Report from Burma

from KERA's Think
What is really going on in Burma? We'll get a first-hand account this hour with Mac McClelland, Human Rights Correspondent for Mother Jones Magazine and author of the new book "For Us Surrender Is Out Of The Question" (Soft Skull Press, 2010).

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The Myth of Fair Value

from KERA's Think
Where do psychology and economy meet? We'll spend this hour with William Poundstone, whose new book is "Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It)" (Hill and Wang, 2010).

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How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet

from KERA's Think
[2010-03-15 12:00:00] How did our possessions become so important to us and what are they doing to the world? We'll talk this hour with internet sensation Annie Leonard whose new book is "The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change" (Free Press, 2010).

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Disorder in the Mind-Body Connection

[2010-03-15 13:00:00] What happens with the mind-body connection goes haywire and why does it happen in the first place? We'll explore the subject this hour with author Siri Hustvedt who writes about her personal experiences in the new book "The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves" (Henry Holt, 2010). (KERA's Think)

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polar bears in Doha

from CBC Radio: The Best of The Current
A proposal to put polar bears on the endangered species list will be on the table in Doha, Qatar this weekend. It's a more complicated debate than you might think and one that is creating some odd alliances.

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Chile

from CBC Radio: The Best of The Current
Sebastian Pinera was sworn in as Chile's new President yesterday. He's the country's first right-of-centre leader since Augusto Pinochet. We look at what that says about Chile's relationship with its past and its decidedly left-leaning neighbours.

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The Flu Season that Wasn't

from CBC Radio: The Best of The Current
After widespread fear about the potential for a flu pandemic, there have been far fewer deaths from the H1N1 virus than were anticipated. You might think that would have something to do with the largest flu vaccine campaign in Canadian history. But according to new research, flu shots often have no effect on laboratory-confirmed influenza.

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Political Assassins

from CBC Radio: The Best of The Current
What happens when the cloak and dagger world of spies and political assassins runs up against modern day security and surveillance?

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pakistan

Farzana Shaikh is a child of Pakistan who writes about her country now as the daughter of a distressed family. The thread through her pithy analysis, Making Sense of Pakistan, is that Pakistan’s problem is not fundamentally with India, much less with the United States and the world, but with itself and Islam. (Radio Open Source)

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Boudica

Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and myth of Boudica. With Miranda Aldhouse-Green, Juliette Wood and Richard Hingley. (In Our Time)

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military futurism (also anti-racist comedy)

Armies have always sought to guess the enemy’s next move based on past experience. Such crystal gazing took on a fresh urgency during the Cold War as the new discipline of military futurology grappled with the threat of nuclear war. Since then, military futurists have taken their imaginings into more apocalyptic realms. Charged by Western policy makers to 'think the unthinkable' they foresee future threats which owe as much to science fiction as to real life- cities controlled by terrorists and drug cartels, even the development of a 'magic bullet' which can't be countered. Laurie Taylor discusses a new survey of military futurism with its author, Matthew Carr and with the geographer Stephen. Also, from Richard Pryor to Lenny Henry - how humour can reinforce or subvert racial stereotypes. The sociologist Simon Weaver tells Laurie about his research into the nature and variety of anti racist comedy (Thinking Allowed)

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the forgotten epidemic

[2010-03-09 12:00:00] What caused the sleeping sickness epidemic of the 1920's and could it happen again? We'll find out this hour with science journalist Molly Caldwell Crosby whose new book is "Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries" (Berkley, 2010). (KERA Think)

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we bought a toxic asset!

We wanted to really understand how this whole housing bust/economic catastrophe is playing out. So we sent David Kestenbaum and Chana Joffe-Walt to Kansas City, where a former Wall Street guy named Wit Solberg runs a shop that buys and sells toxic assets. Wit sold them a $1,000 sliver of a toxic asset he'd bought for $36,000. The asset — a bond made up of residential mortgages — was marked down from the pre-crash price of $2.7 million. Of course, it's marked down for a reason. About 15 percent of the homes in the bond are in foreclosure, and nearly half are behind on their payments. The foreclosures will continue to mount, and at a certain point our asset will be wiped out. But until then, we'll get monthly payments. If we make it to Thanksgiving, we could double our money. (We'll be giving any profits to charity, by the way.) (Planet Money)

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beyond the brain

We talk to two local authors whose new books deal with the latest research on the science of consciousness. (KQED Forum)

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protecting the planet's food chain

Genetics and the fragile food chain. We look at one man's struggle to safeguard the planet's food supply, with Susan Dworkin, author of "The Viking in the Wheat Field: A Scientist's Struggle to Preserve the World's Harvest." (On Point)

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do I know you?

