The ethical absurdities of prosecuting good samaritans who give rides to refugees

Denmark, the socialist nation so often praised by US Democrats , is not quite so utopian for migrants arriving in the current refugee crisis.

, is not quite so utopian for migrants arriving in the current refugee crisis. The government has warned of cuts to refugee benefits in advertisements in Lebanese newspapersand allowed police to confiscate refugees’ valuablesin an attempt to reduce its intake of refugees. And, in recent months, the government has gone after good Samaritans who give refugees a car ride— prosecuting them as“human smugglers.”

This week, the Washington Post reported, a 70-year-old grandmother, Lise Ramslog, was on a barefoot stroll when she saw exhausted asylum-seekers walking along the highway. She ended up giving them a car ride to their Swedish destination, a decision so spontaneous that she didn’t even pause to put on a pair of shoes before heading off on the 120-mile journey. But Ramslog’s good deed resulted in her being convicted of human smuggling.

The decision “shows a fundamental lack of decency,” says Joseph Carens, a political science professor at the University of Toronto with a focus on immigration ethics. Human smuggling laws are designed to prevent people from exploiting others for profit and putting them at risk, he says, not to punish such decent behavior.

“It undermines the whole idea of a serious use of a principle of legal order and the purpose of the law,” he says.

Kieran Oberman, a fellow in politics at Edinburgh University, points out that under international law, refugees should be allowed to find places of sanctuary and, from this perspective, Danish citizens who help are doing a valuable good deed.

And yet, there are contradictions inherent to the system, he says. For one, there are no laws to help refugees arrive at their destination. “Refugees have some rights once they’ve arrived in a country, the most important of which is that they cannot be sent back to where they could be harmed,” he says. “But they have very few rights as to accessing countries.”

It’s this inconsistent legal situation that results in ethical absurdities such as Denmark’s decision to prosecute citizens who give rides to refugees. Chandran Kukathas, a professor of political theory at London School of Economics, says Denmark’s decision to prosecute is “entirely predictable” given the legal options.

He points out that smuggling, which involves consensual transport though usually for a steep price, is distinct from trafficking, where the passengers are unwilling and abused. But says that Denmark’s decision is nevertheless “absurd.”

Applied broadly, says Kukathas, the decision to prosecute in this way makes little legal, moral, or practical sense. Most illegal immigrants arrive by air and simply overstay their welcome. “Would this mean you’d call every airline that transported people in smugglers?” he asks.

This is simply an “underhand” tactic to prevent legitimate refugees from traveling through Europe, he says. And, in bringing the prosecutions, Denmark will likely have scared the public and deterred them from such acts of generosity—and thereby achieved their goal.

Watch Apple’s new robot break down an iPhone for recycling

Apple’s phones have long been criticized for being difficult to repair or customize.

for being difficult to repair or customize. They’re apparently so difficult that Apple is now using a robot to disassemble old iPhones to scrap. At a press conferenceat its Cupertino, California, headquarters yesterday (Mar. 21), Apple unveiled Liam, a robot that it’s using to recover valuable materials from old iPhones.

The oddly Irish-sounding Liam can recognize phone parts and dissemble iPhones without damaging any parts of the phone, according to Apple. The company said at the event that the robot’s arm can rescue cobalt and lithium from iPhone batteries, gold and copper from the camera element, and silver and platinum from the logic board. “In a world with limited resources, some things can’t be replaced,” Apple said in a promotional video on Liam.

Liam currently only works on iPhone 6 models, but according to Reuters, Apple plans to expand its ability to strip down other iPhone models as well. Liam can strip apart an iPhone in 11 seconds, but Reuters suggests that even when running at full capacity, it can likely only dissemble a few million iPhones a year. Apple recently saidthat it sold over 231 million iPhones in 2015 alone.

The company is apparently planning to install another Liam in Europe, Reuters reported, but it seems Apple would need a small army of Liams under its employ to recycle all the old iPhones we generate every year. Apple wasn’t immediately available to discuss its plans for Liam. A person with knowledge of the situation told Quartz that Liam’s name didn’t actually mean anything—Apple’s engineers just thought the robot looked like a Liam and the name stuck. Perhaps it’s because it has a particular set of skills.

This post has been updated with information about why the name Liam was chosen.

It’s true. Every music festival is starting to look the same

Woodstock, 1969: eccentric, iconic, utterly singular.

Fast forward nearly five decades, and music festivals are not so much historic, one-time events anymore. There’s Coachella, Lollapalooza, Eaux Claires, Warped Tour, Austin City Limits, and the literally hundreds of other festivals taking place across the world each year.

In fact, the sweaty, crowded summer festival has become the last sacred space in music. The problem is that there are only so many trendy artists to go around at one time.

We looked at the lineups for 11 major festivals that will take place across the US this summer and found a surprising amount of overlap. Below is a list of musicians slated to play at three or more of the 11 shows. If you’re thinking of dropping thousands of dollars to festival-hop this year, you may want to reconsider whether what you’ll be getting is all that unique.

(On mobile, turn your phone sideways to see full list of festivals.)

We used data from the original lineup announcements, and as festivals frequently add new acts in the months afterward, the real overlap is even higher.

Read this next: Why the sweaty, crowded summer festival became the last sacred space in music

People don’t know how tall they are, or how much they weigh, and that’s confusing obesity research

The rapid increase in obesity rates across the world over the past few decades poses a big problem.

across the world over the past few decades poses a big problem. This increase has not only proved expensive, costing nearly $275 billion annually, but there is also a social cost. The stigma associated with being overweight makes it harder for obese people to be healthy—not to mention stresses them out.

A lot of time and money has been spent over the past 30 years trying to create a better understanding of the factors behind this increase.

Take research into the relationship between where we live, and how much we weigh. Among the findings: Neighborhoods that promote walking have fewer obese residents, and having more fast-food restaurants nearby is associated with a two-plus pound weight gainfor an average-sized man.

But don’t start mapping out the healthiest places to live yet—there is also a lot of research contradicting these results. One paper foundthat having at least one fast food restaurant near your home was associated with a 50% lower likelihood of obesity. To complicate things further, various other papershave found no relationship whatsoever between neighborhoods and obesity.

Why is this research so confusing? In part, because much of it relies on people knowing their exact height and weight—which they often don’t. This has become a big problem for population-level studies of obesity.

When a lot of people get their height and weight a little wrong, it can add up to inaccurate, if not downright confusing, results.

While most people have a rough idea of their dimensions, few seem to know them exactly. Most research finds that people are off by small amounts—they overestimate their height by less than an inch, and underestimate their weight by less than 4 pounds.

This may seem like small potatoes, but unfortunately it ends up being a big problem for obesity research, which requires precise measurements. When a lot of people get their height and weight a little wrong, it can add up to inaccurate, if not downright confusing, results.

One study found that when people reported their own height and weight, obesity prevalence was underestimated by 9%, while another found that 18% of women and 22% of menwere put in the wrong BMI category when they self-reported.

It turns out that self-reported data make it really hard to discern how neighborhoods affect obesity.

Let’s say you are doing a study to figure out if having a park in your neighborhood reduces obesity. Given this self-report problem, we cannot accurately compare obesity rates in a neighborhood near a park to rates in a neighborhood that isn’t near a park. There is no way to know how neighborhoods impact obesity if you cannot evaluate obesity rates in different neighborhoods.

If we really want to know how neighborhoods affect body weight, we have overcome the costs and start collecting height and weight data directly.

Why can’t we just fix this problem by, for example, adjusting self-reported data with a corrective algorithm? If we knew exactly how wrong people are about their height and weight we probably could. Unfortunately, the problem is not that simple. Research shows that the degree to which people are off about their height and weight varies across demographics, including race, gender, and especially age.

And while we do have some ideas about the extent of these demographic discrepancies, recent research shows that people in different statesget their self-report wrong by different amounts.

The bigger problem here is that, if we cannot figure out what neighborhoods (and by extension, which built environment features) are related to obesity, we will never know what we should change to improve people’s health. For example, there is some evidence from planned communitiesin Austin, TX, that changes in the built environment, including better sidewalks and increased land-use mix, can help people lose weight. But without knowing which specific built environment factors are causing this weight loss, it’s really hard to justify rearranging the cities we live in.

It is important to note, though, that this is not a problem for all types of obesity research. Research that tries to change the way people behave or tests surgical or medicinal solutions to obesity, typically measure people’s height and weight instead of asking them for it. It’s worth noting, however, that collecting these types of direct measurements for a representative sample of the whole population can be prohibitively expensive.

Though researchers have found highly suggestiverelationships between the built environment and obesity, if we really want to know how neighborhoods affect body weight, we have to overcome the costs and start collecting height and weight data directly.

What's The Best Way To Keep Mosquitoes From Biting?

Don't get bitten by mosquitoes.

That's the advice offered to the public in virtually every article on the rapidly spreading, mosquito-borne Zika virus.

There's no arguing with the advice. Zika, once considered a relatively mild flu-like illness, has now been linked to a surge in severe birth defects in Brazil and possibly to cases of paralysis.

This story is part of our ongoing coverageof Zika virus.

But anyone who is a mosquito magnet must be asking: Can humans really keep the bloodsucking bugs at bay?

To find out how people can best protect themselves. NPR talked with researchers, many of whom spend lots of time in mosquito-infested jungles, marshes and tropical areas.

Which repellents work best to stop mosquitoes from biting?

"DEET" is the immediate one-word answer from Dr. William Reisen, professor emeritus at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis and editor of the Journal of Medical Entomology.

"DEET is the standard," agrees Dr. Mustapha Debboun, director of the mosquito control division of Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services in Houston. "All the repellents being tested are tested to see if they beat DEET."

DEET is shorthand for the chemical name N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide. It's the active ingredient in many insect repellents, which don't kill mosquitoes but keep them away.

Dr. Dan Strickmanagrees that DEET is tried and true. Strickman is with the Global Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which is a funder of NPR) and author of Prevention of Bug Bites, Stings, and Disease.

DEET appeared on store shelves in 1957. There was some early concern about its safety — speculation that it was linked to neurological problems. But recent reviews, for example a study published in June 2014 in the journal Parasites and Vectors, says, "Animal testing, observational studies and intervention trials have found no evidence of severe adverse events associated with recommended DEET use."

