Viewpoints Radio
Award-winning reporting on current issues featuring America's leading experts.
Many Americans place a heavy emphasis on finding and arranging care for their loved ones. This can mean shifting to a nursing home, hiring in-home professional care or even becoming the caretakers themselves. And if people take on this role of caregiver, it can be easy to quickly lose sight of one's own personal health, wellness and relationships. We discuss …
Strawberries are ubiquitous across the U.S. Supermarkets in every town stock cartons of fresh strawberries year round at a reasonable price. But this widespread availability may come to a halt in the near future as the industry faces several big challenges: labor shortages, climate change, sustainable farming legislation, etc. We discuss the history of the …
Did you know that dogs can smell up to 100,000 times better than the average person? Most of us are familiar with service or police dogs using their nose to sniff out a particular scent, but researchers have been recently harnessing the power of a dogs nose to find malaria, diabetes and even some of the hardest-to-detect cancers.
What happens if you pass away on an airplane or in outer space? Why do bugs only eat certain parts of your body? These are some of the questions Caitlin Doughty answers everyday and in her new book "Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?" Viewpoints spoke with Doughty about why discussing death is still such a taboo topic in the U.S. and how our burial and funeral …
While some of us have fond memories of an idyllic childhood filled with joyous birthday parties and summer road trips, some children face a completely different home life. This instability can overtake a child or teen and lead them down a dangerous path. The nonprofit, Friends of the Children, understands the importance of getting to a child early on and …
Dr. Eric Bernstein is a board-certified laser surgeon with more than 25 years of experience in laser tattoo removal. Over the years, he’s seen just about everything and heard almost every reason out there for why patient wants their ink gone for good.
Most of us point to McDonald’s as the founding of fast food as we know it. But the American staple actually began nearly a hundred years ago with two chains, White Castle and A&W. We speak with Adam Chandler, journalist and author of Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom about the events that fed into the rapid …
Viewpoints producer Amirah Zaveri spoke with Dr. Carlos Charles a dermatologist who started Derma Di Colore in New York City - a dermatology practice catering to women with darker skin tones. In this clip, Dr. Charles talks about the role large companies play in marketing to women with a darker complexion and the deep-rooted cultural issues that feed into …
Ryan Leigh Dostie, author of Formation: A Woman’s Memoir of Stepping Out of Line, enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school and was deployed to Iraq shortly after finishing her training. In 2002, while abroad, she was raped while sleeping in her Army barracks. What followed was a series of victim-blaming tactics and unfair bias directed towards …
When we think of a typical high school football player, most of us imagine a sweaty, muscled teenage boy in a uniform. One of our guests this week is K-Lani Nava, the first female football player to play, score and win in a Texas high school state championship game. She, along with Dr. Christia Spears Brown, both discuss the importance of breaking gender …
Viewpoints producer Annie Krall interviewed the President of the American Association for Men in Nursing Blake Smith to get a better understanding of the role male nurses play in the healthcare field. One of those nurses in particular, Brian Underwood a.k.a “The IV Guy” uses Instagram to help educate fellow nurses on the best technique to insert an IV. The …
It's back-to-school season, and while schools have put in place comprehensive anti-bullying campaigns, we seldom focus on making sure child bullies themselves get the help they need to deal with the problems that are causing them to act out in the first place. We still punish troubled kids with detentions, suspensions and from there it escalates onward. Many …
Around 10 percent of nurses today are men. As aging Americans place a greater strain on the healthcare system, the nursing industry faces a growing shortage and is responding by finding new ways to recruit nurses early on. We dispel some of the myths around the profession and some of the new medical technology in the works aimed at improving efficiency and …
Around 90 percent of the plastic we use is left unrecycled and dumped in a landfill. Over time, this waste seeps into our oceans, harming its ecosystems and creating massive islands of floating garbage. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now more than twice the size of Texas. What small steps can we each take to reduce plastic consumption and get …
You want to eat healthily, but sometimes that’s not always possible. There’s nothing around that’s quick, affordable and above all, hits the spot. We cover how new models are creating a greater number of nutritious options and the challenges that comes with sustaining the profitability of these new systems.
We review the new science fiction book, “Recursion” written by American author Blake Crouch who’s widely known for the “Wayward Pines” trilogy.
Parenting in the online era can be quite confusing. At what age should you let your kid have a Facebook or Snapchat account? How closely should you monitor what they view on the internet? We speak with Julianna Miner, author of Raising a Screen Smart Kid: Embrace the Good and Avoid the Bad in the Digital Age, to get the inside scoop on teaching kids how to …
We cover the Norco shootout of 1980 – an extravagant bank robbery by five heavily armed criminals ending in multiple lives lost, several wounded and a police helicopter shot down from the sky. We speak with author, Peter Houlahan about that fateful day and how it forever changed police response to organized crime.
Student loan debt is set to skyrocket to two trillion dollars by 2022. We talk to students about their differing perspectives on financial aid and debt. We also speak with Mike Bartini, the director of student aid at Bowdoin College, about how important it is that students and families take time to focus on the financials of higher education before …
Author Jared Yates Sexton shares memories from his own turbulent childhood and accounts as a journalist and connects it to the larger discussion around the phenomenon of toxic masculinity in the U.S. What exactly is toxic masculinity and how is it affecting men and youth?
The rise and fall of the now defunct blood-testing company Theranos has captivated the attention of millions and exposed the dark side of the startup culture in Silicon Valley. Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, is awaiting trial next summer, facing 11 felony charges for allegedly defrauding the public. We speak with Stanford professor Dr. …
Social media has become an all-consuming way of life for many. It’s hard to get away from unconsciously opening Facebook or Instagram throughout the day and scrolling through your feed. While social media can be positive, the unrealistic posts can also lead to damaging outcomes. We discuss its negative effects and the rise in the number of plastic surgery …
John Urschel is not your typical doctoral candidate. Before studying mathematics at MIT, Urschel played college football at Penn State and then in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens. Both mathematics and football have always been two steadfast pillars in his life.
The first U.S. case of the plague presented in the early 1900’s in San Francisco. We speak with author, David Randall about the outbreak and how it changed sanitation practices and government response.
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