Please Explain (The Leonard Lopate Show)

Caring for the dead, mourning the dead, and commemoration the dead, has always been an essential part of human civilization. For this week's Please Explain, we are talking to historian Thomas Laqueur, whose latest book, The Work of the Dead, exhaustively details why our treatment of death has always been such an important part of human life. 

Everybody lies, sometimes even when we know it's wrong. But then why do we do it? Behavioral scientist Dan Ariely tells us the truth about lying in our latest edition of Please Explain. 

In our latest Please Explain, we examine expert witnesses to find out their role in courts, their influence in trials, and their impact in both civil and criminal cases.

When the World Health Organization announced their findings about the risk factors of eating red meat, many media outlets ran headlines equating bacon to cigarettes. Red meat, coffee, wine, fish, and other foods and drinks have been the source of stories in the media that have been misleading, vague, and contradictory. For this week’s Please Explain, we are talking all about how the media covers nutrition, and what you need to know when reading health and nutrition reporting, with Anahad O’Connor, health reporter at The New York Times. 

Does bacon give you cancer? Up next, please explain is all about nutrition in the headlines. Have a question? Send it our way.

Absolute risk of colon cancer is much lower that people thing https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ

"The critical word is 'association'" @anahadoconnor breaks down observational scientific studies https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ

"There are studies associating everything we eat with cancer" says @anahadoconnor https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ

What's causing obesity? The beverage industry-financed studies says sugary drinks have nothing to do with it.

"I for one always try to eat wild fish" says @anahadoconnor, health reporter for @nytimes https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ

Cervantes, Voltaire, the Bible: English audiences rely on translators to access to some of the world’s most important texts, but when it comes to translation, there is no magic formula.

For our latest Please Explain, we are talking to the journalist Wendy Williams about the history of horses. Horses and humans have worked together for thousands of years, and they have made a big impact on the course of human civilization. Williams' book is The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion.

Event: Wendy Williams will be speaking and signing books at Rutgers' G.H. Cook Campus, at the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health Building, 65 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, on Nov. 2 at 7:00 p.m.

In 2006, Congress tried to crack down on illegal online sports betting. Nearly a decade later, Internet gambling is flourishing, and a new business that increasingly looks like gambling, fantasy sports, is winning millions of players and stoking controversy. For this week's Please Explain, we talk to James Glanz and Walt Bogdanich, part of the New York Times investigative team that, with the PBS series "Frontline," investigated the business, and the technology, of illegal gambling in the Internet age. 

When Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 a pill, it brought the issue of drug prices to the spotlight. Today's Please Explain: Drug Prices.

Don't freak out! But our latest Please Explain is all about fear. Sociologist Margee Karr discusses what fear does to our brains, why we scream, and why we love horror movies.

In our latest Please Explain, 'New Yorker' staff writer John Seabrook unravels how to make musical hits, the business behind them, and what they do to our brains.