The Mars InSight Mission

Guests: Celeste Beesley, Professor of Political Science, BYU; Scott Cooper, PhD, Professor of Political Science Russia fired on and seized three Ukrainian navy ships and their crews over the weekend in disputed waters between the two countries. Russia says Ukraine was provoking it. Ukraine says Russia is trying to seize more of its territory. In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea, which belonged to Ukraine. There’s been ongoing conflict along the border since then. What does this latest dispute mean, and what comes next?

Guest: Christopher C. Douglas, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Michigan-Flint  The announcement by General Motors this week that it will lay off 14,000 workers and shutter five auto plants in North America, is a blow to President Trump’s emphasis on getting more stuff made in America. There could be political consequences, since three of the plants GM is closing were key to Trump’s election – Michigan and Ohio.

Guest: Anne MacGregor, MD, Honorary Professor of Women’s Health, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, UK Millions of people suffer from migraine headaches that can be completely debilitating. They may last for hours – even days – and can recur multiple times a month. Most severe chronic migraine sufferers are women, but the exact causes are still not well understood. But this year the FDA did approve new treatments that may help prevent migraines in some sufferers, a major breakthrough after decades of slow progress.

(Originally aired August 22, 2018) Guest: Dennis Wall, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University School of Medicine Children with autism often have trouble recognizing emotion in the faces of people around them, which poses a major obstacle to social interaction and making friends. Researchers at Stanford University have experimented with giving the kids high-tech glasses that can help them interpret facial expressions. And it has worked well in a pilot study.

(Originally aired July 25,2018) Guest: Sacoby Wilson, Associate Professor of Applied Environmental Health University of Maryland Earlier this month, jurors in Raleigh, North Carolina settled down for a month-long federal lawsuit about pig poop. In August, a North Carolina jury in another federal trial handed down a $470 million dollar judgment against one of these massive pig farms. If you’ve ever passed a large pig farm or cattle operation and rolled up your windows to keep out the stench, imagine living next door to it. Neighbors believe the regulations that govern how smelly and messy a hog farm can be haven’t kept pace with just how huge these farms have become. So they’ve been suing the farms under nuisance laws – and winning those cases. What will that mean for meat production in the US.