This World of Humans

This episode of This World of Humans features an interview with Professor Dan Graur, from the University of Houston, who has just published a new article estimating that at least 75% of our DNA has no function whatsoever. The issue of so-called “Junk DNA” is a controversial one, with scientists passionately disagreeing about exactly which parts of our genome do function, and ho

This episode features a recent study linking the working conditions of low-wage healthcare workers and the health outcomes of their patients. TWOH host Nathan Lents interviews one of the main authors of this study, Dr. Grace Sembajwe of the CUNY School of Public Health. Professor Sembajwe explains why providing family-supportive and flexible policies for healthcare workers actually

This episode features a recent study showing that air pollution from automobiles can cause shortening of teloimeres, the extreme ends of chromosomes, in children and adolescents. This work was published by Professor John Balmes from the University of California at San Francisco and was conducted on children and adolescents in Fresno, California. Learn more https://www.visionlearnin

This episode features a new study examining the value of social relationships in Rhesus monkeys as they age. This work was published by a group of animal behavior scientists including Dr. Angelina Ruiz-Lambides from the University of Puerto Rico and Dr. Lauren Brent from the University of Exeter. This research took place at the Caribbean Primate Research Center on Cayo Santiago, of

This episode features a recent meta-study combining the results of many similar studies analyzing the effect of immigration on crime rates. Joining us are Dr. Charis Kubrin from the University of California at Irvine and Dr. Daniel Stageman from John Jay College (CUNY). Learn more https://www.visionlearning.com/en/twoh

This episode of TWOH discusses a new technique designed to detect spots in our genome that have been under recent natural selection. The human lineage and the chimpanzee lineage split around 7 million years ago and, during that time, we have accumulated very few genetic differences despite our very big physical and mental differences. Therefore, discovering and exploring the few ge

This episode of TWOH focuses on when, how, and why children tell lies. We all begin life as perfectly honest little babies, but as our brains develop more complexity, we discover that we don't always have to tell the truth. Our guest is Dr. Angela Crossman, chair of the Psychology Department at John Jay College and a developmental psychologist who focused on truthfulness in childre

This episode of TWOH explores the relationship between LGBT-targeted hate crimes in a given neighborhood and suicide among LGBT adolescents in that same neighborhood. Joining us is Dr. Dustin Duncan, a spatial epidemiologist from New York University, who explains the science of how this kind of public health research is carried out. Dr. Duncan and his colleagues hypothesized that h

This episode of TWOH explores the issue of romantic and sexual attraction, an important field of study within psychology. Joining us is Dr. Daniel Conroy-Beam from the University of California at Santa Barbara who is the author of a new study in this field. Dr. Conroy-Beam has developed a new computational method for understanding how the various components of attraction combine in

This episode of TWOH explores the incredibly complicated research on taurine, the amino acid supplement commonly found in energy drinks. Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez explores the many affects of taurine on the central nervous system of rodents and has made surprising discoveries when it comes to addiction, memory, and other cognitive functions. The effects of taurine appear to be wide