Mysterious Lung Illness Linked to Vaping

Guest: Scott Aberegg, Pulmonologist and Critical Care Specialist, University of Utah Hospital

Nearly 200 cases of a severe lung illness have been reported in 22 states over the last two months. Otherwise young, healthy people suddenly fall deathly ill. One person has died. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t identified the cause of the illness, but all the patients have reported vaping e-cigarettes.

Burning the Amazon Has Serious Consequences for Climate Change

Guest: Adriane Esquivel Muelbert, Forest Ecologist, University of Birmingham

The Amazon Rainforest is burning at an alarming rate. So far this month, there have been more than 27,400 fires detected in the Amazon. These fires are actually a yearly occurrence as farmers set them to clear land for crops and cattle grazing. But something is different this year.

Bucket-list Trips to National Parks Worth Planning Today

Guest: Becky Lomax, Author of “USA National Parks: The complete Guide to All 59 National Parks”

Summer is high season for most National Parks and as is comes to a close, most hikers and campers will be putting away their gear. But nothing should stop you from starting to plan your next big trip.

Poetry of Witness: An American Poet's Visit to El Salvador on the Bring of War

Guest: Carolyn Forché, Poet, Activist, Author of “What You Have Heard Is True”

Immigrants from El Salvador make up the second-largest Latin American group in the United States, after Mexico. The reason there are so many Salvadorans here –and many more attempting to migrate –dates back to a bloody civil war in the 1970sand 80s. A war in which the United States backed the Salvadoran government and its brutal military tactics. Just as that war was brewing a young American poet accepted an invitation from a stranger to go and see for herself. Carolyn Forche was 27. The poems she would write about what she saw in El Salvador would make her a best-seller and change the course of her career.

The Purpose of the Fish Tube

Guest: Michael Messina, Director of Market Development and Business Affairs at Whooshh Innovations

This last month, a video of the Salmon Cannon went viral. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the video shows Fish being loaded into a giant, rubber-looking tube, zipping through the tube at an unbelievable speed, and then being spit out back into water. It looks a bit like a pneumatic tube delivery system you might see at a bank or pharmacy, except this one is fish-friendly. The fish tube was created by Whooshh Innovations.