Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

(3/12/21)We burn 2,000 calories a day. So, if we exercise and cut carbs, we'll lose more weight, right? Wrong. In his paradigm-shifting new book, Burn: New Research Blows the Lid Off How We Really Burn Calories, Lose Weight, and Stay Healthy, one of the nation’s foremost researchers in human metabolism and an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University Dr. Herman Pontzer explores how we can effectively control our weight and improve our health by taking the body’s metabolic functions into account. Join us for a new look at weight loss, nutrition and exercise in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

(3/11/21) Behind every disease is a story, from the natural history of the disease to its description, discovery and treatment. John A. Campbell Professor of Radiology at Indiana University Dr. Richard B. Gunderman’s latest book Contagion: Plagues, Pandemics and Cures from the Black Death to Covid-19 explores some of the most notorious communicable diseases in history, revealing their hidden stories. Join us for a look a the way contagious diseases have changed world history and human evolution in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

(3/10/21) Regular contributor to the show, chemist, artist and industrial hygienist Monona Rossol is the founder and of Arts, Crafts and Theater Safety, Inc. The not-for-profit corporation is dedicated to providing health and safety services to the arts. She is also the Health and Safety Director for the Local 829 union of the United Scenic Artists International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. In this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI, Monona responds to listeners' concerns about whether the current available coronavirus vaccines are safe and whether masking actually works.

(3/5/21) The Vale do Javari indigenous territory is home to 4,000 indigenous people from six known tribes, but it also protects the largest number of tribal peoples living in complete isolation in the Brazilian Amazon. Collectively, the tribes face threats of loss of ancestral land, oil exploitation, animal poaching, drug trafficking and gold mining all while facing an underlying health crisis that left unchecked could completely wipe all of them out. Building on a family legacy of exploration and environmental filmmaking, in her new documentary Tribes on the Edge, filmmaker and activist Céline Cousteau journeys to the Brazilian Amazon at the request of tribal leaders in order to bear witness. Join us for a look at their struggle to survive while preserving a way of life thousands of years old in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

(3/4/21) The dioxins present in Agent Orange, the defoliant used in the Vietnam War, continue to leave a legacy of death, deformity and disability in their wake. In The People vs. Agent Orange, documentarian Kate Taverna speaks to whistleblowers, researchers and the people who have lived through contact with the poison in both Vietnam and the United States. Oregon resident Carol Van Strum is one of those people. The film documents her efforts to stop the ongoing spraying of the same toxins by the timber industry. Join us for a look why the battle to stop public exposure to this devastating chemical continues in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

(3/3/21) A gripping account of the legal battles, insidious marketing campaigns and cutting-edge food science that have brought us to our current public health crisis, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Moss’s new book Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions looks at all that the food industry is doing to exploit our compulsive culinary habits for profit. Join us for a look at why what we eat has never mattered more in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

(3/2/21) In 1986, the National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship started a movement that changed the definition of what it means to be a survivor after 23 members—linked by their shared experiences surviving cancer—came together for a weekend in Albuquerque determined to demolish the myths surrounding the disease. Judith Pearson’s latest book From Shadows to Life: A Biography of the Cancer Survivorship Movement is the story of the war on cancer fueled by the survivor movement and its impact on the way we treat this terrible illness. Join us for a look at the movement to eradicate cancer while respecting the humanity of all those affected in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

(2/25/21) “The problem the authorities faced on Jan. 6 was not an inability to respond, but failure to anticipate the threat,” Dr. Martha Crenshaw, senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies wrote in her Feb. 10 op-ed for the New York Times entitled I’ve Studied Terrorism for Over 40 Years. Let’s Talk About What Comes Next. In this installment of Leonard Lopate on WBAI, Martha examines the ways the national security apparatus missed the mark on domestic terrorism and what can be done to disrupt the same kinds of white nationalist groups that were behind the Capitol riots.

(2/24/21) Kill Shot: A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease, the latest book by Associated Press investigative reporter Jason Dearen, is the story of how hubris and fraud led to the most deadly drug contamination in US history. Join us for a look at the victims, the heroes and the legal loopholes that allowed it all to happen in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

(2/23/21)Investigative journalist Bob Hennelly’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, the Village Voice, the Christian Science Monitor, the Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press along with dozens of other magazines and newspapers. He also has an esteemed career in radio from his reporting for NPR to his brief tenure as WBAI’s general manager. With vaccinations temporarily halted by the severe winter weather that pounded much of the country last week, Bob looks at the systemic issued coming to the light as the world struggles to get ahold of the pandemic in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.