Other repellents work to prevent mosquitoes from biting as well.

But DEET isn't the only weapon. Products containing the active ingredients picaridin and IR 3535 are as effective, says Strickman. And repellents with any of those active ingredients are recommended as safe and effectiveby the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are widely available around the world.

Actually, Strickman gives the edge to picardin.

"Picaridin is a little more effective than DEET and seems to keep mosquitoes at a greater distance," he says. When people use DEET, mosquitoes may land on them but not bite. When they use a product containing picaridin, mosquitoes are less likely to even land. Repellents with IR 3535 are slightly less effective, Strickman says, but they don't have the strong smell of other products.

Then there is oil of lemon eucalyptus, or PMD, a natural oil extracted from the leaves and twigs of the lemon-scented gum eucalyptus plant, also recommended by the CDC. PMD is the ingredient in the oil that makes it repellent to insects. When researchers from New Mexico State University tested a variety of commercial products for their ability to repel mosquitoes, they found that a product containing lemon eucalyptus oil was about as effective and as long lasting as products containing DEET. "For some people, there's a stigma to using chemicals on their skin. They prefer a more natural product," says Stacey Rodriguez, an author of the studypublished on Oct. 5, 2015, in the Journal of Insect Science .

Not all products deliver what they promise. "We tested a vitamin B1 skin patch," says Dr. Immo Hansen, professor at the Institute of Applied Biosciences at New Mexico State University and also an author of the study comparing repellents. "We didn't find any evidence that it has any effect on mosquitoes."

One surprising finding was that a perfume, Victoria's Secret Bombshell, was a pretty good repellent. Hansen and Rodriguez said they added it to the products they tested as a positive control, believing its floral scent would attract mosquitoes. It turned out bugs hated the smell. But in addition to the problem that few people would want to douse all their exposed skin in perfume, there is another impediment to researching many cosmetics: The ingredients are secret. "It's probably composed of dozens of secret ingredients, and maybe one or two of them are repellents," says Rodriguez. "We don't know what the active agent is."

How often should you reapply a repellent?

Generally, it's a good bet to follow the manufacturer's instructions, experts said. People who will be outside for an hour or two hour should be protected with, say, a product that contains a lower concentration of DEET (about 10 percent — identified on the label). Those who will be out in the woods, or jungle or marshland, should use a higher concentration of 20 to 25 percent, and refresh every four hours or so, says Dr. Jorge Rey, interim director of the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach. "The higher the concentration, the longer it lasts," says Rey.

And again, follow manufacturer's directions on the amount used. "A lot of people think that if a little is good, a lot is better," says Reisen. "You don't have to take a bath in the stuff."

What kind of clothing helps protect against bites?

When Rey goes on research trips to highly infested areas, like the Florida Everglades, he suits up. "We wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts," he says. "If it's particularly bad, we use hats with nets coming down over the face. And we depend on repellent on exposed areas." That could mean hands, neck and face. But don't spray the face, experts say. To avoid irritating the eyes, put the repellent on hands and rub it on the face.

And don't forget the feet. Mosquitoes have quirky olfactory preferences. Many of them, especially the Aedes variety that transmits the Zika virus, love the smell of feet.

"Wearing sandals isn't a good idea," says Rodriguez. Shoes and socks are called for, and tucking pants into socks or shoes helps keep mosquitoes from getting inside clothing. She wears long pants when outdoors in mosquito territory — and definitely not yoga pants. "Spandex is very mosquito friendly. They bite through it. I wear baggier pants and long sleeved shirts, doused in DEET."

Reisen adds high-topped boots and often work gloves to the mosquito prevention outfit. "Since I'm bald as a cucumber, I also wear a hat. I wear glasses, so more and more of me is getting covered."

Strickman lived in Thailand for a while, and he would start his day armed with a spray bottle of repellent. "I'd spray my socks, the lower part of my trousers and the upper part of my shoes," he says. "The mosquito that transmits Zika has a strong tendency to bite parts of the body that are near the ground."

What else can reduce the risk of mosquito bites?

Mosquitoes can bite at any time of day, but the one that transmits Zika prefers midmorning and early evening, says Strickman. If possible, stay indoors in screened-in or air-conditioned buildings during those times.

Since these particular mosquitoes breed in standing water in containers like plant pots, old tires, buckets and trash cans, people should rid their immediate area of things that can collect water. "Swimming pools, unless they're abandoned, are OK," says Rey. The chemicals used to keep pools safe for swimming also keep mosquitoes away. It takes some close looking to find every possible breeding ground for mosquitoes. "I've seen some developing in a film of water next to a sink, or in the bottom of a glass people use to brush their teeth," says Strickman. Cleaning up all those areas of standing water can greatly reduce the number of mosquitoes. "It's up to individuals to make their own backyards safe," says Rey. And their front yards and as much of their surrounding environment as possible.

The more people do that kind of basic cleanup, the fewer mosquitoes there will be. "It may not be perfect, but you'll lower the number of mosquitoes tremendously," says Strickman.

Can you get to zero bites?

"There's no way you're going to prevent all the mosquitoes from biting, but you can reduce your chances of getting bitten," says Rodriguez.

And Rey is deeply concerned about Zika because of all that science doesn't yet know about the virus. So he stresses how important it is to use the preventive efforts we have available.

"Your chances of getting infected with some mosquito-borne illness are never zero," he says. "You don't change your lifestyle. But you take precautions."

Why The Southeast Could Become The Napa Valley Of Oysters

Capers Blades "singles on a half shell" oysters grown by farmer Dave Belanger (aka Clammer Dave) in Capers Inlet, S.C. David Malosh/Bloomsbury hide caption toggle caption David Malosh/Bloomsbury
Capers Blades "singles on a half shell" oysters grown by farmer Dave Belanger (aka Clammer Dave) in Capers Inlet, S.C. David Malosh/Bloomsbury
Oysters are the sea's version of fine wine: Their taste varies with the water they grow in.

Oysters are the sea's version of fine wine: Their taste varies with the water they grow in. And slow-growing oysters from northern waters — like the briny Wellfleets of Massachusetts and the sweet, mild Kumamotos of the Pacific Northwest — are among the most coveted.

That may be changing now. An oyster renaissance in the Southeastern U.S. is underway — from Virginia all the way down to Florida's Apalachicola Bay. The region is adopting the aquaculture that restored a decimated oyster industry in the north, and it has led to a huge boost in oyster production.

"The oyster industry is now casting its eye down the Southeast coast and seeing paradise," says Rowan Jacobsen, author of The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste And Temptationto be published in October. "More than 6,000 miles of shoreline unmarred by a single metropolis and all ripe for growing oysters."

Americans already eat roughly 2.5 billion oysters every year, according to the Oyster Recovery Partnership. Around 85 percent of those oysters are from the Atlantic coast, and most start as hatchery-reared seeds that are "farmed" and raised in the ocean to be the plump, glistening "singles on a half shell" that oyster lovers prize. Oysters on the half shell also sell for three times as much as a wild oyster.

Southern states such as Georgia and the Carolinas have until now been known for wild oyster reefs that cluster in fantastical moonscapes. They are the result of "spat" — free swimming oyster larvae — that settle on other oysters and grow upon them. The clusters need to be hammered and pried apart in order to be served as succulent singles. That extra work, along with the fact that in warm months southern oysters are more susceptible to an infection called Vibrio vulnificus , has limited their appeal.

Aquaculture has changed that, and Virginia leads the way. The state turned to Standish Allen of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, to develop a triploid oyster from the common Crassostrea virginica , one that was already native to Virginia's waters.

Triploids are grown in hatcheries and then "tended" in the ocean. They are widely used today, because they have three sex chromosomes instead of two, which renders them sterile — allowing them to put all their energy into growing. As a result, they reach plump maturity in less than two years (as opposed to a wild oyster's three years). They are the "seedless watermelons" of the seafood world.

Cultivated oysters live in protective cages or floats, but they still attract marine life, from grass shrimp to crabs, that benefit the ecosystem. And, since every oyster filters and purifies 50 gallons of water a day— while feasting on algae and removing organic and inorganic particles from the water — this is one food that actually improves the ecosystem.

Chef Curtis Hackaday of 1703 Restaurant and Cateringin Winston-Salem, N.C., tops Chadwick Creek Oysters with soy pickled garlic mignonette, fresh wasabi and puffed brown rice. Courtesy of Curtis Hackaday/Chadwick Creek Oysters hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of Curtis Hackaday/Chadwick Creek Oysters

Chef Curtis Hackaday of 1703 Restaurant and Cateringin Winston-Salem, N.C., tops Chadwick Creek Oysters with soy pickled garlic mignonette, fresh wasabi and puffed brown rice.

Courtesy of Curtis Hackaday/Chadwick Creek Oysters

In 2014, Virginia shellfish farmers sold nearly 40 million oysters, generating around $17 million in revenue, according to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The success — and praise from the culinary world — has been so resounding that in 2015, Governor Terry McAuliffe launched the Virginia Oyster Trail, modeled after the state's popular wine trail. The Oyster Trail tour covers seven distinct geographic regions, each producing oysters with a unique flavor, from the sweet mollusk magic of the Rappahannock River to the salty tastes of the Eastern shore.

"Just like the chardonnays of California, what you taste on the Oyster Trail is expressive of each locale," says Ryan Croxton, who co-owns the Rappahannock River Oyster Companyin Topping, Va., with his cousin Travis.

Virginia's success has inspired its neighbors down the coast; now both North and South Carolina have taken up the oyster challenge. The Shellfish Research Hatcheryat the University of North Carolina in Wilmington is developing triploid oysters from wild stock that naturally thrive in North Carolina waters. "The demand is incredible. I can't keep up with it. We are growing 2 million oysters a year right now and selling every last one," says former Marine Frank Roberts, who started Lady's Island Oyster Farmin Beaufort, S.C., in 2007.

Curtis Hackaday, chef at 1703 Restaurant and Cateringin Winston-Salem, N.C., says he's been inspired by the new tide of regional oysters. "I wanted our restaurant to be known for odd but delicious oyster recipes," says Hackaday. Lately he's been serving them with pineapple, pickled garlic, fresh wasabi and puffed ground rice. "We think of ways to add spicy, sweet, and crunchy to go along with the briny of the oyster."

