Just weeks before the new administration takes office, John Kerry gives a speech outlining Obama’s plan for peace in the Middle East; artists have different brains – but is their creativity innate or learned?; we look at research suggesting that leisure time makes for a more productive and fulfilling life; and more.
The curious timing behind John Kerry’s Middle East peace plan announcement
Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday gave a speech outlining the Obama Administration’s plan for peace in the Middle East, just weeks before President-Elect Trump takes office.
Kerry's speech marked the latest escalation in a row between the U.S. and Israel over the U.S.’s abstention from voting on a U.N. Security Council resolution last week that called Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem a violation of international law.
The extraordinary display of discord between allies - with U.S. and Israeli officials openly disparaging each other - has also pitted President Barack Obama against President-elect Donald Trump, who has firmly taken Netanyahu's side.
What does the Obama administration hope to achieve with the speech?
With AP Files
Guest:
Aaron David Miller, Vice President for New Initiatives and a Distinguished Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has written numerous books on the Middle East, including “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace" (Bantam, 2008)
Climatologist predicts a wet winter, but warns the drought isn’t over
Los Angeles received about five times the amount of rain this December than it did during the same month last year.
William Patzert, a climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has attributed our wetter weather to several changes, including a dissipated “blob” and an absent La Niña condition. Though this is good news, Patzert said it’ll take more than a single rainy season to quench California's drought.
Guest host Patt Morrison speaks with Patzert and Daniel Swain to find out more about what’s in store for Southern California’s weather forecast.
You can read more here.
On predicting rainfall:
William Patzert: I'm pretty optimistic that as we get into the wetter months — which are January, February and March — you're definitely going to get to use your umbrella this winter.
Daniel Swain: I think it's a little bit early to say that [rain] is something we're going to continue to see for the rest of the winter, continuously, and that it's something we can rely on. But I'm hopeful. Already, just based on what's fallen to date, we're in better shape than we were this time last year, and certainly in a better state than we were a couple of years ago.
Quotes have been edited for clarity.
Guests:
William Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Daniel Swain, NatureNet postdoctoral fellow, UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He tweets from
Artists’ brains really are different, but is it nature or nurture?
There hasn’t been much research to determine what makes some people more creative than others. But that’s about to change.
UCLA's Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity’s “Big C” project has been conducting studies to see if artists reject more social conventions, have different brain organization and if there’s an increase in brain tissue dedicated to higher visual processing. They’re also asking big questions about whether creativity is innate or learned.
So what did they find? Robert Bilder, a researcher on the project talks to Patt Morrison today to reveal the findings and unanswered questions about creativity and the brain.
Guest:
Robert Bilder, chief of medical psychology and neuropsychology at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and one of the researchers on UCLA's Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity's “Big C” project
Changing the genetic drive of species to eradicate disease
Imagine if scientists could edit the DNA of mice to make them immune to Lyme disease, the antibodies in those mice in turn killing Lyme bacteria in ticks, thereby destroying the transmission cycle and eradicating Lyme disease for good.
That’s not science fiction. It’s the topic of Michael Specter’s latest piece in the New Yorker, which explores how the gene-editing tool CRISPR can work in tandem with gene drive to alter the behavior of entire species. This approach could be used to create a mosquito that would eliminate mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever. This would be a victory for public health and it could change the way we do science – but this sort of research affects communities, rather than individuals, and gaging its potential impacts on entire ecosystems is difficult.
What is the viability of this research? What are the potential positive and negative implications?
Guest:
Michael Specter, staff writer at The New Yorker magazine focusing on science and technology, whose latest piece “Rewriting the Code of Life,” appears in this week’s magazine. He is also the author of “Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives” (Penguin, 2009)
‘Rest’ is the best way to work says author Alex Pang
According to Alex Soojung-Kim Pang’s latest research, “work hard now, play hard later” is general wisdom that robs the mind of creativity, productivity and the chance to thrive.
Pang details his research in his new book “REST: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less,” and argues that the way to achieve a rich and fulfilling life is not by sacrificing leisure to work harder, but to follow the likes of Charles Dickens who enjoyed long strolls, or Thomas Edison and Winston Churchill who made time for afternoon naps.
Americans are among the “most hours logged” workers in the world, averaging about 35 to 50 hours a week. If you’re feeling overworked and under-rested, Pang offers tips to help carve out time for what he calls "deliberate rest."
Guest:
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, founder of the Restful Company and author of “REST: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less” (Basic Books, 2016); he tweets