FDA Looks to Ban Flavored E-Cigarettes

Guest: Michael Siegel, MD, Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health

The Trump Administration plans to ban the sale of e-cigarettes that come in any flavor other than tobacco. So that means fruit, mint, menthol –all of which are especially popular with teenagers. A quarter of high school students have used e-cigarettes in the last month. A quarter. That’s the main reason the FDA says it’s looking to ban flavored e-cigarettes. There’s also the current outbreak of a serious lung illness linked to vaping that has killed six people and sickened nearly 400 people.

Why Criminals in the U.S. are Sentenced to Prison for Longer Than Life

Guest: Darryl Brown, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Law School

Actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced last week to 14 days in prison for paying someone to correct her daughter’s SAT college entrance exam. There was outrage across social media that Huffman would get so little time when many other less famous or wealthy people serve much longer sentences for crimes that seem comparable, or less serious. On the other end of the spectrum, did you know there are some people in American prisons right now serving sentences so long they’re humanly impossible? How does someone even serve a sentence of life plus 419 years, which is what that Neo-Nazi got this summer for killing a protester at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

Future Smithsonian Museum Exhibit will Feature Bob Ross paintings

Guest: Eric Jentsch, the Entertainment and Sports Curator for the National Museum of American History

You can paint along with Bob Ross on public television almost any day of the week. He was on the air for 31 seasons over nine years and in constant reruns ever since. Somehow, Bob Ross is even more of an American pop icon today than ever –with his brown curly hair, soothing voice and encouraging words. What happened to all those happy accidents and friendly trees and mountains? It’s next to impossible to buy a Bob Ross painting today, even though he painted thousands of them during the TV series. Well, New York Times reporters tracked them down in Virginia and Eric Jentsch has been there to see them in person.

The US Government Could be Threatening Due Process

Guest: Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve

When someone becomes a US citizen, it signals the end of a long and difficult process. There’s a sense of finality, relief, and safety. End of the story, right? Well under US law, the government can revoke citizenship. Traditionally, that process, called “denaturalization” has been rare and reserved for those who committed war crimes. Now, advances in technology have made it more common in old cases of fraud.

India Moon Landing Fails. What makes going back to the moon so difficult?

Guest: Ryan J. Kobrick Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Spaceflight Operations at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

India had hoped to have a remote-controlled lander trundling toward the Moon’s south pole right now. But just before the lander touched down on the moon’s surface a few weeks ago, it lost contact with India’s space agency and now it’s laying on its side up there, not responding to communication from Earth. Earlier this year Israel had a similar experience when their spacecraft failed at the last minute

A Better Touchscreen Keyboard

Guest: Eric Schofield, Computer Science Student BYU; Dave Brown, BYU Technology Transfer Office

I miss my old Blackberry phone. It had an actual keyboard with buttons –not a touchscreen. I was so fast and accurate typing with that phone! But everything is touchscreen today and even with autocorrect, I’m constantly sending texts and emails with mistakes and it drives me nuts. BYU computer science grad student Eric Schofield has developed what he says is a better keyboard for touch-screens –and it just does away entirely with the QWERTY keyboard we’re used to.