Policing the Border Between Male and Female in Elite Sports 

Guest: Mikaela Dufur, Professor of Sociology, BYU

Men and women compete separately in elite athletics, because it just wouldn’t be fair to make them compete against each other. But the case of two-time Olympic gold medal runner Caster Semenya illustrates how tricky it can be to police the line between male and female. Semenya is a female competitor whose body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than most women. An international court has just ruled that Semenya will have to take medicine to suppress her testosterone level in order to compete against other women in the next Olympics. 

 

What to Beelieve

Guest: May Berenbaum, Head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Species all over planet Earth are going extinct at an historic –and alarming –rate according to a report out this week from a UN panel of experts. More than 40 percent of all amphibian species are at risk of extinction, 33 percent of corals and around 10percent of insects, the report says.

 

Finding New Uses for Iconic Industrial Buildings

Guest: Megan Torza, Architect and Partner at DTAH

In many US cities today, the hippest places to live and work are old factories or textile mills that have been repurposed into lofts and offices. Often it’d be easier and cheaper just to tear down the old building –and plenty of cities do that, too.

 

Behind the Scenes of Plane Crash Investigations

Guest: Daniel Kwaisi Adjekum, Assistant Professor, Aviation, University of North Dakota

A clearer picture of what caused two Boeing 737 Max planes to crash in the last six months is emerging through preliminary reports of the investigators piecing together the puzzle. Another team of investigators is just beginning its work on the fiery crash of a Russian commercial jet that made an emergency landing in Moscow on Sunday, killing 41 people.

 

Does it (dark) matter?

Guest: Shany Danieli, Physics PhD Student at Yale

There’s a lot about the universe we don’t know. The current belief is everything we can see–all those stars and galaxies –are only a tiny fraction of the matter that’s out there. So what’s the rest of the universe made of? Scientists are becoming more and more convinced there’s a mysterious material called “dark matter.” A team of astronomers at Yale University are unlocking some of its secrets and one of their latest discoveries is a galaxy without any dark matter at all. That wasn’t supposed to be possible. 

 

Pyt: Denmark's Happiness Vocabulary

Guest: Marie Helweg-Larsen, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Dickinson College

Denmark consistently ranks near the top in the World Happiness Report. The Danish concept of hygge -- which means intentional intimacy -- has caught on worldwide.

 

Internet Providers Have to Enforce Copyright Laws, and They Don’t Like It

Guest: Peter Midgley, Director of the BYU Copyright and Licensing Office

Do you know what your kids are downloading on the internet in your house? If there are pirated movies or music moving over your household internet, you could find your connection cut off. Copyright laws basically compel internet providers like Comcast, Cox or Google to boot customers off their systems if they’re illegally downloading too much stuff. Internet service providers and sites like YouTube are not thrilled about having to enforce copyright laws, though. The US Copyright Office is considering making changes to the law in light of those concerns.