David Hyde

Some people believe the world is ending today (and they are completely wrong about that). But let’s say today really is your last day on Earth. How would you want to spend it?  It’s kind of like your one day bucket list.  We’ll hear from listeners and special guests including John Moe, formerly of KUOW and now host of Wits. 

Designing safer schools doesn't mean turning them into military bunkers. That might have been an easy remodel back when schools were built like jails, filled with "cells" and controlled by bells. Today's schools are open, flexible spaces that allow students to combine and recombine into groups that learn from each other as much as they learn from the teacher.

Before 1970, doctors used to lie to their patients all the time. They knew that some hypochondriacs became noticeably better when doctors gave them a sugar pill.

This was called "the placebo effect." After 1970, we thought of placebos differently. Researchers decided that for a drug to be deemed effective, it had to outperform a placebo. But we never stepped back and took a good hard look at the placebo and why it worked.

Hanukkah has come to a close, and Christmas and Kwanzaa are still on the way. These are the three we hear about, but how do you celebrate the holidays? David Hyde takes calls from listeners and hears what the holiday season means to Seattle.

Critics of Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo say that the elephants there are not being treated well and that they don’t do well in captivity. Defenders say zoos are key to global conservation efforts. Should zoos, including Woodland Park, continue to display elephants?

David Hyde talks with Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, University of Guelph researcher Georgia Mason who has studied elephants in zoos, and Michael Berens, the investigative reporter for the Seattle Times who has written about the Woodland Park Zoo.

Why do most people love animals they consider cute, like puppies or panda bears, but they don’t have a lot of love for animals they consider ugly, like naked mole rats? Western Carolina University Psychology professor Hal Herzog explores the paradoxical relationship people have with animals in a new book, "Some we love, some we hate, some we eat: Why it’s so hard to think straight about animals."

According to a new study nearly 1 in 3 pedestrians is distracted by a mobile device like a smart phone when walking into high-risk intersections. Only 1 in 4 looked both ways before crossing the street.  

David Hyde talks with Dr. Beth Ebel who was the lead author on the study. She directs the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research center at the University of Washington.

Seattle writer Domingo Martinez is the author of "The Boy Kings Of Texas," which was recently nominated for the National Book Award.  It’s about the cultural tensions he experienced growing up in the border town of Brownsville.  

KUOW's David Hyde talks to Martinez about growing up in a border town, his family, why he moved to Seattle, and why he stayed. 

The psychopath Hannibal Lecter in the movie "Silence of the Lambs" is ruthless.  But he’s also charming, persuasive and highly intelligent.  Cambridge psychology professor Kevin Dutton says when psychopaths don’t turn violent they can become very successful as CEOs, surgeons, or in other professions. His latest book is "The Wisdom Of Psychopaths."

“The apple never falls far from the tree,” the saying goes. But what happens when it does? Our guest today tells the stories of children whose identities are very different from their parents, such as dwarfs who are born to parents of average stature.  How do parents and children navigate these differences?  And what do these children have in common?