Our 2,000-year Obsession with Eating Out

Guest: William Sitwell, leading food writer in Britain, long-standing critic on MasterChef, and author of "The Restaurant: A 2,000-Year History of Dining Out"

It's a strange time for restaurants right now, but this critic thinks that they'll bounce back from the pandemic. After all, they had take-out in ancient Pompeii and restaurants boomed in post-revolution Paris. Restaurant owners have always been trying to recapture that lost art of hospitality that used to be freely given in homes to traveling strangers. 

 

Order Up Grandma's Cooking

Guest: Jody Scaravella, owner, "Enoteca Maria"

A small restaurant in Staten Island doesn't employ professional chefs; instead, they hire grandmas from all over the world to cook family recipies and bring their culture to the customers.

 

Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion

Guest: Alison Pearlman, art historian, and author, “May We Suggest: Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion”

Menus are part of a theatrical experience offered by restaurants. One of the great illusions of the menu is that it makes us feel that we're getting what we want, but that isn't quite the case.

How the Census Shapes Nations

Guest: Andrew Whitby, economist, data scientist, and author, "The Sum of the People: How the Census Has Shaped Nations, from the Ancient World to the Modern Age"

2020 is a census year in the United States. Why our founders thought it was so important, and how census data helps epidemiologists fight pandemics like Covid-19.

Watching a Monastery Wane

Guest: Sam Payne, host, "The Apple Seed," BYUradio

The Domesday Book was an ancient census that included records of flocks, buildings, and resources. Sam Payne talks about leaving home and his own personal accounting of his new college town, including a local monastery. Over the years he kept tabs on the dwindling population of monks there. Now that story has ended. What accountings have you made of special places in your life?

How the Census Shapes Nations

Guest: Andrew Whitby, economist, data scientist, and author, "The Sum of the People: How the Census Has Shaped Nations, from the Ancient World to the Modern Age"

2020 is a census year in the United States. Why our founders thought it was so important, and how census data helps epidemiologists fight pandemics like Covid-19.

 

Watching a Monastery Wane

Guest: Sam Payne, host, "The Apple Seed," BYUradio

The Domesday Book was an ancient census that included records of flocks, buildings, and resources. Sam Payne talks about leaving home and his own personal accounting of his new college town, including a local monastery. Over the years he kept tabs on the dwindling population of monks there. Now that story has ended. What accountings have you made of special places in your life?

Tree Rings

Guest: Valerie Trouet, Associate Professor, Dendrochronology, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, and author, "Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings"

Tree rings are not just something to mark age. By studying tree rings, we can unlock mysteries of the past. Telling stories of droughts and hurricanes, empires and wars, and giving us a view of the future, tree rings are a comprehensive history.

Talking to Trees

Guest: William Bryant Logan, arborist, New York Botanical Gardens, and author, "Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees"

The act of pruning trees to both care for them and benefit from them is being lost. Pollarding and other related practices used to provide us with the means to make living fences, diversify our forests, and feed our families without simply destroying the trees. A return to these principles opens up a new relationship to the natural world.

Tree Rings

Guest: Valerie Trouet, Associate Professor, Dendrochronology, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, and author, "Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings"

Tree rings are not just something to mark age. By studying tree rings, we can unlock mysteries of the past. Telling stories of droughts and hurricanes, empires and wars, and giving us a view of the future, tree rings are a comprehensive history.

 

Talking to Trees

Guest: William Bryant Logan, arborist, New York Botanical Gardens, and author, "Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees"

The act of pruning trees to both care for them and benefit from them is being lost. Pollarding and other related practices used to provide us with the means to make living fences, diversify our forests, and feed our families without simply destroying the trees. A return to these principles opens up a new relationship to the natural world.

Life and Death Math

Guest: Kit Yates, author, "The Math of Life and Death: 7 Mathematical Principles That Shape Our Lives," Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematical Sciences, and co-director, Centre for Mathematical Biology, University of Bath

The terror of pandemics lies in the math: how many people will catch the disease from one infected person? When you're calculating the risks of wearing a mask or not, social distancing or not, you need to understand the math.

Dancing with Physics

Guests: Emily Coates, Associate Professor, Theater and Perfomance Studies, and Director, Dance Studies, Yale University; Sara Demers, Horace D. Taft Associate Professor of Physics, Yale University

When a noted physicist collaborates with a choregrapher and dancer, we get a whole new perspective on friction, gravity, torque, and momentum.

Science of Shopping

Guest: Paco Underhill, environmental psychologist, author, "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping," and founder, Envirosell

The design and layout of brick-and-mortar stores are part of their marketing plan. How to realize the ways sellers are trying to influence your behavior.

Life and Death Math

Guest: Kit Yates, author, "The Math of Life and Death: 7 Mathematical Principles That Shape Our Lives," Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematical Sciences, and co-director, Centre for Mathematical Biology, University of Bath

The terror of pandemics lies in the math: how many people will catch the disease from one infected person? When you're calculating the risks of wearing a mask or not, social distancing or not, you need to understand the math.

 

Dancing with Physics

Guests: Emily Coates, Associate Professor, Theater and Perfomance Studies, and Director, Dance Studies, Yale University; Sara Demers, Horace D. Taft Associate Professor of Physics, Yale University

When a noted physicist collaborates with a choregrapher and dancer, we get a whole new perspective on friction, gravity, torque, and momentum.

 

Science of Shopping

Guest: Paco Underhill, environmental psychologist, author, "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping," and founder, Envirosell

The design and layout of brick-and-mortar stores are part of their marketing plan. How to realize the ways sellers are trying to influence your behavior.

Zombie Starfish

Guest: Ian Hewson, Cornell University: biological oceanographer; Associate Professor, Microbiology; Program Coordinator, Marine Biology

Sea stars have always seemed to have superpowers, growing back missing limbs. But a strange disease started killing them en masse in 2013, and scientists were baffled at how quickly these creatures were dying. Sea stars are still facing this pandemic, one that turns them into zombies, seemingly destroying their sense of fear, and leads quickly to their deaths. 

Facing Fear

Guest: Eva Holland, author, "Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear"

After facing one of her greatest fears—losing her mother—Eva Holland went on a quest to learn what she could about the science of fear and to overcome her own fears and phobias. How can you face your fears?

Zombie Starfish

Guest: Ian Hewson, Cornell University: biological oceanographer; Associate Professor, Microbiology; Program Coordinator, Marine Biology

Sea stars have always seemed to have superpowers, growing back missing limbs. But a strange disease started killing them en masse in 2013, and scientists were baffled at how quickly these creatures were dying. Sea stars are still facing this pandemic, one that turns them into zombies, seemingly destroying their sense of fear, and leads quickly to their deaths. 

 

Facing Fear

Guest: Eva Holland, author, "Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear"

After facing one of her greatest fears—losing her mother—Eva Holland went on a quest to learn what she could about the science of fear and to overcome her own fears and phobias. How can you face your fears?

The Fight for Mother's Day

Guest: Katharine Antolini, Associate Professor, History and Gender Studies, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and author, "Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for the Control of Mother’s Day"

Anna M. Jarvis founded Mother’s Day, not Woodrow Wilson, and she made sure people knew it. How, then, did she go on to protest a movement that she created? 

The Accomplished Mother of the Cheaper by the Dozen Gang

Guest: Jane Lancaster, Visiting Fellow, Brown University, and author, "Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth--A Life Beyond 'Cheaper by the Dozen'"

Published in 1948, then adapted into several movies by the same name, "Cheaper by the Dozen" is an American favorite. But the mother of the family, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, has been sometimes caricatured and her many achievements in engineering and science have been quite forgotten.