With Good Reason

Cigarettes are making a resurgence, thanks to technology like the e-cigarette. But this week, we hear from scholars who are finding it's not only tobacco that's breaking out in vapor form. Plus, we look at how menthol is hooking new generations of young smokers, how sound can be used as a scalpel, and how sleepless teenagers face deadly effects.

We might think the glory days of cigarettes are long over. But new science is revealing a damaging new trend for flavored cigarettes. It might not be long until menthol goes the way of the dodo. From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews with short-form storytelling to bring the best of each week's episode in around five minutes. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Nadine Kabbani, associate professor of molecular neuroscience at George Mason University.

Religion and politics go together like cheese and apple pie - some people love it, some people hate it. This week, we take a look at America's rocky relationship with the politics of faith, from Jefferson's vision for a secular utopia to politicians use of the bible today. Along the way, we look at how teleprojected pastors are changing evangelism, and try to determine what the Founding Fathers really believed.

When Jefferson planned the University of Virginia, he designed it as a secular utopia, with a grand temple to the written word at its center. But it didn't work out exactly as planned. From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews with short-form storytelling to bring the best of each week's episode in around five minutes.

AMC's The Walking Dead takes joy in deconstructing human bodies. But some viewers are finding the violence a little too much. On this week's episode, we ask what war, peace, and violence mean in art, from the Walking Dead to Leo Tolstoy. Along the way, we discover why German gumshoes are so peaceful and what Godzilla is really trying to say.

The Walking Dead, a TV horror series about a worldwide zombie apocalypse, has been the most popular show with 18 to 49 year olds since for the past 4 seasons. But there’s an enormous difference between horror on the screen in the United States and in China. One Virginia scholar thinks there may be something to learn from the differences. From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews with short-form storytelling to bring the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

"If you like the truth, you'll love Rick." That's what Lieutenant General George Crocker was told when he was introduced to Rick Atkinson. Atkinson is one of America's most celebrated journalists and historians. The winner of four Pulitzer Prizes, Atkinson joins Sarah to talk everything from Vietnam veterans to police shootings in D.C. Then, we look at how our understanding of history changes in the telling of it.

It's our holiday special -- a cinnamon-scented, snow-trimmed dive into the beautiful sounds of holiday music. From the endangered Sephardic singing tradition of Flory Jagoda to "Santa Clause is Coming to Town", we explore the unique power of music at this time of year.

Recently, after almost a decade of sleuthing, a rogue British hobbyist and one of the greatest living klezmer musicians uncovered a lost trove of vinyl records from the earliest days of the Jewish music industry. This week, we follow in their footsteps and revise musical history. We talk to the discoverers of klezmer's "lost vault", Michael Aylward and Joel Rubin, and we take a look at how the American working class fell out of love with opera. Plus, we indulge in some happy memories of holiday music.

After nearly a decade of sleuthing to find the pieces, a groundbreaking album of previously unknown recordings of Jewish klezmer music has been released. The album has been a labor love by one of the world’s greatest living klezmer musicians and a British translator. From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews with short-form storytelling to bring the best of each week's episode in under five minutes. We're taking a break for the holidays, so look for the next episode of the Short Listen in the New Year.

When Natasha Tretheway was 19, she found out her mother had been murdered by an ex-husband. The only thing that could make sense of the world, Tretheway said, was poetry. Decades later, Tretheway is one of America's most celebrated poets. In this week's episode, we look back on the extraordinary life of this former U.S. poet laureate, and that of another exceptional wordsmith: Maya Angelou. This episode is sponsored in part by the Pulitzer Centennial Campfires Initiative.

Maya Angelou spent only five years on the continent of Africa, but it turns out those years were some of the most remarkable in its history. This week for the Short Listen, we explore how Africa inspired Angelou's humanistic vision. From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews with short-form storytelling to bring the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

So the "highest glass ceiling" isn't quite cracked yet -- and we've devoted this week to finding out where it still looms overhead. We talk to Diane Hodge about how female professors are kept out of tenure-track jobs. Then we hear about new research into sexual self-empowerment and the burden of fashion. And in our second half hour, we go deep into the history of women's political lives in America with the author of "The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women's Quest for the American Presidency."

Women are earning more degrees in higher education than men. So why are there so few women in tenure track or leadership positions in academia? New from With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews with short-form storytelling to bring the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

In the world of medicine, the game changes fast. This week, we're looking at new research and technologies that are changing the way we think about disease, from mechanical hearts to imitation sunlight.