A low country oyster roast featured in The Essential Oyster , a book by Rowan Jacobsen to be published by Bloomsbury in October 2016. David Malosh/Bloomsbury hide caption

toggle caption David Malosh/Bloomsbury

A low country oyster roast featured in The Essential Oyster , a book by Rowan Jacobsen to be published by Bloomsbury in October 2016.

David Malosh/Bloomsbury

Georgia has just launched its first oyster hatchery on Skidaway Island near Savannah, according to Thomas Bliss, director of the Shellfish Research Laboratoryat the University of Georgia. "The hatchery produced 200,000 seedlings in 2015," which were handed out to 10 different oyster growers to raise in heavy mesh bags laid in the coastal waters, he says. "We hope to be producing five million a year by 2018."

Georgia is interested in pursuing the kind of floating aquaculture cages that rest in the water (rather than the muddy bottom), similar to those used farther north. It is called "farming off the bottom," and allows farmers to keep the oysters clean and safe, and to shake them in their cages to prevent them from clumping together. In addition, oysters can be grown in saltier waters that would usually attract predators, giving that mix of salty and sweet that is so prized.

Florida just changed its laws to allow this kind of oyster farming. The state already farms a lot of clams, and is doubling down on oysters after drought and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill depleted its abundant oyster stock.

Author Rowan Jacobsen says he once called the Southeast "the sleeping giant of the oyster world." But now, he says, "the giant isn't sleeping anymore. With the warm south's longer season and faster growth, they can undercut northern producers on price, and they are poised to become a staple at oyster bars across North America."

Jill Neimark is an Atlanta-based writer whose work has been featured in Discover, Scientific American, Science, Nautilus, Aeon, Psychology Today and The New York Times.

Jaap Van Zweden Named Next Music Director Of The New York Philharmonic

Jaap van Zweden Marco Borggreve hide caption toggle caption Marco Borggreve
Jaap van Zweden Marco Borggreve
The nation's oldest orchestra, the New York Philharmonic , announced the appointment of its 26th music director Wednesday.

, announced the appointment of its 26th music director Wednesday. Following in the path of Gustav Mahler, Arturo Toscaniniand Leonard Bernsteinis a 55-year-old Dutch conductor: Jaap van Zweden. (That's pronounced "Yahp fahn ZVAY-den.")

He will succeed music director Alan Gilbert, who announced his departure last February. The vacancy at the New York Philharmonic was also the last open position at a major orchestra in the United States — in the last few years, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra have all hired new music directors or principal conductors. Van Zweden's five-year contract in New York marks the end to an era of head-hunting among prominent American orchestras.

Van Zweden, who begins his tenure in the fall of 2018, is a violinist by training. At the age of 19, he was the youngest concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.

YouTube

It was there that when one of the Philharmonic's most legendary conductors, Leonard Bernstein, asked van Zweden to pick up the baton.

"He was actually conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Berlin and he was actually very anxious to go into the hall and to listen to the orchestra himself," van Zweden recalls. "So he asked me to conduct and I never conducted and he said, 'You have to conduct, you have to do it.' He put me in front of the orchestra. And so I conducted there for the first time, actually. And then he said, 'That was pretty bad, but I saw something there. Take it seriously.' And he encouraged me to really become a conductor," van Zweden says.

He went on to conduct orchestras in the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Dallas, and to guest conduct the New York Philharmonic.

The fact that he spent 18 years playing in an orchestra appeals to New York Philharmonic principal violist Cynthia Phelps.

"We're thrilled to work with Jaap. He's such a terrific musician," Phelps says. "And we are so looking forward to making music with this man and starting our new adventure."

And it will be an adventure. The Philharmonic's home at Lincoln Center is slated to be closed for a complete renovation in 2019. The orchestra's president, Matthew VanBesien, says it will be part of the new music director's job to hold the ensemble together as it wanders from venue to venue across the city.

"Jaap's all in," VanBesien says. "You know, everything he does, whether it's playing the violin, whether it's conducting, whether it's working with an orchestra, whether it's engaging the public. He doesn't do anything in half measures."

"We know that his wheelhouse, and one of his great passions, is for the late romantic repertoire — so for Wagner, for Mahler," VanBesien continues. "They're in the New York Philharmonic wheelhouse as well. But I think he's got a much broader spectrum of interest than I think maybe people can appreciate at this point."

But first, everyone needs to get used to his name: Jaap van Zweden.

Avrotros Klassiek YouTube

Why The Southeast Could Become The Napa Valley Of Oysters

Capers Blades "singles on a half shell" oysters grown by farmer Dave Belanger (aka Clammer Dave) in Capers Inlet, S.C. David Malosh/Bloomsbury hide caption toggle caption David Malosh/Bloomsbury
Capers Blades "singles on a half shell" oysters grown by farmer Dave Belanger (aka Clammer Dave) in Capers Inlet, S.C. David Malosh/Bloomsbury
Oysters are the sea's version of fine wine: Their taste varies with the water they grow in.

Oysters are the sea's version of fine wine: Their taste varies with the water they grow in. And slow-growing oysters from northern waters — like the briny Wellfleets of Massachusetts and the sweet, mild Kumamotos of the Pacific Northwest — are among the most coveted.

That may be changing now. An oyster renaissance in the Southeastern U.S. is underway — from Virginia all the way down to Florida's Apalachicola Bay. The region is adopting the aquaculture that restored a decimated oyster industry in the north, and it has led to a huge boost in oyster production.

"The oyster industry is now casting its eye down the Southeast coast and seeing paradise," says Rowan Jacobsen, author of The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste And Temptationto be published in October. "More than 6,000 miles of shoreline unmarred by a single metropolis and all ripe for growing oysters."

Americans already eat roughly 2.5 billion oysters every year, according to the Oyster Recovery Partnership. Around 85 percent of those oysters are from the Atlantic coast, and most start as hatchery-reared seeds that are "farmed" and raised in the ocean to be the plump, glistening "singles on a half shell" that oyster lovers prize. Oysters on the half shell also sell for three times as much as a wild oyster.

Southern states such as Georgia and the Carolinas have until now been known for wild oyster reefs that cluster in fantastical moonscapes. They are the result of "spat" — free swimming oyster larvae — that settle on other oysters and grow upon them. The clusters need to be hammered and pried apart in order to be served as succulent singles. That extra work, along with the fact that in warm months southern oysters are more susceptible to an infection called Vibrio vulnificus , has limited their appeal.

Aquaculture has changed that, and Virginia leads the way. The state turned to Standish Allen of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, to develop a triploid oyster from the common Crassostrea virginica , one that was already native to Virginia's waters.

Triploids are grown in hatcheries and then "tended" in the ocean. They are widely used today, because they have three sex chromosomes instead of two, which renders them sterile — allowing them to put all their energy into growing. As a result, they reach plump maturity in less than two years (as opposed to a wild oyster's three years). They are the "seedless watermelons" of the seafood world.

Cultivated oysters live in protective cages or floats, but they still attract marine life, from grass shrimp to crabs, that benefit the ecosystem. And, since every oyster filters and purifies 50 gallons of water a day— while feasting on algae and removing organic and inorganic particles from the water — this is one food that actually improves the ecosystem.

Chef Curtis Hackaday of 1703 Restaurant and Cateringin Winston-Salem, N.C., tops Chadwick Creek Oysters with soy pickled garlic mignonette, fresh wasabi and puffed brown rice. Courtesy of Curtis Hackaday/Chadwick Creek Oysters hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of Curtis Hackaday/Chadwick Creek Oysters

Chef Curtis Hackaday of 1703 Restaurant and Cateringin Winston-Salem, N.C., tops Chadwick Creek Oysters with soy pickled garlic mignonette, fresh wasabi and puffed brown rice.

Courtesy of Curtis Hackaday/Chadwick Creek Oysters

In 2014, Virginia shellfish farmers sold nearly 40 million oysters, generating around $17 million in revenue, according to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The success — and praise from the culinary world — has been so resounding that in 2015, Governor Terry McAuliffe launched the Virginia Oyster Trail, modeled after the state's popular wine trail. The Oyster Trail tour covers seven distinct geographic regions, each producing oysters with a unique flavor, from the sweet mollusk magic of the Rappahannock River to the salty tastes of the Eastern shore.

"Just like the chardonnays of California, what you taste on the Oyster Trail is expressive of each locale," says Ryan Croxton, who co-owns the Rappahannock River Oyster Companyin Topping, Va., with his cousin Travis.

Virginia's success has inspired its neighbors down the coast; now both North and South Carolina have taken up the oyster challenge. The Shellfish Research Hatcheryat the University of North Carolina in Wilmington is developing triploid oysters from wild stock that naturally thrive in North Carolina waters. "The demand is incredible. I can't keep up with it. We are growing 2 million oysters a year right now and selling every last one," says former Marine Frank Roberts, who started Lady's Island Oyster Farmin Beaufort, S.C., in 2007.

Curtis Hackaday, chef at 1703 Restaurant and Cateringin Winston-Salem, N.C., says he's been inspired by the new tide of regional oysters. "I wanted our restaurant to be known for odd but delicious oyster recipes," says Hackaday. Lately he's been serving them with pineapple, pickled garlic, fresh wasabi and puffed ground rice. "We think of ways to add spicy, sweet, and crunchy to go along with the briny of the oyster."

A low country oyster roast featured in The Essential Oyster , a book by Rowan Jacobsen to be published by Bloomsbury in October 2016. David Malosh/Bloomsbury hide caption

toggle caption David Malosh/Bloomsbury

A low country oyster roast featured in The Essential Oyster , a book by Rowan Jacobsen to be published by Bloomsbury in October 2016.

David Malosh/Bloomsbury

Georgia has just launched its first oyster hatchery on Skidaway Island near Savannah, according to Thomas Bliss, director of the Shellfish Research Laboratoryat the University of Georgia. "The hatchery produced 200,000 seedlings in 2015," which were handed out to 10 different oyster growers to raise in heavy mesh bags laid in the coastal waters, he says. "We hope to be producing five million a year by 2018."

Georgia is interested in pursuing the kind of floating aquaculture cages that rest in the water (rather than the muddy bottom), similar to those used farther north. It is called "farming off the bottom," and allows farmers to keep the oysters clean and safe, and to shake them in their cages to prevent them from clumping together. In addition, oysters can be grown in saltier waters that would usually attract predators, giving that mix of salty and sweet that is so prized.

