#NoPlant19: Rain, Floods Set Midwest Farmers Back

Guest: Jerry Jackson, Jackson Farms, Illinois

#NoPlant19 is circulating on Twitter along with pictures and videos of soggy fields still not planted with crops. Typically at this point in the year, pretty much all the nation’s corn – and most of its soybeans would be in the ground. But this year, because of incessant rain and serious flooding, the US Department of Agriculture says planting across the Midwest is way behind. And for many farmers, it will soon be too late. On top of that, there’s the trade war with China, which has American farmers scrambling to find other places to sell their crops.

 

Australia is Killing Off Two Million Feral Cats in an Attempt To Save Native Species

Guest: Katherine Moseby is a research fellow with the Centre for Ecosystem Science at University of New South Wales and founder of the wildlife sanctuary Arid Recovery Reserve. 

 

In Australia, nearly two dozen small mammals have gone extinct because of one ferocious predator – the cat. Not cougars or lions. These are domesticated cats, now feral and roaming the outback, obliterating small marsupials and rodents native to Australia. So, several years ago, the Australian government set a goal to exterminate two million feral cats by 2020. That caused an outcry among cat lovers. Ecologist Katherine Moseby has been looking for other, non-lethal ways to deal with the problem. 

 

Religious Rights of Death Row Inmates

Guest: Elizabeth Clark, J.D., Associate Director for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at BYU

Do death row inmates in America have the right to a minister of their own faith standing at their side at the moment of execution? States have different policies on this and the US Supreme Court has issued conflicting rulings on it in recent months. A new lawsuit filed by a Muslim inmate awaiting execution in Alabama may finally settle the issue. 

  

Why the US Doesn't Use the Metric System

Guest: John Bemelmans Marciano, author and artist

If you take a drive on Interstate 19 in Southern Arizona you’ll be in for surprise. It is the only stretch of highway in the United States with road signs that show only in kilometers. Turns out Interstate 19 is a leftover from the 70s when the country was preparing to go metric. So, what happened? Today, the United States, Myanmar, and Liberia are the only countries left in the world that don’t use the metric system. Will the United States ever convert to metric?

 

Education Could Be Worth A Lot More Than We Thought

Guest: Patrick Krueger, professor of health and behavioral sciences at the University of Colorado Denver.

Congratulations to all the parents of high school grads who are breathing a sigh of relief. On those rough days when your kid seemed like he or she maybe wasn’t going to get that diploma, did you threaten them? Or talk about how they’d never be able to make a decent living without a high school degree? You could have just told them that their lives depended on it. University of Colorado, Denver demographer Patrick Krueger has found that people with a high school diploma live healthier, longer lives.

 

The Uncertain Future of Antibiotics

Guest: David Shlaes, member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership. Author of "Antibiotics, The Perfect Storm" and "The Drug Makers"

An alarming new report from the UN says that in another 30 years, there could be 10 million people around the world dying every year from bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics. In other words, we’re in desperate need of new antibiotics to fight bacteria that have adapted to outsmart the current crop of drugs. So you’d think companies would see dollar signs in that and be racing to discover new ones. But they’re not, because the market for antibiotics is broken.