Why the COVID-19 Pandemic Is Not Good Business for Hospitals (0:31)

Guest: Vivian Ho, PhD, Professor of Economics at Rice University, Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine

If there’s such a thing as a boom time for hospitals and doctors, you’d think a global health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic would be it. And yet, the American Hospital Association says hospitals are losing an estimated $50 billion a month right now. More than 100,000 hospital employees lost their jobs last month in the US.

 

Preserving the Iñapari Language (18:07)

Guest: Chris Rogers, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Brigham Young University

The most spoken language in the world is English. Next comes Mandarin Chinese. Then Hindi. One of the least-spoken languages in the world? Iñapari. It’s from Peru. One of literally thousands of languages on the verge of disappearing. Chris Rogers captured that audio. He’s a professor of linguistics at BYU who went to Peru to document and preserve the Iñapari language.

 

The Sony PlayStation 3: The World’s Cheapest Supercomputer (31:48)

Guest: Gaurav Khanna, Professor of Physics, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

With one Playstation, you can play some video games. But with hundreds of Playstations, you can look inside a blackhole. That’s what Gaurav Khanna did. He’s a professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Back in the early 2000s, Professor Khanna didn’t have the funding for blackhole research, so he turned to a cheaper option: connecting Playstation 3's to create his own supercomputer. And it’s still being used today.

 

Why Men Are Starting to Knit (50:38)

Guest: Louis Boria, Knitwear Designer, Brooklyn Boy Knits

My grandma was a great knitter and tried to teach me, but I didn’t have the patience for it. I always figured I’d take up a hobby like that when I’m old. That’s the stereotype, of course. Louis Boria has upended that with his Brooklyn-based knitting business and advocacy efforts, which include men’s knitting circles.

 

Bees Practice Social Distancing When Infected With Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (1:07:00)

Guest: Adam Dolezal, Professor of Entomology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The best way to prevent from getting infected by a virus is to keep your distance. We’ve all been getting an education in that during the pandemic. Meanwhile, scientists have discovered that honeybees know about social distancing, too, and use it to prevent viruses from spreading in their hives.

 

Invasive “Murder Hornets” Spread North America—Should We Be Worried? (1:24:37)

Guest: Chris Looney, Ph.D., Entomologist, Washington State Department of Agriculture

We just heard about honeybees social distancing to prevent the spread of a virus in the hive. But now America’s bee population faces a new threat. A giant hornet native to Asia has been discovered in the Pacific Northwest. It’s been nicknamed the “murder hornet.” How scared should you be?