How do you know your mother is really your mother? It’s simple, right? You look at her, you recognize her, enough said. Well, maybe not. It turns out that recognizing people, even the people we know the best, is more about how they make us feel than what we see in front of our eyes. And when your feelings about someone get jumbled, it can be disorienting, even traumatic. In this the podcast we talk to Dr. Carol Berman and Dr. V.S. Ramachandran to explore the psychology and neurology behind a rare but disturbing delusional disorder called Capgras.

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making choices in everyday life

[2010-03-08 12:00:00] How important is the element of choice in our lives? We'll spend this hour with Sheena Iyengar, the S.T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia University and author of the new book "The Art of Choosing" (Twelve, 2010). (KERA Think)

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the romantic generation and the beauty of science

[2010-03-08 13:00:00] What was the study of science like before the 19th Century and how did the Romantic Period lay the groundwork for our scientific understanding today? We'll talk this hour with Richard Holmes, author of "The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science" (Vintage, Paperback, 2010). (KERA Think)

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women farming

Nearly 80 per cent of the world's farmers are women. But throughout the developing world, they often have little or no control over the land they tend. We hear from four. (CBC The Current)

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maternal health

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he wants the G8 to take up the challenge of improving maternal health in the developing world. We talk to three women about what it would take to deliver on that pledge. (CBC The Current)

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how to help our teenagers grow up

[2009-12-02 12:00:00] Does your academically successful nineteen-year-old still expect you to "just take care of" even the most basic life tasks? We'll spend this hour with University of Virginia psychology professor Joseph Allen, co-author of the new book "Escaping the Endless Adolescence: How to Help Our Teenagers Grow Up Before They Grow Old" (Harper, 2009). (KERA Think)

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a view of india

We’re getting a personal take on the New India that we haven’t heard before from New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas. When he went “home” after college, from Cleveland to the land of his ancestors, the feeling he confronted was, in effect, hey, your party in America is over, and you may be too late for the party underway in Bombay. (Radio Open Source)

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the infant brain

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss what new research reveals about the Infant Brain. With Usha Goswami, Annette Karmiloff-Smith and Denis Mareschal. (In Our Time)

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the first modern humans

[2010-03-04 12:00:00] Who were the Cro-Magnons and how did they survive in their snow-bound world? We'll talk this hour with Brian Fagan, emeritus professor of anthropology at U.C. Santa Barbara and author of the new book "Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans" (Bloomsbury Press, 2010). (Think)

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Servants and working class students

During the eighteenth century servants made up the largest occupational group in the British state, and the historian Caroline Steedman argues that they have been neglected Amanda Vickery. Also, the working class at Britain's elite universities: Diane Reay tells Laurie about her research into state educated working class children studying at Oxbridge.. (Thinking Allowed)

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Why Greece is stuck with the euro

Could the Greek crisis spell the end of the Euro? No way, says Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen. Eichengreen, says that if the Greek parliament were to even discuss the possibility of going back to Greece's old currency, the Drachma, it would send people running from Greek bonds. Eichengreen's got plenty more to say about the Euro. He argued recently that European countries should put in place a system for Euro-zone bailouts, complete with "temporary control of the national budget by a committee of 'special masters' appointed by the European Union." (Somehow, this idea seems unlikely to gain much traction with European governments.) (Planet Money)

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Food Addiction

New research shows certain foods can cause an addictive-like state in the brain. Researchers say food addiction is one of the rarely discussed culprits of nation's obesity epidemic. We talk with experts at UCSF Medical Center who are studying obesity and food addiction about how certain foods interact with the brain and what we can do to lessen our unhealthy food addictions. (KQED Forum)

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literature/monster mashups

The literary-horror mashup craze. We'll talk with the author of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" about his latest, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter." (On Point)

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GDP and schools

The economies of Jamaica and Barbados — two countries with very similar histories — have grown far apart in the last several decades. That difference in GDP shows up in all sorts of ways, Planet Money's Alex Blumberg found on a recent trip to both countries. Today, we get the first installment: What schools look like in each country. A principal in Jamaica keeps her school running with help from neighborhood volunteers, a donation from a Jamaican pop star and some funding from a U.S. aid program. A principal at a similar school in Barbados says government funding does a pretty good job of meeting the school's needs (Planet Money)

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Trust and the economy

[2010-03-01 13:00:00] How important is trust in today's business world? We'll talk this hour with journalist Anna Bernasek author of the new book "The Economics of Integrity: From Dairy Farmers to Toyota, How Wealth Is Built on Trust and What That Means for Our Future" (Harper Studio, 2010). (Think!)

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Chilean tectonics and Twitter

On Saturday Chile was rocked by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake. With rescue efforts still underway, we look at the precarious shifting of tectonic plates on the Pacific coast of South America and how scientists are turning to Twitter to learn more.

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