Here’s the Explanation – And Justification – For Trump’s Latest Immigration Restrictions (0:30)

Guest: Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for Immigration Studies

With the unemployment rate in America higher than we’ve seen since the Great Depression, President Trump issued an order this week halting several temporary visa programs that bring foreign workers to the US. The Trump Administration says that will free up some 500,000 jobs for American citizens. But the US Chamber of Commerce and leaders in the tech industry say it’ll be harder for them to recover from the recession if they can’t hire foreign workers for certain highly-skilled jobs.

Low Income Students Have Struggled to Learn During COVID-19 Pandemic (22:39)

Guest: Bryan Hancock, Partner, McKinsey & Company

The end of the school year was a welcome relief for most parents I know who quickly grew weary of the pandemic homeschooling routine. Now researchers are trying to gauge the effects of those months of uneven remote learning on US children.

Mindfulness Training Shows Promise for Children With Autism (34:54)

Guest: Helen Genova, PhD, Research Assistant Professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Director of the Social Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory at Kessler Foundation.

Children with autism often have extra trouble controlling their impulses and staying focused on a task. Mindful meditation and breathing exercises have been shown to improve both of those things. Can they help children with autism?

How Humans Are Altering Life on Earth (52:48)

Guest: Helen Pilcher, Science and Comedy Writer, Author of “Life Changing: How Humans Are Altering Life on Earth”

We just can’t help ourselves, really. Humans are pushing the evolution of living species into overdrive. Some of it is deliberate – like domesticating animals and modifying the genetics of plants. Some of it is accidental – like how our presence and pollution are prompting species to mate that wouldn’t have normally. Ever seen a Pizzly Bear? It’s a hybrid Polar/Grizzly. Not all of our influence on nature is bad, though. Humans are starting to use this power to bring species back from the brink of extinction.

Studying Cockroaches and Snakes to Help Robots (1:31:40)

Guest: Chen Li, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Principal Investigator of the Terradynamics Lab, Johns Hopkins University

Robots can do a lot of amazing things, but unfortunately, they’re pretty limited in movement. Your robot vacuum can’t climb up the couch to clean it, and a self-driving car can’t move over rubble to assist in a search and rescue operation. To make that happen someday, a team at Johns Hopkins University is studying cockroaches and snakes.