On Demand
Please Explain
A Weekly Feature on The Leonard Lopate Show
Airs every Friday at noon
In our Please Explain feature, we set aside time every Friday afternoon to get to the bottom of one complex issue. Ever wonder how New York City's water system works? Or how the US became so polarized politically? We'll back up and review the basic facts and principles of complicated issues across a broad range of topics — history, politics, science, you name it.
Email us your suggestions for Please Explain!Please Explain: Alcohol
The Leonard Lopate Show
November 06, 2009
Our latest Please Explain is all about alcohol--what it is, how it works and the ways it affects our bodies. We'll be joined by Dr. Rueben Gonzales, Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Texas and by Dr. Henry R. Kranzler, Professor of Psychiatry and Genetics and Developmental Biology at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
Please Explain: Electricity
The Leonard Lopate Show
October 30, 2009
How does electricity get from its source into your home and to your cell phone charger, television, or microwave? We’ll find out on today’s Please Explain. Michael Caramanis, Boston University Professor of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, joins us, along with Dr. Robert Thomas, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University.
Please Explain: Sleep
The Leonard Lopate Show
October 23, 2009
Sleeping is something all of us do every day, but exactly what happens to us when we sleep isn’t completely understood. On today’s edition of Please Explain, we’re looking into why we sleep, why we sometimes can’t sleep, and why many of us aren’t sleeping enough. Dr. Allan Pack, Chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine and Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Michel Cramer Bornemann, Co-Director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, join us.
Please Explain: Regional Accents
The Leonard Lopate Show
October 16, 2009
You can tell a lot about someone from the way they speak. On today’s edition of Please Explain we’ll look at the different accents found around the United States and find out where they come from and why they persist. Joining us are Natalie Schilling-Estes, Associate Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University, and Kara Becker, of the Department of Linguistics at New York University.
Clips of the New Jersey, Outer Banks, Boston, and Midwest accents are from the International Dialects of English Archive.
Clips of the Brooklyn and Atlanta accents are from George Mason University's Speech Accent Archive.
Please Explain: Prions
The Leonard Lopate Show
October 09, 2009
On today’s Please Explain we're looking at prions and how they can cause infectious diseases such as Mad Cow disease and the Chronic Wasting disease that’s been affecting deer, elk, and moose herds in the West and Midwest. Dr. David Westaway, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases at the University of Alberta; and Walker Jackson, postdoctoral associate in the Lindquist Laboratory at MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research join us.
Please Explain: Animal Migration
The Leonard Lopate Show
October 02, 2009
The days are growing shorter and colder, and birds, butterflies, and other animals are starting to head to warmer climates for the winter. These journeys are often thousand of miles—monarch butterflies can fly as far as 3,000 miles to winter in Mexico. On today’s Please Explain, we’ll find out how these animals know when and where to go. We’ll also talk about how climate change is affecting animal migration. We’re joined by Leon Kreitzman, co-author with Russell Foster of Rhythms of Life and Seasons of Life; and Dr. David Wilcove, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, and Director of the Program in Environmental Studies, at Princeton University, and author of No Way Home: The Decline of the World's Great Animal Migrations.
Please Explain: Sharks
The Leonard Lopate Show
September 25, 2009
There are some 440 species of sharks, and the fish have been swimming in the oceans for 420 million years, before dinosaurs existed. On today's Please Explain we'll find out about sharks, from hammerheads to great whites, and look at how they are becoming threatened. We're joined by Melanie L. J. Stiassny, Axelrod Research Curator of Fishes, Department of Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History; and John Maisey Curator and Axelrod Research Chair, Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History.

Please Explain: Trees
The Leonard Lopate Show
September 18, 2009
You may have noticed that leaves have started turning, marking the end of summer. On today’s Please Explain we'll find out why leaves change color and everything else about trees, with Jessica Argate, Forest Manager, New York Botanical Garden, and David Allan Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Trees.

Please Explain: Typography
The Leonard Lopate Show
September 11, 2009
Our latest Please Explain is all about typefaces and typography. Typeface designer Jonathan Hoefler, type designer and president of Hoefler & Frere-Jones and Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts and author of the VISUALS column for the New York Times Book Review, will explain how typefaces are created and why typography is important to communication and design.

Please Explain: Intuition and Gut Reaction
The Leonard Lopate Show
August 28, 2009
On today’s edition of Please Explain, we’re looking at instinct, intuition, gut feelings, those unconscious reactions that guide so much of our decision making. We’re joined by Timothy Wilson, Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, and author of Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious, and by Gerd Gigerenzer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and author of Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious.
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