Florida just changed its laws to allow this kind of oyster farming. The state already farms a lot of clams, and is doubling down on oysters after drought and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill depleted its abundant oyster stock.

Author Rowan Jacobsen says he once called the Southeast "the sleeping giant of the oyster world." But now, he says, "the giant isn't sleeping anymore. With the warm south's longer season and faster growth, they can undercut northern producers on price, and they are poised to become a staple at oyster bars across North America."

Jill Neimark is an Atlanta-based writer whose work has been featured in Discover, Scientific American, Science, Nautilus, Aeon, Psychology Today and The New York Times.

Couples Who Use Contraception Have More Sex

Maria Fabrizio for NPR
Maria Fabrizio for NPR
Folks in the field of family planning research are experts at discussing all sorts of uncomfortable things — teen pregnancy, abortion, maternal death.

Folks in the field of family planning research are experts at discussing all sorts of uncomfortable things — teen pregnancy, abortion, maternal death. So what's weird is that there's one issue no one is really talking about, says Suzanne Bell, MPH, a doctoral student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

That forgotten topic? Sex.

To encourage some discourse on intercourse, she teamed up with Bloomberg School professor David Bishai, a physician and health economist, to look at how contraceptive use impacts "coital frequency" among women who are married or are living with a partner. In other words, what effect does contraception have on how much couples are, um, coupling?

"These are real couples and real people. Better understanding their preferences helps us meet their needs," explains Bell, who presented their findings Wednesday at the International Conference on Family Planningin Nusa Dua, Indonesia.

Bell and Bishai analyzed survey questionnaires completed since 2005 by more than 210,000 women. The findings about the number having intercourse in the last four weeks surprised her: It was 90 percent of those using contraception versus 72 percent of those who were not.

These statistics come from 47 low- and middle-income countries, and based on how consistent the results were, Bell doesn't suspect the results would be much different anywhere in the world.

"Some countries are predisposed to having more sex," Bell says. (The top spot goes to Jordan, where 94 percent of women surveyed said they'd had sex in the previous four weeks. Benin, where just 61 percent had, was at the bottom.) And the association between contraception and intercourse frequency isn't statistically significant across the board — in Malawi, there was "just barely" a link, Bell says. There wasn't a single country in the study, however, where the numbers were reversed.

There's an obvious reason, Bell says, why couples using contraception would be spending more time in the bedroom: "It can separate sex from unwanted pregnancy."

But plenty about this link between sexual activity and contraception isn't as clear, Bell notes. Women may not be using contraception because they've have a bad experience with side effects, or they have misconceptions about what it does to their bodies. Or maybe they're not having sex because their partners are migratory workers who aren't around.

Another possibility, Bell says, is it's not the women's choice. Male partners, particularly in patriarchal societies, often have the final say. If women want to use contraception, they can only use it clandestinely. That's why, Bell says, some speculate that birth control injections that last for three months are most preferred method in sub-Saharan Africa.

So while it may be tempting for public health workers to broadcast this finding as a "use contraception, have more sex" message, Bell thinks more research is needed. If the availability of more contraception indeed leads to more sex, the next step could involve studying what kind of impact that might have on society.

"Sexual activity and intimacy are great for having healthy, happy relationships," Bell says. "Personally, I'm happier when I have more sex. I'm more pleasurable to be around."

"It's interesting to think about level of risk, and cumulative risk," Bell says. She wonders whether women not using contraception — and perhaps relying on less frequent intercourse instead — fully understand the possibilities of pregnancy.

Even in the U.S., women with unintended pregnancies report their reason for not using contraception was because they didn't think they could get pregnant," she adds.

Sounds like that's another good reason to talk about sex.

What Are You Afraid Of In 2016? Globetrotters Share Their Fears

Editor's note: The original version of this post contained a map illustration intended to represent the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, which poll respondents identified as the region presenting the greatest risk to travelers and expatriates in 2016.

The original version of this post contained a map illustration intended to represent the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, which poll respondents identified as the region presenting the greatest risk to travelers and expatriates in 2016. The map had a number of errors. The countries of Cyprus, Israel and Turkey were either not shown or not labeled; the label for "Palestine" should have read "Palestinian territories"; and Afghanistan and Pakistan were mistakenly included. NPR apologizes for these errors.

Remember that movie , Around the World in 80 Days.It made it seem like traveling the world was just a big fun adventure.

Welcome to 2016. World travelers have to weigh the risks of terrorism and disease, not to mention traffic accidents, visa problems and pollution.

A new poll asked 415 world travelers about the risks they see. Those surveyed all work for U.S. companies in the fields of health care, oil and gas, mining, nonprofit work, aviation and for government agencies as well. (The survey was conducted by International SOS, which provides emergency medical assistance to companies whose employees work and travel abroad, including media organizations like NPR.)

Now it is true that a perception of risk is just that, a perception. But the answers do give us a window into what world travelers worry about.

Seventy-one percent of the respondents, for example, thought travel risks will increase in 2016 compared to previous years. And the last two years have seen the Ebola epidemic and terrible terrorist acts in Europe and elsewhere. Only one in 10 thought risks wouldn't increase.

Let me just say: Yikes! Also, if you need to reach me, I'll be hiding under my bed.

Here are the responses from the poll takers — and what Dr. Myles Druckman, Senior Vice President of Medical Services for International SOS, had to say about their answers.

The fact that food poisoning is No. 1 isn't a surprise to Druckman. "We have a broad range of people traveling, and the vast majority are not traveling to potentially Ebola-affected countries." The one thing all travelers have in common is that they eat and drink — and are nervous about encountering germs that can cause food poisoning. But he does say, "Ebola ranks surprisingly high from my perspective [considering that it's] almost extinguished." The poll was conducted before the rising concern about Zika virusand its possible link to birth defects. "As Zika continues to expand, everyone is looking at their policies now," says Druckman.

The answers make it look like "Asia is the safest place in the world," says Druckman. The explanation for the relatively high concerns about Europe can be found in the answers to the next question, where "acts of terror" led the list of safety and security threats.

Why isn't "air quality" more of a concern? "For travelers, it's less of an issue because they know they're going to be in and out," says Druckman. "They can handle three, four, five days of bad air quality. For persons living there, it's a major issue. For travelers it's more of an inconvenience."

Goats and Soda readers who travel: Tell us your biggest travel concerns for 2016 in a comment below or tweet them to @ NPRGoatsandSoda.

When Warm Weather Refugees First Met Snow: Readers, Share Your Stories!

Here at Goats and Soda headquarters, we were discussing the huge snowstorm expected to hit D.C. this weekend when we remembered the one thing you won't find in much of the developing world (or the "Global South," as some call it): snow.

When my family first moved to the U.S. from Mumbai, India, the whole concept of snow boggled my 8-year-old mind. Little bits of ice falling from the sky? Would it feel like fluffy cotton or like sharp chips of shaved ice?

The first time I got to touch snow in Lake Tahoe, Calif. — it was pure glee.

That brings us to this joyous video of a Syrian family tobogganing after finding refuge in Canada. The clip was uploaded by David McNab — one of the co-sponsors of the Syrian family in Petersborough, Canada — and it's going viral, with more than 100,000 views.

YouTube

McNab, his wife, Kristy Hiltz, and 12 other Canadians pooled their resources to bring Amal Alkhalaf and her children Dalya, 8, Ansam, 13, and Ibrahim, 10, to Petersborough. This month, Maclean's magazine profiledthe family and its Canadian sponsors. The kids had never touched snow until they arrived in Petersborough last month.

Share your story: Did you grow up in a country where it never snowed?

If so, tell us what it felt like the first time you saw snow. Share your experience on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, with the hashtag #SnowOuttaMyElementby Monday, 9 a.m. ET, and we'll feature our favorites in a photo roundup on this blog next week. If you have a photo of your first time in the snow, share that, too!

Or, use a smartphone app or another device to record a voice memo and send it to nprcrowdsource@npr.orgwith the subject line "#SnowOuttaMyElement." Include your full name, age and hometown in the email. Your story could feature on-air!

P.S.: For iPhone users, WNYC provides this great step-by-step guide on how to record and send a voice memo — just remember to send your recording to nprcrowdsource@npr.org.

At CES, New Robots Deliver More Coos Than Utility

Robots were popular on the big screen this holiday season.

Robots were popular on the big screen this holiday season. The newly released film Star Wars: The Force Awakens brought us more of C-3PO, R2-D2 — those sweet and capable robots that have enchanted us for decades — and the debut of BB-8.

At this year's big consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, known as CES, there were more robots on display than ever. Some even looked like the Star Wars characters.

Is there a robot in your future? pic.twitter.com/2FbkprfC8N

— Laura Sydell (@Sydell) January 6, 2016

The most promising by appearance was Pepper. It has humanoid features — eyes, arms, a mouth. Pepper can even be a little self-conscious.

"I'm just about 4 feet tall and a little under 62 pounds," Pepper told me in a sweet voice. Then Pepper paused and made a connection between itself and a human.

"Aha!" said the robot. "Speaking of height, according to my calculations I am 0.6 times the height of Michael Jordan. Sad."

Pepper rolls around on wheels covered by a plastic skirt and has sensors so it doesn't hit anything.

"Just think what a robot like me could do for you," it told me.

I was curious what a robot like Pepper could do for me.

It danced to some electronic music, waving its arms in the air and sticking its butt out. (Though it did not twerk.)

But, the truth is, it's not that clear what Pepper really can do for me.

"Today, if you want to have Pepper, it's because it's fun," said Rodolphe Gelin, chief scientific officer at Aldebaran, the Japanese-owned company based in Paris that makes Pepper.

Aldebaran has been in robotics for more than a decade — a lot of its robots are used by researchers and educators. And more recently shops in Europe and Asia have used them to greet customers.

"Today we think that the robot is ready for this kind of application," said Gelin, "welcoming people, having a simple dialogue, giving some information."

Gelin says Pepper has helped draw customers into shops — but at a cost. This year the robot will be available in the U.S. for about $25,000, and for now only to businesses.

