Did you know almost every person on this planet will suffer from back pain at some point in their lives?  

And here’s another other unsettling fact:  there’s NO good evidence for many common treatments that millions of people undergo.    And yet a huge amount of research has been done in this field and billions of dollars spent on therapies. 

What are these treatments?  Why do people get them?  What actually does work? 

Is it time for a revolution in the way we approach back pain?

Jason Busse who’s an expert on chronic pain gives us the latest evidence.  

GUEST INFO:

Jason Busse is a Canada Research Chair in the Prevention and Management of Chronic Pain.  He’s also a professor in anaesthesia in the Dept. of Health Sciences at McMaster University.  https://experts.mcmaster.ca/display/bussejw

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to the Suicide Crisis Hotline at 988 in Canada or go to headsupguys.org. Help is available.

The facts are shocking.

Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for men under the age of 50.

Men die by suicide at 3X the rate that women do in North America and elsewhere. 

Why?  What’s going on with men?  And why is there silence around men and suicide?

Dr. John Ogrodniczuk is on a mission to help men and bring more awareness to this issue. 

He created a program at UBC called HeadsUpGuys, a mental health resource designed for men and their families.

If you’re a man who’s finding it difficult to cope, or you have a male in your life - a family member, a friend or a colleague – please listen to this interview.  

INFO ON GUEST:

Dr. John Ogrodniczuk is a Professor in the Dept of Psychiatry and Director of the Psychotherapy Program at the University of British Columbia https://psychiatry.ubc.ca/john-ogrodniczuk/

Founder of Heads Up Guys, a mental health resource for men: headsupguys.org

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

Have you heard of the series Adolescence?

It’s one of THE most watched streaming shows and has sparked a lot of conversation around incel culture.  

A boy living in the UK is accused of murdering one of his female classmates.  

He’s 13 years old. 

The details about his life make the situation even more disturbing.  He does well in school, he’s never been in serious trouble, and he comes from a loving family.  

Nothing unusual except…  his online life.  

Sociologist Eran Shor gives a startling profile of the young 

men who become radicalized.

GUEST INFO:

Eran Shor is a Professor in the Dept. of Sociology at McGill University.  

https://www.mcgill.ca/popcentre/people-0/members/eran-shor

He’s the co-author of Aggression in Pornography:

https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/channels/news/professor-eran-shors-book-presents-some-surprising-results-about-place-aggression-within-pornography-324543

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

If I said people are upset, fearful and angry,  you might assume I’m talking about U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.   

And that’s because a day doesn’t go by when those tariffs and our reaction to them… make headlines.  

And there’s been intense scrutiny on the way Trump has approached tariffs – his negotiation strategy - which seems unpredictable.  But is it?  

What’s behind Trump’s tactics?  How effective are they?  What can we learn from his actions and how can we better understand different styles of negotiation?   

Shai Dubey is an expert on negotiation and conflict management.  He’s got valuable insight on an issue that’s affecting all of us.    

INFO ON GUEST:

Shai Dubey is a professor in the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University with a focus on negotiation and conflict management.   

https://smith.queensu.ca/faculty_and_research/faculty_list/dubey-shai.php

How to be a better negotiator:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I_9aA5SBD4

TEDx talk on the biggest barrier to negotiation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG9PezyQ0Lo

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

A day doesn’t go by when you’ll hear about a new survey or poll.  And you might even be asked to participate.  

But just how credible are they?

It’s one thing if we’re talking about “are we a dog or cat person” but quite another if we’re asked “who will we vote for in the next election” or “should we stop the flow of immigration?”  These are weighty issues.

Like it or not, polls and surveys are important.  What do we need to know about them?  What makes a good or bad poll?  How do they influence our actions?

We speak with an expert on polls who’ll tell us what to watch out for. 

INFO ON GUEST:

Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme is a sociologist and Associate Professor in the Dept. of Sociology at the Univ. of Waterloo:

https://uwaterloo.ca/sociology-and-legal-studies/profiles/sarah-wilkins-laflamme

 She also runs the International Social Survey Program in Canada.  The survey explores our attitudes in a number of areas incl. the Role of Gov’t, Social Networks, Family and Changing Gender Roles, Work Orientation, Religion, and the Environment: 

https://uwaterloo.ca/statistical-consulting-survey-research-unit/about/projects/issp-canada

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

Thinks about ads. We love to hate them.  And we hate to love them. We try and avoid them but they’re everywhere.  

And when they’re good they can stir up all kinds of emotions in seconds.  

