Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant Shuts Down for Good

Guest: Matthew Memmott, PhD, Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering, BYU

The nuclear power plant at the Three Mile Island, infamous for a partial meltdown 40 years ago, shutdown for good over the weekend. The power company that operates the nuclear reactor there says it no longer makes financial sense to keep it running. So let’s take a look at what that means –and how the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979 changed nuclear power.

 

Female Skateboarders Prepare for Olympic Debut

Guest: Nicole Hause, Member of the United States National Skateboarding Team

When the Olympics arrive in Tokyo next summer, a bunch of skateboarders will be there. Nicole Hause hopes to be among them. She’s a member of the first-ever US National Skateboarding team that was just created in preparation for the first-time skateboarding will be an official Olympic sport. So legit for so an anti-establishment sport, right?

 

What’s Artificial Intelligence’s Role in Religion?

Guest: Ilia Delio, PhD, Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University.  

Very smart computer programs can predict the weather, tell you the best driving route to your destination and recommend the next TV show you should stream. We’re pretty used to the idea of artificial intelligence influencing our consumer behavior. What about our spiritual lives? In Japan, you can hire a robot to conduct a Buddhist funeral for a lot less money than a human priest. A European engineer has designed a robot that offers comforting sayings from Catholic scripture. He intends it to offer spiritual succor to elderly people isolated from their faith communities. Would you seek spiritual counsel from an artificially intelligent machine?

 

Why Jews Are So Funny, and When It’s Okay for Non-Jews to Laugh

Guest: Bob Mankoff, Cartoonist, Former Cartoon Editor for The New Yorker, “Have I Got a Cartoon for You!”

I planned to start this conversation listing off the most famous Jewish comedians. But the list is too long. Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Jerry Lewis, John Stewart, Don Rickles, Gilda Radner, Joan Rivers, Adam Sandler, Larry David, Billy Crystal. I really could go on and on. What’s with being Jewish and being funny? Bob Mankoff has some ideas.

 

“Notifications” are Keeping You Distracted. Scheduling Them in Batches Can Help.

Guest: Nick Fitz, CEO of Momentum and Former Behavioral Researcher at Duke University

If you want –and even if you don’t –you can get notifications all day long from the apps on your phone. App developers love to push stuff so that it pops up on your “lock screen” and buzzes or dings in your pocket. Have you ever managed to resist checking when that happens? It’s really really hard.

 

Tree That Tweets About Climate Change

Guest: Tim Rademacher, Harvard Forest and Northern Arizona University Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University

Trees obviously can’t talk, but there’s one in Massachusetts that can tweet. You heard me right, there’s a 100-year-old Red Oak tree on Twitter that sends out updates about how it’s holding up. You can even ask the tree a question and it will respond.