The Point

How many times have we heard “eat your vegetables” or said it ourselves? Results from a local study reveal that people who increase their consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables do see improvements in health and habits.

AmeriCorps volunteers have contributed countless hours to natural resource management and disaster preparedness in Barnstable County. During the recent storms, volunteers could be found manning the emergency shelters and stacking sand bags to protect against coastal flooding. The program recently lost housing for volunteers on the Upper Cape. On The Point, we discuss what this means for the future of the program.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health nearly one third of adolescents are affected by anxiety disorder. Not only is that number on the rise, the severity of the anxiety is also increasing.

S tatistics on child sexual abuse show that 90 percent of offenders are someone the child knows and trusts. What safeguards should be in place to protect our children at school, home and in the community? On The Point, we talk with Jacob Stapledon, Community Education Coordinator at Children’s Cove which provides services on the Cape and Islands for child victims of sex abuse.

There is increasing attention to teen brain development and how it impacts teens behavior and risk taking, such as using alcohol and drugs. Parents and other interested members of the community are working to keep teens safer, healthier, and substance-free through the middle and high school years. Coming up on April 8 th in Falmouth is a Community Forum on Addiction & Adolescent Brain. On The Point, we hear about this work and what supports are available for teens and their families.

It's been a busy week in local news. WCAI News Director Steve Junker hosts a roundup of some of the top local and regional news of the week. His guests include Geoff Spillane of the Cape Cod Times, Sara Brown of the Vineyard Gazette, Tim Wood of the Cape Cod Chronicle, Ed Miller of the Provincetown Banner, George Brennan of the Martha's Vineyard Times, and Andy Tomolonis of South Coast Today.

What happened to the people who remained in the former South Vietnam after the war ended in April 1975? Quoc Pham was a former South Vietnamese naval officer who was imprisoned in a communist re-education camp. He survived the camp and escaped from Vietnam by boat.

Plastic is everywhere. Try to think of an item you use regularly that doesn’t contain some bit of plastic. Single use items are increasingly made up of plastic- think shopping bags, water bottles, drinking straws. A downside to plastic is that we end up with an abundance of used plastic items that either can’t be or are not recycled. A great deal of that used plastic ends up as pollution.

What are YOUR top ten books? On our monthly books program, we continue on the topic of "Best Books of All Time." Our host Mindy Todd sits down in The Point studio to add to the list of favorites, with Jill Erickson, Reference Librarian at Falmouth Public Library, and Robert Waxler, retired Professor of English at UMass-Dartmouth.

Birds are astonishingly smart creatures. Researchers are finding some birds rival primates, and even humans, in their remarkable forms of intelligence. On The Point, we talk with Jennifer Ackerman , who traveled the world to talk with bird researchers. Her book The Genius of Birds not only tells the story of how birds demonstrate their smarts, it delves into the latest findings about the brains of birds and what it means to be intelligent.