What It’s Like to be a Professional Ref and Inside the NBA Replay Center (0:36)

Guest: Joe Borgia, Senior Vice President, Referee Operations, National Basketball Association

No matter the call in sports, someone is always mad at the referee. But NBA refs have an out–no matter what stadium they’re in, they can signal a team in New Jersey to review the call. There, they have nearly 100 TV screens to analyze the play from every possible angle and break it down to 1/60th of a second. It seems pretty hard to dispute that. (Originally aired 11/21/2019).

 

Invisible Women (17:02)

Guest: Caroline Criado Perez, Activist, Author of "Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men"

The typical safety features in a car are not designed with the typical woman in mind. Did you know that? Up until about 8 years ago all the crash test dummies used in safety tests were based on man’s body. Engineers have found that makes women a lot more likely to be injured in an accident. And it’s not just cars. Cell phones, musical instruments–even voice recognition software –are optimized for men. (Originally aired 06/05/2019).

 

How “The Wolf Whisperer” Trains Wolves for the Big Screen (37:45)

Guest: Andrew Simpson, Animal Trainer, Instinct for Film

It's a dark, winter-filled wood. A lone woman huddles by a fire. Her horse is skittish. Something's in the air. Something foreboding. She draws her sword and suddenly she’s surrounded . . . by a pack of snarling wolves-white, black, grey. Fangs bared. And the giant leader of the pack steps up. The woman is doomed. Or is she? That’s a scene from the HBO series Game of Thrones. It may seem like those wolves would be some greeen screen magic, but it turns out they’re real and they belong to Andrew Simpson. (Originally aired 12/19/2019).

 

Biomedical Engineers Pave Way for Prosthetic Arm That Can Move and Feel the Same as a Human Arm (52:50)

Guests: Gregory Clark, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Univ of Utah; Keven Walgamott, Participant of the Study and Real Estate Agent from West Valley City

In the Star Wars universe, it’s no problem if your hand gets chopped off by a light saber. You can get a fake one that can do everything a real hand could. But in our world, we’ve never been close to that. Until now. University of Utah engineers have created a prosthetic arm that can feel, touch, and move with your thoughts. They nicknamed it the Luke arm after the famous Skywalker who lost his hand in a fight with Darth Vader. (Originally aired 08/28/2019).

 

Are the Salt Flats Disappearing? (1:05:21)

Guest: Brenda Bowen, Professor of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah

Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats are known as one of the best places in the world for car racing. Records have been set there for more than 100 years. But now the Flats are facing a shortage of the most important ingredient: Salt. There’s a lot of finger pointing going on over who’s to blame–some believe it’s the racers fault, others say the salt miners, while some pin it on the government. Or is it just a natural cycle and no one’s to blame? (Originally aired 10/30/2019).

 

How Bias is Baked Into Scientific Research (1:22:31)

Guest: Aaron Carroll, Associate Dean for Research Mentoring, Indiana University School of Medicine

Everyday there’s some new study touting the latest healthy thing to eat or drink or ask your doctor about. Savvy consumers know to ask who funded the research? Because if the pomegranate juice folks paid for the study that says pomegranate is a super-food, well there might be a conflict there, right? But conflicts in research go so much deeper than dollar signs. (Originally aired 03/25/2019).