With Good Reason

This week, we're running an previous episode where our guests went deep into the Amazon to solve some of the most enduring mysteries in biology. Plus, we look at the sociology of songbirds and pets, and hear what makes the rainforest so special.

There's no Short Listen for this week -- but be sure to catch our upcoming show on Friday, where we dive deep into the rainforest and discover what's lurking there...

Where do you go when your homeland disappears? In our first half-hour, we ask that question both at home and abroad, and look at a project trying to preserve a record of a disappearing land. Plus, we explore how fishermen were among the earliest conservationists, take a look inside a hurricane, and give a preview of the total eclipse of the sun that had American astronomers booking hotels three years in advance.

Tangier Island, a tiny spit of land in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay, is sinking -- and fast. Without a new sea wall, its residents may become America's first climate refugees. Now, a new project is virtually mapping the island before it disappears beneath the waves. *** Explore Google's interactive map of Tangier Island from this page: http://virginiahumanities.org/2017/08/virtual-tour-of-climate-change-endangered-tangier/

This week, we take a long look at the relationship between addiction and... well, relationships. We explore how romantic feelings activate in the brain and what happens when a bad breakup snatches them away. And in our second half, we drop the love and go hard on the drugs, asking how the future of smoking makes addiction more likely.

After a bad breakup, should we really drown our sorrows? One professor has built a course around that question and, in the process, discovered some unusual things about love... From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

From mandatory testing to terrible pay, teachers face formidable obstacles to doing their job and doing it well. In our latest from our special series on education and inequality, we look into the reasons teachers quit and what keeps them in their jobs with some of the top minds in the teaching profession today.

Shawn Sheehan was 2016's Oklahoma State Teacher of the Year. But as of this fall, he won't be an Oklahoma teacher at all. From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviewing to bring you the best of each week's episode in under 5 minutes.

This week, we look at some new insights in the world of foreign policy, from the neuroscience of face-to-face diplomacy to the way the US defense budget prevents strategic thinking. Plus, we learn a little about how the Vice President has been used and abused throughout history.

Diplomatic trips, like the one Trump made to the Middle East and Europe just a few months ago, can quickly become very expensive. In a day and age when you can video chat with Bangkok at the push of a button, are they still worth it? From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

How does a community move on from a mass shooting? Journalist Tom Kapsidelis has been speaking to the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting for the past 10 years. He offers his insights into what it takes for a community to heal. Plus, we explore how many of our most common beliefs about the perpetrators of these crimes are incorrect. And we look at other misconceptions in the courtroom, from the effect of slow-motion video on juries to the disadvantages faced by the children of incarcerated parents.

With surveillance cameras on the rise and cell phones in every pocket, video evidence is increasingly common in courtrooms. But there’s a lot we don’t know about how effective video evidence actually is. From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under 5 minutes.

Can the notorious brain-hijacking parasite "toxoplasma" affect humans? Is there a vaccine against Lyme Disease for humans in the pipeline? Also, how is Big Data helping to curb heart attack deaths in Senegal? All this and more!

The notorious parasite “toxoplasma” is spread by cats. Does toxoplasmosis affect humans too? From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under 5 minutes.

Listen to how the sounds of melting glaciers are being frozen in time and woven into haunting electronic musical compositions. We also discuss dinosaurs the size of golden retrievers, and how the landscape of Tahiti changed with the movement of people.