George H.W. Bush, Gratitude & Charity, Lucid Dreaming, Spanish Archaeology

Guest: James Goldgeier, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Professor of International Relations, American University Since his passing, many have praised Bush for his humility, kind temperament and generosity, but he wasn’t elected for a second term, which in modern US politics is considered a failure. He was criticized for lacking a domestic agenda, but Bush's primary passion and work was in foreign policy, and he played a key role in the reunification of Germany, the expansion of NATO, Russian's transition from communism, and - of course - the Middle East.

Guest: Christina Karns, Research Associate, Center for Brain Injury Research and Training, University of Oregon. We’re in the season of giving and receiving. Some new brain imaging work reveals an interesting connection between the two – the more grateful you are for what you have, the more you enjoy giving to others. Also, gratitude can be intentionally cultivated and the results will show up in brain scans.

Guest: Deirdre Barrett, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard Have you ever been in the middle of what you thought was reality and then suddenly become conscious that it was really a dream? Lucid dreaming moments are not uncommon. And researchers are now working on a device that aims to use advanced sleep tracking techniques and light and audio signals to artificially stimulate a lucid dream. Can lucid dreaming be controlled and directed? And to what end?

Guest: Sam Payne Sam Payne shares a story

Guest: Christopher Rodning, Professor & Graduate Studies Coordinator, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University Starting in 1567, decades before the British came on the scene here in America, Spanish explorers built a series of forts in the Appalachian Mountains, stretching from modern-day North Carolina into Tennessee. Spain was looking to expand its claim far north of Florida and Mexico. But within two years the forts were gone. Excavation at one of the forts in North Carolina has uncovered some answers about the failure of this particular Spanish exploration.

Guest: Deborah Blum, Director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT and Author of “The Poison Squad” In the 1880s if you walked into a grocery store and bought milk, bread and butter, it was “buyer beware.” The milk was likely diluted, quite possibly with dirty water, and then thickened with chalk. The bread might have sawdust in it and the butter might be preserved with borax, which is a poison, of course. It wasn’t until 1906 that the US finally got the Pure Food and Drug Act, which led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, and the expectation that our food should be safe to eat. The battle to get to there was both grisly and exhausting.