Access Utah

"The brain can change itself. It is a plastic, living organ that can actually change its own structure and function, even into old age. Arguably the most important breakthrough in neuroscience since scientists first sketched out the brain's basic anatomy, this revolutionary discovery, called neuroplasticity, promises to overthrow the centuries-old notion that the brain is fixed and unchanging." So...

The 2015 session of the Utah Legislature reached the end of its constitutionally-mandated 45 days Thursday night. This year’s highlights included debates over Medicaid expansion, prison relocation, pay raises for teachers and state employees, the gas tax, anti-discrimination protections for the LGBT community, religious freedom guarantees, the right to die, Utah’s caucus and convention system, med...

HB 391, the “Utah Death with Dignity Act,” would allow physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill persons, under certain circumstances. Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, D-Salt Lake City says she sponsored the bill in response to the recent plight of Brittany Maynard, a California woman with a terminal brain tumor who moved to Oregon (which has had such a law in place since 1994...

We love our dogs and cats, but their behavior can be baffling. (Maybe they have the same thoughts about us!) On Tuesday's AU, our guest is veterinarian Gary Weitzman, President and CEO of the San Diego Humane Society and SPCA, and author of "How to Speak Cat: A Guide to Decoding Cat Language" (published by National Geographic.). Dr. Weitzman is also author of "How to Speak Dog," and "Everything Do...

Climate change has been a hard sell among some communities of faith. Katharine Hayhoe is a Climate Scientist and an Evangelical Christian. She has spent years trying to convince other Christians that climate change is real. She told NPR that "the people we trust, the people we respect, the people whose values we share, in the conservative community, in the Christian community, those people are tel...

The Pentagon has said that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. U.S. intelligence and security leaders predict that resource scarcity will be our next big threat. The World Wildlife Fund's new initiative "In Pursuit of Prosperity" seeks to make sustainability a core component of U.S. foreign policy. WWF says that scarcities in one country can spill over into relations wit...

The grid is everywhere, sending power to the light switch on the wall and water to the faucet in the kitchen. But is it essential? Must we depend on it and the corporate and government infrastructure behind it? Wednesday’s AU we’ll revisit our conversation, from August, with Nick Rosen, who has traveled the United States, spending time with all kinds of individuals and families striving to live th...

The firing squad, discontinued in Utah in 2004, would return as a method of execution under a bill (HB11) which has passed Utah's House of Representatives. The sponsor, Rep. Paul Ray R-Clearfield, says (according to the Associated Press) that "a team of trained marksmen is faster and more humane than the drawn-out deaths that have occurred in botched lethal injections." NPR reports that manufactur...

As wildlife populations increase, so does the potential for human-wildlife conflicts, which can be seen in in economic losses, regulatory conflicts, and sometimes, physical encounters. Terry Messmer, Director of the Berryman Institute at USU, says that wildlife managers may need to change their traditional emphasis from sustaining or increasing wildlife populations to mitigating conflicts. On Mond...

State Department of Corrections Executive Director Rollin Cook said Utah's "tough on crime approach" has been costly and has led to mass incarceration, overcrowded prisons and unacceptable recidivism rates. Rep. Eric Hutchings, R-Kearns, said his criminal justice reform bill (HB 348) will result in an "epic shift" in how the state treats offenders.

Every year about this time "Evening in Brazil" presents concerts in Salt Lake City and Logan; this year's concerts are on Thursday and Friday. And each year, we gather members of the musical group in UPR's studio C to enjoy some great Bossa Nova and Samba on Access Utah. Linda Ferreira Linford, Christopher Neale, Mike Christiansen & Eric Nelson will join us for Wednesday's AU and we hope you will...

This is an Encore Presentation of Access Utah,which originally aired in September 2014.

