Showing results by narrator "Mark Schectman" in Politics & Social Sciences

Who polices America's prosecutors? And when they set their sights on an innocent CEO, can he survive a five-year, $25 million legal labyrinth to save the company he built, and himself from prison?

No Hope is for disaffected conservatives and moderates as well as liberals who are fed up with the political party system. Forty-three percent of Americans now identify as Independents. Many of them are right of center and used to be Republicans.

People typically come with 10 fingers and 10 toes, but when it comes down to it, we tend to neglect the latter set. That may be because we can't do much with our toes, at least not intentionally. (Or, put another way, they're not nearly as useful as our fingers.) In fact, we don't really think much about our toes – they're just kind of there, hiding in our shoes, doing whatever toes do. And as it turns out, we're not really good at thinking about our toes, even when we try to. Just ask a team of researchers from Oxford University.

The Persian Gulf Pro League is the highest level of Iranian soccer. The Iran Pro League, or IPL, as it is often called, dates back to 1970, but has been around since 2001 in its current form. The sixteen teams in the IPL play 30 games over the course of a season; each team plays a home game and an away game against the other fifteen squads. Teams earn 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie, and the team with the most points at the end of the season is the league champion.

In the fall of 1994, the United States was introduced to a new tool in the world of crime solving and prosecution – DNA evidence. The O.J. Simpson trial had captured the nation's – if not much of the world's – attention, and a large part of the trial's outcome hung on DNA. At the time, the use of DNA evidence was still emerging, and the science wasn't well understood – or trusted – by juries.

Proof that nothing is free (there's usually a catch): Learn about the Alabama sting operation disguised as a football ticket giveaway, on this episode of Now I Know. In the state of Alabama, one of the year’s more important events – the Iron Bowl, a college football game pitting in-state rivals Auburn University and the University of Alabama against each other – is traditionally held the day after Thanksgiving.

Taste test: Does a $17 burger always taste better than a $4 one? Find out on this episode of Now I Know. A hamburger that costs $17 probably tastes good. No, it has to – who would pay $17 for a burger and fries that didn’t? No one – at least not twice. That makes sense: in order to stay in business with an expensive menu, whatever you’re selling better make for a good dining experience. But at some point, our palates can’t really discern between foods.

There's a grim, dark side to the honey bun biz. Get the un-sugarcoated story on this episode of Now I Know. A honey bun is a cake-y dessert that sells for about $1 at your deli. It’s nothing special, as pre-packaged desserts go, except perhaps for the fact that it’s pretty bad for you. The small version of the treat weighs three ounces and runs 340 calories, 15 grams of fat, and 210 milligrams of sodium – roughly the same nutritional value as one and a half Snickers bars.

When George M. Stratton made himself a pair of “inverting glasses," his world turned upside down – and the scientific community gained some interesting new perspective. Learn more on this episode of Now I Know. George M. Stratton was born in 1865 in Oakland, California. By his early thirties, he was a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, but he took interest in psychology.