Why CHIP Matters, Prince Alwaleed's Life Bargain, Homer's Odyssey Revisted

Guest: Tricia Brooks, Senior Fellow, Center for Children and Families, and Associate Research Professor, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University The deal lawmakers struck to reopen the government on Monday only lasts until February 8, but that measure did include a longer-term fix to a program called “CHIP” – the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Despite bitter partisan division, Congress somehow agreed to provide six years of federal money for that program. The news comes as a relief to the families of nearly 9 million children who get health insurance through CHIP.

Guest: Claudia Geist, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology/Division of Gender Studies, University of Utah TV loves the stereotype of a grumpy retired guy like Archie Bunker or Frank Barone from "Everybody Loves Raymond" spending his days relaxing on the couch while his wife cooks and cleans around him. University of Utah sociologist Claudia Geist wondered if there was any truth to that stereotype, so she looked into surveys of retired couples over 60. She was particularly curious if health problems would affect how much housework the aging husband or wife would do.

Guest: Benjamin Palmer, PhD, Postdoc Research Fellow, Department of Structural Biology, Weitzmann Institute of Science Scallops seem like a simple seafood, little medallions of firm white flesh with no bones or skin to deal with, but if you encountered one in the wild, you wouldn’t think it was so simple. For one thing, scallops can have up to 200 eyes. Scientists have long wondered why that is – and how those eyes actually work. A team in Israel and Sweden has now managed to get a close-up look and one fascinating thing they’ve learned is that scallop eyes have microscopic mirrors in them – just like high-end telescopes use mirrors. So does that mean they can see into outer space? Let’s find out.

Guest: Jeff Towson, Professor, Investment, Peking University, and Private Equity Investor

Guest: Sam Payne, Host, The Apple Seed, BYUradio Sam recently had a back-stage tour and preview of Utah Opera's "Moby Dick."

Guest: Emily Wilson, PhD, Professor, Department of Classical Studies, and Chair, Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania The story has all the elements of a great superhero saga: battles with monsters, help from the gods, a homeland in need of saving. There’s even true love in the mix. But this isn’t a Marvel or DC Comics story. It’s maybe THE original epic in Western culture: Homer’s “The Odyssey.” For anyone groaning now at the memory of slogging through it in high school, The Odyssey’s out in a new translation accessible to an audience raised on a steady diet of comic books.