Living Together Before Marriage Should Make for Better Marriages. So Why Doesn’t It? (Originally aired February 7, 2019)

Guest: Scott Stanley, Research Professor and Co-director of the University of Denver’s Center for Marital and Family Studies

One of the most striking trends in America over the last forty years has been the rise of cohabitation. Unmarried couples of all age groups are living together in greater numbers. Among 18-24 year olds, it’s now more common to cohabitate than to actually be married. And the justification is often that living together is a way to test the waters before marriage. But it generally does not lead to better odds that a marriage will succeed. Why?

Turning Ordinary Objects into Touch Screens (Originally aired February 26, 2019)

Guest: Chris Harrison, Assistant Professor of Human-computer Interaction, Director of the Human Interfaces Group, Carnegie Mellon University

I think we can all agree touch screens are amazing, but we’ve still got the problem of big thumbs and tiny keyboard buttons or links. So what if everything around us was a touch screen? Your couch could sense when the cat scratches and shoo it away. The reminder you scribble on a Post-It would be automatically uploaded to your computer.

Coral is the New Black: Exploring the Impact of Color (Originally aired April 2, 2019)

Guest: Jill Pilaroscia, Founder of Colour Studio

Have you ever thought about how most fast food restaurants have the same colors? McDonald’s: red and yellow. Wendy’s: red and yellow. Burger King: red and yellow. It’s probably not a coincidence -certain colors evoke universal biological responses. Red, for instance, makes your heart rate speed up a bit.

How Liberia’s Women Overthrew Male Domination to Elect Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Originally aired March 6, 2019)

Guest: Helene Cooper, Pentagon Correspondent, New York Times, Author of “Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf”

Six of the 26 people currently running for president in 2020 are women. What will it take for America to elect a female president? A decade before Hillary Clinton’s “Pantsuit Nation” came up short, the women of Liberia staged what New York Times reporter Helene Cooper calls a master-class in how to do it. That’s when Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the first democratically-elected female president in Africa.

What Do Beards Tell us about Politics, Culture and Religion? (Originally aired March 28, 2019)

Guest: Christopher Oldstone-Moore, Senior Lecturer Assistant to the Chair for Graduate Studies, Wright State University, Ohio

Some of the most famous beards in the world are celebrating their 50th anniversary with a new documentary. That long, long beard is even nicknamed The ZZ Top after the long-running rock group. What is so interesting about beards? Why does the internet explode when a movie star or politician pops up with facial hair?

How Stories Create a Safe Space to Explore Relationship Problems (Originally aired April 3, 2019)

Guest: Nathan Silver, Doctoral Student in Communication, Ohio State University

Do you or your kids sometimes get really, really invested in a TV relationship? I binge-watched the 90’s TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer a few months ago and found myself thinking about Buffy and her star-crossed Vampire love Angel all the time. I’d be sitting at my desk getting ready for Top of Mind and find myself brainstorming ways they might somehow manage to be together even though he’s a vampire and she’s a vampire slayer. It’s silly. But we do this. And apparently some of us do it more than others.