Yet the amount of space given to personal robots at CES is growing every year. Most are like Pepper — cute, but a little unsatisfying.

Take BOCCO. It looks humanoid but is only about a half-foot tall. BOCCO helps parents and children stay in touch. They can record messages on their smartphone and send them to BOCCO, which plays them back. It also can alert parents by sending a signal when the door of a child's room opens.

BOCCO the robot. Yukai Engineering hide caption

toggle caption Yukai Engineering

BOCCO the robot.

Yukai Engineering

The other robots on the floor of CES could also do a few tasks — one washed windows, another one folded clothes (though not very well) — and there was of course a vacuum-cleaner robot.

Maryanna Saenko, an analyst with Lux Research, says what's happening is that engineers at many different companies are solving one problem at a time.

"The challenge is that as people solve these, they immediately want to create a market out of them," Saenko says. "So we get these little stepwise solutions in the robotic space where each little robot completes a little task."

Saenko says the big problem is battery life.

"[The robots] are constantly computing what's going on in their space," she says. " 'Who am I looking at? What am I trying to interact with?' There's a lot of computational challenges that they're trying to solve, and so that's actually really energy-intensive."

Saenko says we are slowly getting closer to making it all work. But buying a robot at this point is more like buying one of the early Apple computers — it's great for people who want to get in early. For the time being, the best personal robots are going to remain in a galaxy far, far away.

China Blames Goats For 2015 Drop In Birth Rate

Chinese folk wisdom says that monkeys are cuter than goats, but this photo of a Chinese goat would seem to prove that the opposite is true.

Frederic J. Brown /AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Frederic J. Brown /AFP/Getty Images

Chinese folk wisdom says that monkeys are cuter than goats, but this photo of a Chinese goat would seem to prove that the opposite is true.

Frederic J. Brown /AFP/Getty Images

Monkeys are clever and cute — or so the conventional wisdom in China has it. And therefore people see the Year of the Monkey, which begins on Feb. 8, as an auspicious time for making babies.

The Year of the Goat, however, which is now coming to an end, has the opposite reputation. "Nine out of 10 babies born in the Year of the Goat are unlucky," goes an old Chinese saying. (While some translations have it as "goat," others render it as "sheep" or "ram.")

This week, China's National Health and Family Planning Commission cited these folk beliefs as part of an explanation for a decline in births in 2015. According to the latest statistics, 16.5 million babies were born in China last year, some 320,000 fewer than in 2014. The commission's reasoning: People decided not to have babies because "Year of the Goat" babies are linked to bad luck.

Some observers don't know what's worse, the "monkey business" or the "scapegoating."

"Such a creative use of superstition," sniped an editorialin the official English-language China Daily newspaper, "neither helps [people] understand the real demographic challenges nor adds credibility to the estimate for population growth."

"A more thorough and serious review of the latest population changes is needed," the editorial continued, "to allow the country to respond appropriately to prevent a demographic crisis from happening."

The Beijing Times newspaper added that official statistics clearly show that the decline in births is due not to zodiac signs but to a decrease in the number of Chinese women of childbearing age.

This past October, China officially scrapped its so-called one-child policy, allowing most families to now have two children.

Many population experts say the change is too late to prevent a labor shortage and aging crisis.

They see the change as a face-saving measureby bureaucrats who are unwilling to admit that the one-child policy was unnecessary in the first place and that all remaining population controls should be scrapped.

Adding to concerns are statisticsthat China's economy last year grew at its slowest annual pace in 25 years.

And China's working-age population registered a record-breaking decline of nearly 5 million people in 2015.

China's family planning bureaucracy has always argued that the country's population controls, which began in 1980, helped reduce the number of mouths to feed and thereby sped up the country's development.

They predicted that there would be more births last year, because in 2013, family planning policies were amended to allow couples to have a second child if either parent was a second child. But these estimates, it turned out, were off the mark.

The commission predicts that the number of newborns will climb to between 17.5 and 21 million annually for the next five years.

China's population is expected to peak in 2025 at around 1.4 billion, and then decline.

Responding To Nuclear Test, S. Korea Cranks Up The K-Pop

A South Korean soldier stands next to loudspeakers near the border with North Korea on Jan.

A South Korean soldier stands next to loudspeakers near the border with North Korea on Jan. 8. South Korea responded to the North's latest nuclear test by resuming the broadcasts that include news, criticism of the North Korean regime and pop music. Lim Tae-hoon/AP hide caption

toggle caption Lim Tae-hoon/AP

A South Korean soldier stands next to loudspeakers near the border with North Korea on Jan. 8. South Korea responded to the North's latest nuclear test by resuming the broadcasts that include news, criticism of the North Korean regime and pop music.

Lim Tae-hoon/AP

On the South Korean side of its 151-mile border with North Korea, banks of loudspeakers are back on, blaring propaganda. It's the South's response to the North's nuclear testlast week. The speakers, which broadcast everything from news to K-pop, come on at random times, often at night, and can reach as far as 12 miles into North Korea.

"I can't really make out what they're saying," says South Korean Nam Tae-woo, 83, who lives in a village just outside the demilitarized zone in the town of Paju.

The speakers do seem to annoy North Korea. When they were last turned on, in August, North Korea was so incensed it shifted into a self-declared "quasi-state of war."

Nam Tae-woo, 83, is a South Korean villager in Paju, inside the demilitarized zone. He says he has been hearing the South Korean loudspeaker broadcasts late at night. Elise Hu/NPR hide caption

toggle caption Elise Hu/NPR

Nam Tae-woo, 83, is a South Korean villager in Paju, inside the demilitarized zone. He says he has been hearing the South Korean loudspeaker broadcasts late at night.

Elise Hu/NPR

"They say things critical of the [North Korean] regime, and these are leaders that are treated like deities. In many ways, it's what the leadership's legitimacy is staked on," says Nat Kretchun, who analyzes North Korean information flows for InterMedia, based in Washington, D.C.

He says the loudspeakers are better understood as political actions rather than something that can change hearts and minds.

"It's really hard to know what a proportional response to a nuclear test is, if you're South Korea," says Kretchun. "For your own populace, for the rest of the world, you want to do something that is looking like you are responding. And they found that turning on these loudspeakers really elicits a lot of intense reaction on the North Korean side, which at least gives the illusion of effectiveness on some level."

Politics And Psychology

Despite skepticism about their effectiveness, the South Korean government defends the broadcasts as an effective tool in psychological warfare.

"Truth is the most powerful weapon toward a totalitarian regime," South Korean President Park Geun-hye said at a news conference Wednesday.

"When we listen to the accounts of North Korean defectors, the soldiers who were placed on the front line, they said at first they didn't believe the propaganda broadcasts, but later they did believe it, and that was the reason for them to come to South Korea," she said.

Related Stories

The speakers on the inter-Korean border started in 1962 and didn't stop until 2004. After an 11-year break, South Korea restarted them last August in response to border land mines maiming two South Korean soldiers. A few weeks of escalating tensions followed, until the two Koreas brokered a deal to stop the broadcasts — unless something violated the deal.

"The loudspeakers are supposed to resume if North Korea creates an abnormal situation," said South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok. "North Korea's fourth nuclear test is an abnormal situation."

North Korea's most recent test follows earlier tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

The Defense Ministry isn't saying specifically where to find their banks of speakers, or what time the broadcasts go on. But if you can get close enough at the right moment, you can hear the muddy messages, which sound like they're coming from rickety drive-thru speakers.

A Blast Of K-Pop

The content includes news broadcasts, weather updates, digs at the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a little entertainment to show the world has changed, according to the Defense Ministry.

The song selections this time around include a traditional Korean song, "Living 100 Years," K-pop hits like " Bang Bang Bang" by Big Bang, and girl group GFriend's take on "Me Gustas Tu."

The K-pop is intended to show North Korea that the world has modernized, the Defense Ministry says.

For villagers like the octogenarian Nam, the latest loudspeaker fight doesn't give him much hope he'll ever see his childhood home again.

"I'm exhausted by the wait to return home," he says. "My home is across the river."

Nam is originally from a place that's now part of North Korea. Given the decades of divide, those propaganda messages are reaching farther across the border than he can.

Haeryun Kang contributed to this story.

GHD Is Not An AFZ. HTH You Understand What They Mean!

Leif Parsons for NPR
Leif Parsons for NPR
One thing we've learned here at Goats and Soda is that the world of global health and development is swimming in abbreviations/initialisms.

One thing we've learned here at Goats and Soda is that the world of global health and development is swimming in abbreviations/initialisms. We try not to use them in the blog because let's face it, dear readers, if you saw a story about NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) trying to improve BHS (basic health services), you'd probably click over to a video of RCC (really cute cats).

Global health and development abbreviations do have their defenders. They are a convenient shorthand for people who work in the field.

Although not everyone is a fan.

"I can't stand acronyms in general," says William Savedoff, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development(CGD). When a report comes with a one-to-two-page list of all the abbreviations a reader will encounter, he says, well maybe that's just a few abbreviations too many.

Abbreviations and acronyms can also dehumanize. Health gurus worked hard to come up with a phrase to describe people who have AIDS. The phrase "people living with HIV/AIDS" was used to get away from the stigma of calling them AIDS victims, says Savedoff. Then the phrase was turned into PLWHA. "It seems so impersonal," he says.

Yet behind every acronym and abbreviation there is a story. So we thought, maybe it'd be enlightening to dive into a soup of those that float about the world of GHD (oh, sorry, global health and development). Because once you understand what the abbreviations mean, you do understand a bit more about the issues of the day.

Here's a sampling. Please, people of the GHD world, share with us your favorites (and unfavorites).

BRT: Bus rapid transit. In developing countries (as well as the rest of the world), the goal of BRT is to build urban bus systems that get people to stop driving cars. The result is less congestion and less pollution. But BRT doesn't just mean putting a bunch of buses on the street. BRT aims to keep buses moving quickly and efficiently. To speed up the process, passengers pay their fare before boarding. Boarding platforms rise up to meet the bus so passengers don't have to climb up stairs. And the city streets will be reallocated so the BRT buses have their own lanes and maybe even their own traffic lights. BRT started in Brazil in the 1970s and has spread to some 200 cities, carrying 33 million people a day. Daily ridership and kilometers of routes are tallied by country at brtdata.org

COD Aid: That's "cash on delivery" aid, in which the funds are handed over if a country can present independently verified proof of progress in achieving a goal — say, reduced infant mortality. The recipient country has the flexibility to figure out the best way to meet the goal. The concept was developed by CGD (the Center for Global Development, in case you're not remembering what the abbreviation stands for) and is often used in the health sector — paying TB patients to stick with a drug program, for example, or paying parents to take their children to the doctor for checkups.