The Deseret News reports that opposing bills on Medicaid expansion have passed a state Senate committee. Sen. Allen Christensen says that his SB 153 would cover Utahns who earn up to 100% of the federal poverty level and who are medically frail. He says his plan would leave money available for other needy groups. Sen. Brian Shiozawa’ SB 164 would implement many elements of Governor Herbert’s Healt...

Oil prices across the nation have dropped dramatically over the past few months. Economists have described the money that consumers are saving as a kind of tax break, but not everyone is seeing green. In a series of reports this month titled “The Costs of Oil,” UPR reporters Elaine Taylor, Justin Prather and Evan Hall have looked into how falling prices are affecting places like eastern Utah, wher...

Amity Shlaes is author of four New York Times bestsellers, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression; The Forgotten Man: Graphic, an illustrated version of the same book drawn by Paul Rivoche; Coolidge, a biography of the thirtieth president; and The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americas Crazy. Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.

Our guest for the hour on Wednesday's Access Utah is Jennifer Jacquet, author of the new book "Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool." Robert Sapolsky (author of Monkeyluv) says: "In the age of Anthony Weiner and Miley Cyrus, shame seems an antiquated concept-a quaint tool of conformity-obsessed collectivist societies, replete with scarlet letters and loss of face ..." Jacquet says that in...

Some say that federal control of public lands in Utah has resulted in stunted economic development, an imbalance in access, and increased fire danger in national forests. A new study from the University of Utah Law School’s Wallace Stegner Center argues that a Utah takeover of 31 million acres of public lands could lead to less public access and less public involvement in land-use decisions. Utah...

Today we revisit a conversation from August, 2014 with Jeff Guinn, author of "Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson" says he wanted to answer two questions with the book: "Why does Manson's name still resonate with us, all these years after those famous murders? And what happened in his life to make him the way he turned out?" Guinn says that in answering those questions "it was really like...

Luisa A. Igloria is winner of the May Swenson Poetry Award, a competitive prize granted annually to an outstanding collection of poetry in English, named for Logan Utah native May Swenson, one of America's most vital and provocative twentieth-century poets. Igloria's collection "Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser" is published by Utah State University Press. Originally from Baguio City...

Cache Valley air quality has been getting a lot of attention the last several years. A few days a year, usually in the wintertime, the air pollution in Logan is worse than most other U.S. cities. On Friday's AU, Sheri Quinn talks to Utah State University environmental engineer Dr. Randy Martin about his current research on the major air pollution culprit, PM2.5

Professional speaker, storyteller and writer Janice Brooks will join Tom Williams for the hour on Thursday's AU Brooks is performing her one-woman show "Traveling Shoes"Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. in the Caine Performance Hall on the USU campus in Logan. "Traveling Shoes" depicts eight women of American history: Sojourner Truth, Barbara Jordan, Harriet Tubman, Shirley Chisholm, Buffalo Soldier C...

Seventy percent of the country uses Facebook each month-50 percent of Americans under 35 check it first thing every morning. By 2015, people will have tweeted more words than in every book ever printed. A third of all marriages in the United States now begin online-meaning one in three children in the class of 2032 will have been facilitated by an algorithm. Social media has become essential to th...

In the 1960s, Mormon housewife Helen Andelin countered the second wave feminist movement by preaching family values and urging women not to have careers, but to become good wives, mothers, and homemakers instead. Andelin, who sparked a large movement herself, taught that a woman's true happiness could only be realized if she admired, cared for, and obeyed her husband. In December, many listeners j...

This week high-ranking officials from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held a news conference to address of religious freedom, and discrimination against the LGBT community. On Monday's AU we'll look at legislation being proposed this year regarding these issues. We'll hear from Governor Gary Herbert, Senator Stephen Urquhart and Representative Jacob Anderegg.

According to University of Utah anthropologist Ryan Shot, men want commitment when women are scarce. In his new study published in the Royal Society Open Science Journal, he challenges the sexual stereotype that women want commitment and men want commitment only sometimes. His study of the Makushi in Guyana shows mate choice is much more complex. He found men are more likely to seek long-term rela...