Child Well-Being

Guest: Nicole Lowe, Assistant Attorney General, Utah Attorney General’s Office The governor of New York yesterday issued an executive order that all homeless people must be brought inside during freezing weather – even if that means police officers forcibly carting people off to homeless shelters when the temperature dips below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s a controversial move, to say the least. And an interesting entry into our discussion today about meeting the needs of the more than one million teenagers living on U.S. streets.  They’re a difficult group to serve because they often steer clear of homeless shelters, where they don’t feel safe. Shelters can offer them warm coats and meals. But more permanent strategies for helping people get off the streets don’t work with kids who are underage.

Guest: Robert MacCoun, PhD, Professor of Law at Stanford University You know how you can read over something you’ve written many times and never notice a typo until someone else points it out? Either you’re not looking for it or you just don’t see it because you don’t want to or don’t expect to. There’s a phenomenon in scientific research called “confirmation bias” where scientists get the result they expect to get. In myriad subtle – even unconscious ways – they tweak their analysis and hone in on the findings that match their hypotheses. In the journal Nature two renowned scientists – including a Nobel Prize laureate in Physics – called on researchers to adopt techniques to avoid the unconscious biases that make studies less reliable. “Blind analysis” should be the standard for all types of research, they say.

Guest: Patrick Flavin, PhD, Assistant Professor of Political Science in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences A key source of votes and funding for the Democratic Party is in flux. The party’s likely candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, has already been endorsed by large unions representing the majority of state and local employees and teachers across the country. She’ll need their support to win because the nation’s eight million government workers represented by labor unions are central to Democratic election strategy. But the winds may be shifting. Overall union membership is in decline, states are curtailing collective bargaining rights and a pending Supreme Court case could weaken the influence of unions in politics.

Guest: Rod Gustafsen, Film Reviewer at Parentpreviews.com More than a few Americans have football on the brain as the Super Bowl approaches. Football’s literal effect on the brain is the focus of a new film featuring Will Smith called "Concussion."  Also, the based-on-reality movie "Joy" features Jennifer Lawrence as a down-on-her-luck single mom with a dysfunctional family who makes it big inventing a self-wringing mop.

Guests: Sandra H. Burnett, PhD, and Mike Alder, Director of BYU's Technology Transfer Office  Honey bees have disappeared at a staggering rate in the US. In just one year, the US lost 42 percent of its managed honey bee colonies, according to the US Department of Agriculture. There are many reasons for the decline, but BYU microbiology professor Sandra Burnett has pioneered a novel solution to one disease so contagious beekeepers are often forced to incinerate their infected hives. It’s called American Foulbrood and we discuss it as part of our weekly technology series.