ITN: It stands for "insecticide-treated net," which can ward off malaria-bearing mosquitoes. A better version of an ITN is an LLIN(long-lasting insecticide-treated net), which some companies have developed. According to the CDC (sorry — that's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), these nets can "maintain effective levels of insecticide for at least 2 years, even after repeated washing."

LICs, LMICs, UMICs and HICs: These are the four World Bankcategories for countries based on gross national income per person: $1,045 or less for low-income countries (LICs); more than $1,045 and less than $12,736 for the middle, with $4,125 the dividing point between lower-middle (LMICs) and upper-middle (UMICs); and $12,736 or more for HICs.

MDR-TB: Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is caused when patients don't adhere to the strict six-month drug regimennormally used to treat the disease. In covering MDR-TB for our blog, reporter Jason Beaubien wrote: "It's one of the most difficult diseases in the world to cure." The antibiotics prescribed for MDR-TB can bring on nausea, headaches and exhaustion and can destroy the patient's hearing. Even more difficult to fight is XDR-TB, extensively drug resistant tuberculosis.

NCDs: Noncommunicable diseases, like diabetes and heart disease. These two diseases are on the rise worldwide — and in the developing world. That's partly because communicable diseases are declining there so people are living longer, partly because people are becoming more Westernized, which means they're less physically active and their diets are changing for the worse.

PEPFAR: The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief was initially a five-year, $15 billion effort by the U.S. to save the lives of HIV/AIDS patients, especially in Africa and the Caribbean. President Bush called for action in 2003; the PEPFAR name was created in 2004. PEPFAR was reauthorized in 2008. In fiscal year 2015, PEPFAR's accomplishments included antiretroviral (aka ARV) drugs for 9.5 million men, women and children and HIV testing and counseling for 68.2 million.

PPFP: Postpartum family planning. The goal is to help women who have had a child and wish to prevent unintended pregnancies in the year ahead or delay having more children. In some countries, PPFP counseling sessions are integrated into postpartum care, with the husband in attendance.

PMTCT: Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Mother-to-child transmission is responsible for more than 90 percent of infections among infants and young children. The risk of transmission during pregnancy is 20 to 45 percent, but with antiretroviral drugs the rate of transmission can be cut to less than 2 percent.

VMMC: Voluntary male medical circumcision. It's a term used in the effort to prevent HIV transmission. The risk of female-to-male sexual transmission is reduced by about 60 percent when men undergo VCCM. WHO (that's the World Health Organization) recommends the procedure as a way of reducing HIV infections. A current goalis to hit 80 percent coverage among men in 14 sub-Saharan countries, which could potentially prevent 3.4 million HIV infections. A reportissued by WHO this year cites a "remarkable expansion" to nearly 9.1 million VCCMs in these "priority countries."

We Eat Too Much Sodium Because Companies Keep Dumping It In Our Food

Extra-high amounts of sodium can be hidden in savory snacks like popcorn served at movie theaters and other concession stands.

Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Scott Olson/Getty Images

Extra-high amounts of sodium can be hidden in savory snacks like popcorn served at movie theaters and other concession stands.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is beating the drum again: We're consuming too much sodium and it's a reason we have such high rates of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Not me, you say? Well, chances are, yes, you.

An analysisappearing in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report reveals that 89 percent of U.S. adults were consuming more than the recommended 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day in the years 2009-2012, according to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, or NHANES.

On average, men between the ages of 19-51 consumed about 4,400 mg a day, while women were getting about 3,100 mg a day, according to the CDC report. The numbers were slightly lower for adults 51 and over. Some 90 percent of U.S. children of all ages also far exceeded the recommended daily amounts for their age groups. For example, boys and girls ages 9-13 consumed about 3,300 mg and 3,000 mg respectively, well above the 2,200 mg a day deemed healthful for them.

Here's what makes this problem so stubborn: Most of this sodium isn't coming from the salt shaker, which is more or less easy to regulate on an individual basis. The vast majority of the sodium we consume comes from processed foods we buy and meals we eat in restaurants. We may not realize, or have any way to find out, how much is really in there.

"It's very difficult for individuals to lower consumption on their own, because there's so much sodium in everything they eat," Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, tells us.

Over the past several years, various food companies, through the National Sodium Reduction Initiative, have made commitmentsand met targets to lower sodium content for specific foods. My colleague Dan Charles, who looked at Mondelez International's efforts to drop the sodium in Ritz crackers and salad dressing, has calledit a "giant salt-reduction experiment."

But Frieden says it hasn't been enough. "Some companies have made significant progress, but across the whole industry we need to see steady reduction," he says. "The bottom line is we want to put choice into consumers' hands about putting it in, since you can't take it out once it's in there."

According to data from the Institute of Medicine, the amount of sodium in foods has not, on the whole, changed over the past decade. The worst offenders? Bread, deli meats, pizza, poultry, soups, cheese, pasta dishes, meat mixed dishes and savory snacks like popcorn. As I noted back in 2012, the white bread on your turkey sandwich could be delivering up to 400 mg of sodium, almost as much as the turkey.

While many food companies are dragging their feet on sodium, Frieden says widespread reductions are unlikely to hurt their sales. Research shows that people don't tend to miss most of the excess sodium when it's gone. "When you take sodium out and offer people the shaker, they put back only a fraction of what was taken out; you often really can't tell," he says.

A 2014 paperin the New England Journal of Medicine showed that 1 in 10 deaths from cardiovascular disease around the world can be attributed to sodium consumption. And that link is strongest when blood pressure is elevated. The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released Thursday, suggest 1,500 mg a day of sodium for people with prehypertension and hypertension.

So what to do in a sodium-saturated world? Read the label when it's there. Be wary of foods like deli meats that might not be labeled. And if you're in New York City, look sharp for the high-sodium warningson certain menu items that became requisite for chain restaurants in December.

French Composer Pierre Boulez Dies At 90

French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez conducts during a rehearsal ahead of a concert of contemporary music in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 2007.

Michael Latz /AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Michael Latz /AFP/Getty Images

French composer and conductor Pierre Boulezwas one of the most recognized figures in 20th century classical music. His outspoken advocacy for the music of his time earned him fans — and detractors. He died Tuesday at his home in Baden-Baden, Germany. He was 90 years old.

Just as the chaos of World War II was coming to an end, Pierre Boulez was emerging into his life as an artist.

"At the beginning of the war, I was 14, and at the end of the war, I was 20. That's the main development years you have, when you forge yourself," Boulez said in a 2005 interview with WHYY's Fresh Air.

What Boulez wanted to forge was not just his own creative identity: He wanted to liberate the sound of European music entirely.

"Between 1945 and now, I think I tried through a certain discipline, to find freedom," he said.

After the war, Boulez worked with theater directors, poets and other young artists who wanted to overthrow the status quo. In his own music, he drew upon the energy and inspiration of all of those art forms, along with music from around the world.

In the late 1970s, he founded IRCAM, an institution dedicated to exploring all of the possibilities of contemporary music.

Among the first composers to work at IRCAM was American Tod Machover. He says that Boulez had gifts beyond music.

"He was incredibly charming — the kind of person who could have a conversation with just about anybody. He was a very political person," Machover adds. "He knew how to speak to Georges Pompidou. He knew how to speak to the richest of patrons."

Over time, Boulez became part of the establishment — or, maybe more correctly, the establishment embraced him and his ideas. He was invited to conduct major orchestras around the world. As music director of the New York Philharmonic, he had audiences sitting on rugs on the floor, decades before classical musicians started playing in bars. And along the way, he won 26 Grammys.

Boulez was a singular figure, says conductor David Robertson, who led Boulez's group, the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Now, Robertson is the music director of the St. Louis Symphony.

"There was an incredible, exacting intellect, but it was combined with a marvelous sense of humor, and enormous practicality, and really a sense of comradeship and friendship that was unique," Robertson says. "I've never met anyone like him."

But Boulez could be quite a firebrand, too. His polemics became infamous. And even in his later years, he did not mince his words.

"You must not really think of reaching an audience. You must think first to express yourself," Boulez said.

That meant that he also conducted music from the past that he loved — in performances hailed for their vivacity and clarity.

"I once asked him how he went about achieving such crystalline sounds, despite not leaving the sensuousness, or any other qualities, at bay," Robertson recalls. "And he said, 'If you hear something in your mind, then you will automatically work to make sure that you hear it with your ear.' "

"I have to say," adds Robertson, "that's probably the single most important piece of advice I was ever given by anyone."

Boulez saw all of his work as part of a continuum, as he told NPR in 2005. "Music is in constant evolution," Boulez said. "And there is nothing absolutely fixed and rigidly determined. You have a constant evolution, and you have to participate in your time."

Composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was always ahead of his time.

Can #OddEven Curb Delhi Pollution? Here's What Locals Are Tweeting

A new traffic law has some New Delhi residents wondering: "How the heck do I get to work?"
Following the lead of Beijing and Mexico City, the Delhi government put into effect an "odd-even" policy for cars starting Jan.

Following the lead of Beijing and Mexico City, the Delhi government put into effect an "odd-even" policy for cars starting Jan. 1. Residents can only drive their cars on either odd or even days, based on the last digit of their license plate numbers — though everyone gets a pass before 8 a.m., after 8 p.m. and on weekends.

The policy is an attempt to address the rampant pollution in the city; last year, the World Health Organization namedDelhi the most polluted city in the world, even worse than Beijing. According to the Delhi police, there are nearly 10 million vehicles on its roads.

The policy has drawn mixed reviews from Delhi residents, who are debating its merits on Twitter.

It's actually been a pleasure to drive around with less traffic in Delhi....good with odd even.

— Saba Naqvi (@_sabanaqvi) January 4, 2016

The ban doesn't apply to women (who may feel more safe driving than taking public transit) or to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers. Nor to Delhi's massive fleet of auto-rickshaws and taxis, as well as scooters and motorcyclists excluded from the ban — mostly to avoid overcrowding on metros and buses.

