of something, that’s proof it really happened right? I mean people can fake an email or a social media post or even Photoshop a picture. But a video of President Trump saying something on the lawn of the White House –you can’t fake that. Well actually, you can, with the right software. And you don’t even need to be a computer whiz. Digital forgeries can now be so realistic that even a trained eye can be duped. Imagine the trouble that could cause –is causing, in some cases.

Guest: Ryan Tuohy, Senior Vice President of Business Development, Starship Technologies. Pop culture loves heroic and cute robots: R2-D2, Wall-E, BB-8. Now what if one of those little guys delivered you a hot pepperoni pizza? That future may not be far off. As we speak, a fleet of delivery robots is ferrying food around the George Mason University campus. And that institution is just one of the many places around the world where delivery bots are being tested.

Guest: Georg Petroianu, Chair, Department of Cellular Biology and Pharmacology, Florida International University School of Medicine Why do we hiccup? Is there some point to it? Kathryn hiccups off and on all the time. But this guy named Charles Osborne holds the record for 68 years of continuous hiccupping! Often up to 20 hiccups a minute. Can you imagine? He died in 1991, just in case you were thinking you might need to call him with some surefire cure your aunt told you about.

Guest: Debra Kissen, Clinical Psychologist, Executive Director of Light on Anxiety Treatment Center in Northern Illinois In the moment that you realize you’ve lost control of your car and will crash, your heart might race, your mind might go blank, you might gasp for air or start shaking. If you’ve ever felt those things and weren’t in immediate danger, it may have been a panic attack. Millions of Americans suffer from them enough to be diagnosed with panic disorder. The first attack often comes in adolescence.

Guest: Rachel Wadham, host, Worlds Awaiting on BYUradio, Education and Juvenile Collections Librarian, BYU Rachel helps us commemorate Black History Month by highlighting three of her favorite African American illustrators: Kadir Nelson, The Pinckneys (Jerry and Brian) and Brian Collier.