Innovation Hub

A spoonful of sugar may help the medicine go down… but what about a spoonful of Splenda? And what if the medicine you were taking with that sugar was a little less private than you thought? This week we’ve got stories about healthcare, artificial sweeteners, and the math behind our fears.

First up, if you think that Sweet’N Low is healthier than sugar… you might want to reconsider. It turns out, the health benefits of sugar substitutes aren’t exactly clear-cut. We talk with University of Manitoba researcher Meghan Azad about how artificial sweeteners have proven unable to combat weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease. Then, a conversation with Carolyn Thomas about how sugar substitutes made their way into American households.

Do you get scared when your plane takes off? It’s a common reaction, even though airline travel is one of the safest ways to travel. Eugenia Cheng, a mathematician at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, explains the math behind our fears… and how we might be able to overcome them.

If you think Facebook has too much of your personal information, wait until you hear what the pharmaceutical industry knows about you. Adam Tanner, author of the book, “Our Bodies, Our Data: How Companies Make Billions Selling Our Medical Records” tells us that your (anonymized) medical information might just be sold to drug companies. He dives into how this process happens, and why it remains legal.

*Do you take your coffee black, or do you put a little something in it? Many Americans reach for an artificial sweetener if they’re concerned about their waistlines. But it turns out, the health benefits of sugar substitutes aren’t so simple. We spoke with University of Manitoba assistant professor Meghan Azad about her meta-analysis (a study of studies) on how artificial sweeteners could actually contribute to weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease. Then, a conversation with University of California, Davis professor of American studies Carolyn Thomas about her book, Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda. *

Despite a recent death in an accident on a Southwest flight, it’s still safer to fly than drive. So why do we still get sweaty palms before takeoff? Eugenia Cheng, a mathematician at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, explains the math behind our fears… and how we might be able to overcome them.

In 2017, the fact that companies have access to personal data about us is common knowledge. But the data available to companies goes beyond just what websites you browse and where you’ve checked in on social media. Your (anonymized) medical information can be sold to drug companies to promote drugs - and to sell those to doctors in a process that is, shockingly, legal. Adam Tanner, a writer-in-residence at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, has written a book on this called “Our Bodies, Our Data: How Companies Make Billions Selling Our Medical Records.” We talk with him about the alarming trade in health data.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it’s Superman... A character who both reflected - and changed - American pop culture.

There’s a huge achievement gap in education. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek explains when it starts, and tells us how to combat it.

If you’re looking for some controversy, look no further than board games. Seriously. Clue was scandalous, Twister was called “sex in a box.” We look at why why.

Superman has been around for 80 years. His comic book just released its thousandth issue. Movies featuring him have made billions of dollars at the box office. All told, he’s one of the most successful and popular characters in American fiction. And that success started in 1938 with two teenagers from Cleveland. To explore Superman’s origins, and his legacy, we talked with Brad Ricca, author of the book Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster - the Creators of Superman.

It’s not hard to see the achievement gap in education. Students from lower-income backgrounds on average score lower on their SATs and are less likely to graduate from college than their higher-income peers. But this gap doesn’t just appear when kids reach adolescence. It stretches back to the early years of a child’s life, according to author Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, co-director of the Temple University Infant and Child Lab in Philadelphia. She says by the time children turn three years old, you can already observe a “dramatic” gap between those from lower-income and middle-income families. We talk with her about how this sets the foundation for future learning, and the best ways parents - and the government - can help kids progress.

When we break out a board game, we are rarely doing it because we want a history lesson. But many board games mirror social trends from years past. Monopoly’s creator used her board game to demonstrate the evils of capitalism. The Game of Life started out as a way to reinforce 19th-century moral values. We speak with author Tristan Donovan about his book “It’s All a Game: The History of Board Games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan” about the evolution and legacy of board games.

First up: We live in a world run by complicated systems. And the failure to understand those systems can have pretty dire consequences.

Then: What’s that one song you keep listening to on repeat? Turns out, that tune could be used as therapy to improve your quality of life as you get older.

Finally: It might seem like rich people don’t have a care in the world, but sociology professor Rachel Sherman found that some 1 percenters feel uneasy about publicly displaying their wealth.

The Three Mile Island disaster caused hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. It absolutely dominated the news cycle. It led to a complete rethinking of nuclear energy. And it all stemmed from a plumbing problem, a valve that didn’t shut.

But the Three Mile Island accident isn’t the only meltdown caused by a seemingly small issue that snowballed into a gigantic disaster. To find out exactly how this happens, we talked with Chris Clearfield, co-author of “Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About it.”