Violatorsare being charged a fine of 2,000 rupees (about $30).

Just entered Delhi found few Odd numbers on Even Day! #OddEven #Delhi pic.twitter.com/Zo2haok8cN

— KV (Kunal Vimal) (@kvQuote) January 2, 2016

#oddeven
In Delhi, your number plate is the new cleavage!
Everyone is checking it out

— VIjay Shiyal (@vijayshiyal9) January 7, 2016

To account for the hundreds of thousands of Delhiites who will need to find a new way to get to work, the government has put an additional 3,000 buses into circulation and scheduled the metro to make 70 extra trips each day. And of course, lots of residents are carpooling. There's even an appnow to help those with odd-numbered license plates find carpool buddies with even-numbered plates.

Some are realizing that the policy makes for a great pickup line.

Matrimonial ads in Delhi soon:
Wanted fair, tall, cultured girl with odd number plate , Manglik boy with even plates. #DelhiOddEvenLogic

— Manjit Singh (@Singh_Manjit84) December 5, 2015

Others are thinking of creative ways to bypass the new law.

Pollution free car tech that is exempt from #OddEven pic.twitter.com/HE3B0dVxri

— just shoot me (@_MrAlBundy) January 7, 2016

Fly to work in this drone. No problem about #OddEven https://t.co/3KlOfGogmp

— Vasu (@vasudevan_k) January 7, 2016

The new policy will apply till Jan. 15 — a two-week trial run to see if it works. The verdict, so far, is unclear: Critics are skeptical the policy will actually reduce pollution levels, particularly in January, when Delhi's pollution is at its worst owing to the heavy fog. Plus, wealthier households with more than one car (and both odd and even license plate numbers) can easily bypass the ban.

At best, the policy is a short-term fix, says Pankaj Bhatia, the deputy director of the climate program at the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit research organization. "It will not help to solve Delhi's pollution problem without other more urgent and comprehensive policy measures," he says, like setting higher fuel efficiency standards for all sorts of vehicles.

For now, local news reports say that 1 millionprivate cars have been pulled off the roads, making commutes quicker.

And at the very least, the policy has got locals talking — and tweeting.

And now #OddEvenMovementT-shirts! pic.twitter.com/cqF9TdEfmF

— Madhavan Narayanan (@madversity) January 5, 2016

Here's What You Shouldn't Do When Trying To Revive A Newborn

Baby "NeoNatalie" waits to be saved, as Dr.

Baby "NeoNatalie" waits to be saved, as Dr. Mark Hathaway gives NPR's Malaka Gharib a lesson on getting an infant to take its first breath. Akash Ghai/NPR hide caption

toggle caption Akash Ghai/NPR

Baby "NeoNatalie" waits to be saved, as Dr. Mark Hathaway gives NPR's Malaka Gharib a lesson on getting an infant to take its first breath.

Akash Ghai/NPR

"You have a minute to help that baby breathe," says Dr. Mark Hathaway. He works as a senior adviser for family planning at USAID's Maternal and Child Survival Program, and he is showing me how to get a newborn to take its first breath.

And it has to happen now — during the "golden minute" after a baby is born. That's what the medical world calls the tiny window of time an infant must bring oxygen into its lungs.

But I'm not a doctor or a nurse. I'm a reporter. So I am pretty clueless.

I lift up the "baby," a mannequin called NeoNatalie. Filled with water and covered with soft plastic, it's heavier than I expected — about 5 or 6 pounds, just like a real newborn.

A wave of panic washes over me. I do what I remember seeing on TV shows. I lift the baby by its feet and slap its backside.

"Yeah, don't do that," says Hathaway.

I have a lot of company in the club of clueless birth attendants. In the developing world, there's a dire shortage of health care workers and nearly half of all births take place without a skilled birth attendant .

A nonprofit called Seed Global Healthis determined to change things. In 2012, Seed teamed up with the Peace Corps to create the Global Health Service Partnership, a volunteer program that sends U.S. doctors and nurses to Africa to train medical professionals in a variety of techniques, including how to resuscitate a newborn who's not breathing.

Seed Global Health has so far introduced the program in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and, most recently, Swaziland.

In the past two years, 73 American volunteers have trained more than 7,200 African faculty, residents and students.

"NeoNatalie" is the star of a neonatal resuscitation training kit, which includes a yellow stethoscope, two green bulbs (one to simulate a baby's breath, another that's a suction tool), a bag mask (it looks like a lamp), an umbilical cord and clamps and cutter. The hat is part of the kit, too — it keeps the baby warm. Akash Ghai/NPR hide caption

toggle caption Akash Ghai/NPR

"NeoNatalie" is the star of a neonatal resuscitation training kit, which includes a yellow stethoscope, two green bulbs (one to simulate a baby's breath, another that's a suction tool), a bag mask (it looks like a lamp), an umbilical cord and clamps and cutter. The hat is part of the kit, too — it keeps the baby warm.

Akash Ghai/NPR

After my failed attempts to help my mannequin breathe, Hathaway shows me the proper procedures. He turns the doll to one side and begins vigorously drying its back and head with a towel to help the baby warm up.

"Sometimes that's all that's needed," says Hathaway.

If that doesn't do the trick, he has all the tools ready for Plans B and C: a suction tool and a bag mask.

The suction tool, which looks like a turkey baster, clears out a baby's nasal passages by removing mucus and gunk from its nose. Using it once is usually enough to help a baby breathe.

If 20 seconds go by and the baby still isn't breathing, Hathaway would turn to the bag mask, which pumps oxygen from the air into the baby's lung passages.

Dr. Mark Hathaway shows how a bag mask can be used to pump oxygen from the air into the baby's lungs. Akash Ghai/NPR hide caption

toggle caption Akash Ghai/NPR

Dr. Mark Hathaway shows how a bag mask can be used to pump oxygen from the air into the baby's lungs.

Akash Ghai/NPR

Aliasgar Khaki, a 24-year-old fifth-year medical student from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, is one of the trainees. He was taught by Dr. Esther Johnston, a former Seed Global Health volunteer who is now the director of family medicine for the nonprofit.

In Khaki's country, roughly a quarter of newborn deaths are caused by birth asphyxia — a lack of oxygen to the lungs. But the university he attends didn't have the resources to teach its students the proper techniques.

"They had a program, but the problem was that the equipment wasn't there," says Johnston. "It's hard to teach neonatal resuscitation without a mannequin. You can teach the principles, but if you don't practice it, it doesn't get into your muscle memory."

Inspired, Khaki started organizing trainings for other students, nurses and interns in the area, demonstrating with donated NeoNatalie dolls from global health groups like Jhpiego. The NeoNatalie set costs about $70 for nonprofits.

Dr. Vanessa Kerry, co-founder of Seed Global Health, hopes the trainees will now show others what they've learned.

"If we focused on teaching new doctors and nurses how to be great educators with the idea that one doctor could go on and teach 10, who could go on to teach 10 more, and so on, we could have this great force multiplying effect," she says.

For Hathaway, the future of Seed Global Health's training program will ultimately rely on the power of the individual.

"What moves things forward is a champion," he says. "If you have someone in a health facility who really wants the infant mortality reduction to happen, that person will work hard to keep following through on things."

Since Khaki's training with Seed Global Health, he's had a chance to practice his neonatal resuscitation skills in real life.

A week after his first training with Johnston, he visited a hospital with a relative. In the nursery ward, he saw a "code blue" situation: a baby struggling to breathe.

Related NPR Stories

Giving Birth Outside A Hospital Is A Little Riskier For The Baby Dec. 30, 2015

The nurse on duty didn't know what to do. Khaki quickly stepped in and saved the baby's life, using the step-by-step techniques he learned from his training (which is what Hathaway showed me in my mini-lesson).

How did it make him feel?

"Every cartoon character has their own superhero outfit," he says. "Mine was my white lab coat."

50 Wonderful Things From 2015

Joe Manganiello in Magic Mike XXL .

Claudette Barius/Warner Brothers hide caption

toggle caption Claudette Barius/Warner Brothers

Joe Manganiello in Magic Mike XXL .

Claudette Barius/Warner Brothers

More and more, I eschew end-of-year best-of lists for the simple reason that they're arbitrary and imply a comprehensiveness on which they can never deliver. What works for me is to compile a list that reflects some of the enormous gratitude I feel for getting to enjoy other people's work and art — one that doesn't even pretend to define what is best, but simply to share some of the abundant good stuff I run into.

Keep in mind: these are cultural — mostly pop-cultural — things. These are not the best things in the world. Like yours, my actual list of wonderful things from the year, if I wrote it in a journal instead of for work, would be a list of people, of hugs, of dinners, of walks and experiences.

And finally: There are things I really love that aren't here because I'm too close to the people involved. In some cases, I found things I liked so much that I went out and drafted the people who made them into my universe of pals by any means necessary. Sorry, pals.

Here we go.

1. The somewhat polarizing closing sequence of Trainwreck, the gender politics of which could be debated at length, but which ultimately was an effective summation of one of the things that movie is about: When you're in love, you just have to do the best you can.

2. The final shots of Andrew Haigh's deceptively quiet film 45 Years, as Charlotte Rampling, without speaking, demonstrates that while the story has seemed up to that point like it's operating on an engine of wistful resilience, it has a sterner spine and a more complex view of the longevity of a marriage than it seemed to have only moments earlier.

3. The clever, self-aware sequence in Star Wars: The Force Awakens in which the film takes aim at the trope of men pointlessly grabbing women's hands before taking off running. (Bonus: the cast singingthe theme music with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots.)

4. The startlingly graceful flexible poles used as critical fighting apparatuses in Mad Max: Fury Road . It's true that the apocalyptic landscapes are gorgeous to look at, but throughout the film, new visual ideas appear by the minute, and it's brilliant to offset the explosive, mechanical action of the vehicle chases with the smooth, rhythmic swaying of the poles.

5. The first musical numberof the CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, in which star Rachel Bloom warbles the ditty "West Covina." It's a confident, affable, wonderfully bent introduction.

6. Every scene between Melissa McCarthy and Allison Janney in Spy, a film that uses actor after actor (Rose Byrne, Jason Statham, Jude Law, Miranda Hart, Peter Serafinowicz, Bobby Cannavale, Morena Baccarin) to do something that's different from what they usually do but somehow utterly perfect for them.