On this podcast I interview a guru of the advertising and marketing world – Terry O’Reilly. Terry’s the host of “Under the Influence” on CBC Radio.  He’s won hundreds of awards and is one of the best storytellers I’ve come across.

You’ll be entertained and you’ll learn a ton about the ad world.  

Guaranteed or your money back.  

INFO ON GUEST:

Terry O’Reilly has been an ad man for over 40 years.  He’s won hundreds of awards and is the host of “Under the Influence” on CBC Radio.  He’s the author of three books on advertising with a fourth coming out this fall.  For more on Terry and his work:  https://terryoreilly.ca

 

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

We’ve never had so much information.  

But we don’t know what’s true.

Billions of google searches occur daily, thousands of news items are published, hundreds of hours of content are uploaded on youtube, every minute.  Radio, television, news articles, podcasts.  We’re adrift in a storm of information chaos according to researcher Tim Caulfield who’s an expert on evaluating information and evidence.  

He says what we believe to be true and what is actually true can be miles apart.  And that information can be dangerous.  

How do we steer our way clear of misinformation that can mislead and even harm us?   

INFO ON GUEST:

Timothy Caulfield is a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, and Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta.  

https://www.ualberta.ca/en/law/faculty-and-research/health-law-institute/people/timothycaulfield.html

He’s the author of the new book “The Certainty Illusion: what you don’t know and why it matters.”   https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/authors/255688/timothy-caulfield

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

In the words of Dr. Seuss… “oh the places you’ll go!!”  Think about it.  The act of moving from one place to another.  I’m talking about migration.  

How you and I move over our lifetime is not only life-changing.  It’s world-changing.  

Think for example about the waves of migration after the two world wars.   They dramatically changed the composition and character of countries.  And migration changed us – our identity -  in the most fundamental way.  

When and why do we move from one place to another?  How has that changed through history and over our lifetimes?  And what will migration look like in the future? 

Join us for a thought-provoking discussion!

INFO ON GUEST:

Michael Haan is an Assoc. Prof. and Director of the Statistics Canada Research Data Centre at Western University. https://sociology.uwo.ca/people/profiles/Haan.html

Research on home ownership among second generation immigrants: https://sociology.uwo.ca/research/research-areas/social-demography-and-migration/researcher-haan.html

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

There’s nothing like it in our universe. Black holes.
They’re enormous (understatement), mysterious (understatement) and they’re
positioned at the centre of many galaxies – including our own.
Sagittarius A, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way, is over 4 million times the mass of the sun. And there are even bigger black holes. Stuff goes into a black hole. NOTHING comes out. Why? What happens to the matter that’s in there? How fast do black holes grow? When did they start?
So many questions that astronomer Daryl Haggard is trying to figure out that will help us better understand the universe and how it’s evolving.

INFO ON GUEST:
Daryl Haggard is an Assoc. Professor of Physics at the Trottier Space Institute at McGill
University. https://www.dhaggard.physics.mcgill.ca/
She’s also the co-leader of the AXIS mission, a space probe that aims to increase our
understanding of black holes and the evolution of our galaxies. AXIS is one of two
finalists in the NASA $1 billion space probe competition.
For more on AXIS: https://www.mcgill.ca/science/channels/news/mcgill-linked-axis-
mission-one-two-finalists-nasa-selection-process-361498

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993

Don’t take your gut for granted. Researchers are discovering more and more astonishing things about our gut.

Its connection to allergies, auto-immune diseases like lupus and inflammatory bowel disease.  Its relationship to heart disease, cancers – and even mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.

Did you know how you were born – whether a vaginal birth or a C-section – affects gut development?   

Whether you went to daycare and how dirty you got as a kid - these too affect the health of your gut microbiome.  

And diet has a major impact on your gut which in turn affects your overall health.

Listen in on a super informative discussion about your “second brain!”

INFO ON GUEST:

Dr. Deanna Gibson is a microbiologist and professor in the Dept. of Biology at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan campus.  For more info on Deanna and her work:   

https://biology.ok.ubc.ca/about/contact/deanna-gibson/

Here’s a short video about Deanna:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmNfHPE3MFA

We’d really appreciate your support! Please rate our podcast and subscribe and follow us on social @CRAMideas.

Support the CRAM Podcast!
Research shapes our lives, yet so much of it doesn’t reach the public. CRAM bridges the gap, bringing groundbreaking Canadian research to everyone. To keep this important work going, we need your support.

CRAM is a registered charity, and Canadian donors will receive a tax receipt. Help us share the research that matters and donate using the link below. Thank you!

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/124993