Primaries, Gene Editing, Video Games, Weight Discrimination

Guests: Christ Karpowitz, PhD, Professor of Political Science at BYU; Grant Madson, PhD, Professor of 20th Century American History and Politics  The Iowa Presidential Primary is a week away - next Monday, Feb. 1. Then New Hampshire’s primary on the 9th and South Carolina’s on the 20th. And by then, maybe, we’ll know who among the crowded Republican field of candidates is likely to be crowned the party’s nominee and whether or not Bernie Sanders really is a threat to Democrat Hillary Clinton. But why is tiny Iowa first? Wouldn’t it make sense for a more populous state like California or New York to be first in line?

Guest: Jeffrey Anderson, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroradiology at the University of Utah School of Medicine  Do you scold your kids about playing too many video games? Maybe warning that their brains will turn to mush? New research by the University of Utah and Chung-Ang University in South Korea confirm what previous studies have begun to show – that people who spend excessive time playing video games have brains that are wired differently. Some of the changes are good, while others are not so good.

Guest: Charis Thompson, PhD, Chancellor’s Professor and Chair of Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley  Scientists have figured out how to edit DNA. The process is cheap and easy to harness. It’s not super-precise yet, but it’s only a matter of time before a researcher could tweak the genes of an unborn child to make sure he’s not born with a genetic disease that afflicts his parents. Even more remarkable, researchers could go into the DNA of the egg and sperm before they become an embryo and snip out the genetic disease so the resulting child and all of his offspring would be free of it.  We’re talking about genetically-engineering the building blocks of the human race.  Which is amazing. And also terrifying, when you consider how easily we humans seem to slip into eugenic thinking – what would stop us from editing out certain colors of skin or ensuring a certain IQ level?

Guest: Dr. Rebecca Puhl, PhD, Deputy Director for the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity and Professor in Residence in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Connecticut  More than a third of American adults are obese according to the CDC. They’re consequently at much higher risk for dying from heart-disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer. Overweight and obese people are also more likely to be discriminated against in the work place.  Some new survey research published in the The Milbank Quarterly finds strong support for laws that would prohibit job discrimination based on a person’s weight, but there’s a limit to the public support.

Guest: Rod Gustafson, Film Reviewer at ParentPreviews.com  We review films “The Fifth Wave,” about a girl in a dystopian society, and “The Boy,” a horror film about a nanny in the English countryside.

Guests: Matt Cryer, CEO of KP Biosciences; Dave Brown, Associate Director of BYU's Technology Transfer Office It’s not talked about much and there’s no cure for it, but genital herpes is increasingly prevalent. The CDC says three-quarters of a million people come down with a new infection of it every year. It’s highly contagious – even when the infected person is showing no visible symptoms. Drugs to treat genital herpes primarily limit outbreaks of painful and unsightly sores and lesions.