With Europe’s Doors Shut to Americans, Rick Steves Embraces Virtual Travel (0:32)

Guest: Rick Steves, Travel Guide, PBS-TV Host, Author of “For the Love of Europe”

Because of COVID-19, tourists from the US are not allowed into Europe and it’s unclear how long that restriction will last. So what do you do if you’re America’s leading expert on traveling in Europe?

 

Yes, the Advice on Masks Has Changed. Here’s Why Everyone Should Wear One Now. (18:15)

Guest: Ben Abbott, Professor of Environmental Science, Brigham Young University

First we were told specifically not to wear masks. Then we were told they wouldn’t do much good, but go ahead and wear one if it makes you feel better. Now we’re being told to wear them whenever we’re in public. Why has the advice from public health experts been all over the place on masks? And is there any reason we ought to trust them now?

 

How Dark Are These Deep-Sea Fish? (36:08)

Guest: Alexander Davis, PhD student, Duke University

Some of the darkest-skinned creatures on the planet live on the bottom of the sea. Which, when you think of it, is strange because there’s no sunlight down there, so why would fish need skin so black it absorbs nearly all light in encounters?

 

The Untold Story of the Pioneering Suffragists in the American West (52:48)

Guest: Neylan McBaine, CEO, Better Days 2020, Author of “Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of the Suffragists in Utah and the West”

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. But women had voted in the US before–a number of Western states and territories were the first to putequal suffrage laws in their constitutions. The first woman in the nation to cast a vote under an equal suffrage law was a young school teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah named Seraph Young. It was February 1870, a full fifty years before the US Constitution would be amended to guarantee that right to all women. Why did Western territories lead the way in women’s suffrage? And why Utah, of all places, for such a milestone?

 

Did I Do That Thing, or Did I Just Think About Doing It? (1:30:27)

Guest: Dolores Albarracin, Professor of Psychology and Marketing, The University of Illinois, Director of the Social Action Lab

Does this ever happen to you? You get an email or a text. You think of the response that you want to send. And a few hours–or days later–you're sure you responded to that message? But you didn’t. How does that work?