Tackling Mental Health, Finding Hope on Social Media (0:36)

Guest: Caroline Kaufman @poeticpoison, Author of “When The World Didn’t End”

Caroline Kaufman started posting raw, personal poetry on Instagram when she was a freshman in high school. At first, she did it anonymously under the handle @poeticpoison. Then her poems went viral and her following grew to over a 100,000. Teenagers, in particular, connected with her short, powerful poems about struggling with mental illness, thoughts of suicide, learning to cope with heart break and how to be kinder to herself. Six years later, Caroline Kaufman is attending Harvard and publishing her second poetry collection –the first came out in 2018, last year it was called “Light Filters In.” Her latest is “When the World Didn’t End."  (Orignally Aired 8/28/2019)

What Do Superhero Movies Need a Science Advisor For? (20:28)

Guest: Jennifer Ouellette, Senior Reporter, Ars Technican; Sean Carroll, Theoretical Physicist, California Institute of Technology

When you’re trying to tell a good story for the silver screen, you can’t get bogged down in the scientific details. You could argue we watch TV and go to the movie theater to escape reality. But many Hollywood producers and directors do care about getting at least some of the science right. The National Academy of Sciences even has a program to put the entertainment industry in touch with top scientists and engineers to advise them.  (Originally aired 1/30/2019) 

Singing Builds Community (50:41)

Guest: Eiluned Pearce, PhD, Research Fellow, University College London

Whether it’s at church, or a big game or just in the car with friends, we've all spent time singing with other people. Even if you’re the type who would rather die than be caught singing a solo, it’s still hard to deny that a bit of group singing in the right context is kinda nice. Why is that?  (Originally aired 8/8/2019)

Sharing Funny Posts on the Internet Could Be a Copyright Violation (1:05:38)

Guest: Ruth Carter, Attorney, Carter Law Firm, Author of “The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed”

When something doesn’t seem fair, it really irks Julie. Always has. So she's irritated when she sees a funny video or cleverly-captioned photo pop up on my social media feed and it’s gone massively viral. And I want to “like” or “share it.” But the person who made the video or photo isn’t actually the person getting the viral credit for it. Somebody else with a bigger following snagged the content and posted it to their feed and they’re getting all the traffic –and probably even making a buck off it.  Shouldn’t there be a law that prevents this kind of rampant ripping off of other people’s property?  (Originally Aired 9/10/2019)

In School, It’s the Mindset That Matters (1:22:59)

Guest: David Yeager, Associate Professor of Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin

What if one hour at the start of freshman year could set your child up for more success in high school? It’s an online program in two thirty-minute sessions, and when researchers tested it on more than 12,000 students it seemed to help both the struggling students and the high-achievers.  (Originally Aired 9/24/2019)