Mars InSight, How We Talk About "Addicts" Matters, Poutine: Quebecois or Canadian?

(Originally aired: April 3, 2018) Guest: Tom Hoffman, InSight Project Manager, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA is in pre-launch mode to send its most in-depth mission ever to Mars on Saturday. And you’re probably thinking, "Well NASA’s had rovers on the Red Planet for a long time." You're right. It's been 14 years, to be exact. But those rovers just roamed around searching for signs of life and scoping things out for the day when humans will ultimately arrive. This lander launching Saturday will go much deeper – literally drilling down into Mars. Follow along with the Mars InSight Launch here.

(Originally aired: Jan. 30, 2018) Guest: Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet, Food Systems Graduate Student, University of Vermont All the Canada travel guides say you have to eat poutine when you visit. And they’re totally right. It’s a bowl of crispy fries, first of all, topped with gooey cheese curd and hot gravy. It’s pretty straightforward and so good. But lately, poutine has become a sore point for some in Quebec, which is the French region of Canada where the dish originated. Chefs across Canada have embraced poutine as a gourmet treat and many now claim it as their own, ignoring the fact that, for decades, poutine was looked down on as a symbol of Quebec’s lack of sophistication. Quebec native Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet says this is cultural appropriation and he sparked heated debate when he published a study making that claim in the journal Cuizine.

(Originally aired: Feb. 5, 2018) Guest: Michael Botticelli, Executive Director of the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center, Former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy An estimated 21 million Americans over the age of 12 are addicted to alcohol or other drugs. But only ten percent of them are getting treatment. Would that number improve if we talked about addiction differently? If, instead of calling someone an addict or a user, we referred to them as “a person with a substance use disorder”?  Why We Sleep (Originally aired: Nov. 3, 2017) Guest: Matthew Walker, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, Director of the UC Berkeley Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab, Author of “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” How much sleep did you get last night? Americans are chronically sleep-deprived