Motherhood, Female Anger and Activism in America (0:30)

Guest: Soraya Chemaly, Media Critic, Activist, Author of “Rage Becomes Her”

A month and a half into nightly anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon, a group of women in bright yellow shirts linked arms and lined up in front of the police barrier. “The Wall of Moms” captured national attention and immediately spawned chapters in cities around the country. The Portland group is also facing accusations of being anti-Black and distracting from the message of the protests. Would they have garnered as much media attention had the “moms” not been primarily white? Or if they’d just called themselves “Wall of Women” or “Wall of People”?

Urban Green Spaces and Their Effect on Our Health (18:49)

Guest: Dr. Viniece Jennings, Assistant Professor of Public Health, Agnes Scott College, Author of “Urban Green Spaces–Public Health and Sustainability in the United States”

A lot of city-dwellers have a new appreciation for green space after all these months of quarantining and social distancing. Physical and mental health improve when people have access to a park or trail.

TikTok's China Problem (33:41)

Guest: Zak Doffmann, CEO of Digital Barriers, Contributor at Forbes

TikTok-the wildly popular lip sync and dance video app–is in trouble from the Trump Administration. Congress has already prohibited the app’s use on government-issued phones. The President is considering adding TikTok to a blacklist that would effectively ban it in the United States, because its parent company is Chinese. Is China spying on you through TikTok?

The 40 Year Struggle to End Quotas for Immigrants in the US (52:50)

Guest:  Jia Lynn Yang, deputy national editor for the New York Times and author, “One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965”

President Trump talks frequently of wanting to end “chain migration.” Another word for it is family reunification and it’s been a central focus of US immigration policy since the 1960's. The irony is, that it was created as a policy to appease nativist members of Congress who hoped to see white Europeans make up the majority of future immigrants to America.  But the plan backfired on them and helped to fuel streams of immigrants over the years from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America. It’s what made it possible for Jia Lynn Yang to be born in the US.

Antibiotics by the Ton (1:12:30)

Guests: Robert Reeder, Senior Plant Pathologist; Dr. Philip Taylor, Center for Agricultural Biosciences International

We know it’s not good for humans to use too many antibiotics because bacteria can develop a resistance. But what about plants? Yes, plants use antibiotics, too. Farmers around the world spray drugs onto their crops in vast quantities. And we still don’t know what the consequences could be for human health.

Bumblebees Can Make Plants Bloom with Their Bite (1:27:07)

Mark Mescher, Professor of Biological Communication, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

Nothing good comes of a bee sting. But what about a bee bite? Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich noticed bumblebees they study have a habit of biting the leaves of plants. Why?