Trial Phase of Impeachment Gets Underway (0:35)

Guest: James Curry, Associate Professor, Political Science Department, University of Utah

House Democrats have officially passed the impeachment hot potato to the US Senate where a trial on whether to remove President Donald Trump from office is expected to start, in earnest, next week.

 

DNA Helps Identify Service Members Missing in Action from WWII to Today (20:32)

Guest: Timothy McMahon, Director of DNA Operations, Department of Defense

The Department of Defense has an entire office dedicated to DNA analysis that regularly brings closure to families of servicemembers missing in action all the way back to World War II. One project focused on the attack on Pearl Harbor has been able to identify 250 unaccounted-for service members from remains that were collected from sunken American warships. 

 

Proprioception: Our Sixth Sense (32:41)

Guest: Alexander Chesler, Principal Investigator, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, NIH

Try this: Close your eyes and touch your finger to your nose. Pretty easy, right? You just engaged your sixth sense. It’s called proprioception and it’s what makes it possible for professional ice skaters to do triple axels and helps basketball players dunk a ball. Surprisingly, researchers have only recently started to understand how it works.

 

Doomed From the Start: Prohibition at 100 (50:39)

Guest: Daniel Okrent, Historian, Author of “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition”

100 years ago – on January 16, 1920 – intoxicating liquors became illegal to make, sell or transport in the United States. Prohibition had arrived. The unintended consequences began almost immediately, according to historian Daniel Okrent. His book, “Last Call” charts the rise and fall of Prohibition – the only Constitutional Amendment to later be repealed by another Constitutional Amendment. Over the span of just 13 years, the nation turned against the “dry cause” and the consequences of that whiplash linger today.

 

Sobriety in a Society Filled With Booze (78:06)

Guest: Laura McKowen, Speaker, Podcaster, Author of “We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life”

In the 100 years since the US tried – and failed – to outlaw alcohol, it’s become a normal, accepted part of everyday American life. It’s for celebrating and coming of age and commiserating and coping. Even though alcohol is the most commonly abused substance in the country and the third leading preventable cause of death, most of American society doesn’t think of it like that - not like cocaine or opioids, or even tobacco. And that makes it all the more difficult for people who do struggle with alcohol to stop.