7. Bokeem Woodbine's star-making role (an overused term, but fitting here) as Mike Milligan in the brilliant second season of FX's Fargo . There's so much great work in that season (Patrick Wilson would have been a perfectly good choice for this list, or Jean Smart, or Kirsten Dunst), but Woodbine was menacing, creepy and still sympathetic enough that his dreams were enough to constitute the stakes for the end of his story.

8. The end of the first season of Lifetime's wonderful unREAL, in which Quinn (Constance Zimmer) and Rachel (Shiri Appleby) lie exhausted on their backs — reflecting the pose in which Rachel started the season — trying to process all they'd been through together and the bizarre, dysfunctional closeness that they both relied on.

9. The moment in Inside Outwhen Riley is finally able to talk to her parents about her sadness and her longing for Minnesota. The adorable emotions were the stars, but it's Riley who's really at stake, and to be comforted by her parents was her victory.

10. Perhaps the greatest terrible trailer in the history of humanity: the uproariously ridiculous teasefor the Jennifer Lopez film The Boy Next Door .

11. The spare dialogue given to Matt Damon in Ridley Scott and Drew Goddard's stellar (har) adaptation of Andy Weir's The Martian . Damon doesn't say much, since there's no one to say it to, but that means that when he says, for instance, "[Bleep] you, Mars," you really hear it.

12. A scene from Hulu's Casual in which freshly divorced Valerie (Michaela Watkins) finds herself on an elevator, contemplating a situation in which she never expected to end up. She glides through emotions in a way that transcends the usual comedic trope of laughing leading to crying, so that the questions are both independently interesting: why she's laughing and why she's crying.

13. The scene in Netflix's Master Of None in which Dev, played by Aziz Ansari (who co-created with Alan Yang), first makes a serious approach to Rachel, the girl he likes, and learns that she has a boyfriend. There are a million ways to go with this conversation — he can be sad, rejected, angry, resentful, jealous, self-pitying — and they just went the really honest route of stressing how bummed he is and how much he wishes they were in a different situation. It feels unexpectedly frank and fair, and in a way far more romantic than anything else he could have done. "You're so cool; there's not a lot of cool people," he says. Everybody's been there, right?

14. The turn at the end of the fall finale of The Mindy Project, now living on Hulu. Mindy and Danny's relationship didn't suddenly get better when they had a baby and got engaged; it got more complicated. And as Mindy measured her young son's crib (a gesture for which heavy-hearted context had already been provided), the show made an unexpected but not unwelcome turn toward considering whether this relationship was really a good idea — a surprising move for a show so rooted to Mindy Kaling's love of romantic comedy.

15. The combined impact of Rami Malek's face as gorgeously presented by creator Sam Esmail and a team of directors across the first season of USA's weird, uneven, ultimately transfixing Mr. Robot .

16. The scenes in David Simon's Show Me A Hero that capture with just the right kind of intensity the emotion and cacophony of local politics.

17. The scene in Straight Outta Compton(caution: language) in which Eazy-E learns to rap from Dr. Dre. Funny and surprising and providing a bit of balance to the image of the members of N.W.A. as supergeniuses, it has a gentle sense of humor and a humility that helps build the relationships between the characters.

18. The audaciously dorky but weirdly sexy convenience-store danceRichie performs in Magic Mike XXL . The film isn't perfect, but it has a punchy, raunchy, sex-positive vibe that's very hard to resist, nowhere more than in this in-your-facedly silly display that, like other items in the convenience store might advertise, is for her pleasure.

19. Sydney Lucas at the Tony Awards singing"Ring Of Keys" from Fun Home . The best moments at the Tonys happen when one performance can take a show from a niche product to a pop culture phenomenon, and Lucas helped Fun Home make that leap without breaking a sweat.

20. The way the final chapters of Mad Men lingered on Peggy Olson, creating indelible images of her — particularly on roller skatesand walking in shadeswith a cigarette hanging out of her mouth — that honestly dwarf the images of Don from the closing episodes. It wasn't immediately evident at the time, but Peggy became more unforgettable, more special, more relevant, just as Don became more frozen, more confused, more back on his heels.

21. The cameos in the basement riff-off in Pitch Perfect 2 . It's far from a perfect film, to say the least, but if you manage to make it to that riff-off without knowing whom to expect, the incongruous nature of some of the contestants makes it worth your time.

22. The opening sequenceof Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt . The entire show felt like something that only accidentally made it to viewers, and its weird, earwormy intro fit it perfectly.

23. The ESPN documentary I Hate Christian Laettner, which managed to make sense both to people who hated him and to people who loved him, and which shed a lot of light on what sports "hate" means and comes from.

24. Leslie Knope giving her friend Ron Swanson the ideal job at the end of Parks & Recreation . A lesser show would have forced Ron into growth more easily equated with change, where Parks was smart enough to know that the love that grew up between these very different people was based on their ability to accept each other as they were. "Your job would be to walk around the land alone. You'd live in the same town you've always lived in; you'd work outside; you'd talk to bears." She did know him after all.

25. The podcast Switched On Pop, from which many episodes could be chosen, but I'll go with one of the first I heard: the investigationof Hozier's "Take Me To Church." So good and sharp and fun.

26. Speaking of podcasts, the episode of Startupin which Gimlet Media investigated the issue of burnout in the company, which was not only great radio but public service for everyone who has ever thought you could ask people for infinite investment without expecting some fallout. (Also the episode on diversity. It was a year of introspection.)

27. You can't make your whole list out of Vines, but give me one: this is the one Vinethat, for me, explained why Vine is sometimes the technology we've needed all our lives.

28. The wonderful, confessional, angry, humble, grateful piecethat Lost writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach wrote about the show's complicated legacy, its relationship with its incredibly demanding fans, and the fundamental fact that, as a project of humans, it was doomed to imperfection. It's one of the best reality checks that have been written on the topic of fans who convince themselves they know how to write and make perfect television, if only someone would ask them.

29. Squeaking in at the end of the year: the New York Times review, sort of, of Senor Frog's. There are times — as with an infamous review of all things Guy Fieri — when the Times ' forays into the culture of the masses feel like condescending class commentary, but somehow, in reviewing the bonkers world of Senor Frog's in Times Square, writer Pete Wells steers clear of sneering at tourists and keeps in mind that one goes to different restaurants for different reasons, and one does not go to Senor Frog's for the high-end cuisine. Most of all, though, it's a constantly surprising, gorgeously witty, sparklingly written piece of helpless, shrugged-shoulders limboing.

30. The episodeof This American Life called "If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say, Say It In All-Caps," in which writer Lindy West tracks down a troll, Ira Glass busts vocal-fry-haters for selectively disliking it in women, and more.

31. The movie dance compilation— no, hear me out! — that demonstrates that there is an art to the YouTube collage. Look at the uses of Omar Sy and Brad Pitt, for instance: Work went into making sure those things worked flawlessly and seemed meant to be. There are a million videos that aspire to be this one, which makes it stand out all the more. (Seriously, there's a lot going on: Dirty Dancing, Grease and Footloose all get important placements in the structure of the music — not an accident. The second use of West Side Story is genius, as is the Jon Cryer appearance.)

32. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, a show from HBO that has figured out how to be hilarious but not glib while providing long, deeply researched segments on nonsexy topics like food waste and ones that have faded from headlines like TV preachers. For me this year, there was nothing more consistently satisfying and entertaining, not just on late night, but on television.

33. Aziz Ansari's book Modern Romance, written with sociologist Eric Klinenberg. Particularly if you get your hands on the audiobook, it's an intriguing mix of comedy and thoughtfulness and research, and while it's mostly not earthshaking, it's intriguing.

34. The Mystery Show episode " Belt Buckle." You think you know how much punch the resolution is going to have, and then it has so much more than that.

35. The Another Round episode with Hillary Clinton. Tracy Clayton and Heben Nigatu ask Clinton questions that don't typically get asked in ways that encourage other outlets to think about what they do and don't ask, and why.

36. Thisstupid, irresistible YouTube video from the wonder that is Ikea.

37. The unexpected punch (sorry) of Creed, a film that could so easily have been lazy and obligatory and is instead vital, fun and often moving.

38. Maris Kreizman's generous, thoughtful, provocative book Slaughterhouse 90210 , a project based on a Tumblr with a deceptively simple structure and a great deal to say.

39. The strong sophomore seasons currently in play from ABC's family comedies Fresh Off The Boat and Black-ish . Yes, both are part of some increased diversity in family shows, but even were that not the case, they'd be great to behold based solely on how reliably funny and confident both have become.

40. Viola Davis' brilliant speechupon winning her Emmy, which came close to justifying the existence of award shows.

41. Effie Brown of HBO's Project Greenlight, a producer who gave voice to so many frustrations about impossible, puffed-up creatives that she needs her own podcast, preferably called "Whatever, Bore-sese."

42. The tremendous pieceJoe Posnanski and Michael Schur wrote after a particularly bizarre American League Division Series game. Even for non-baseball fans, a delight.

43. Catastrophe, a U.K. romantic comedy brought to U.S. viewers by Amazon, starring Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan as a couple whose path is most unexpected. Funny, odd, dirty, honest — just about all you can ask for from such a story.

44. Lily Tomlin's performance in Grandma, as well as her sneakers. Highlights of an impeccably cast movie across the board.

45. Parul Sehgal's essayfor The New York Times Magazine about the word "flawless."

46. The HBO series The Jinx — not for its more widely discussed bathroom mutterings, but for the discovery of the spelling error that, for me, is the actual moment the whole thing breaks open.

47. Ava DuVernay's Barbie dolland all the user-submitted photos thereof.

48. What makes the podcast Judge John Hodgman so satisfying is that it's really funny, but it's also always really wise and really humane. In May, Hodgman took the case of a familywhere the father doesn't want his young daughter to have birthday celebrations. As strange as that sounds, the judge found a lot to say about what was driving the father's anxiety, what he owed to his family, and what he could and couldn't expect from parenting.

49. As fashion and cultural commentary, Jazmine Hughes' Cosmopolitan pieceon dressing like Cookie from Empire for a week made me smile.

50. My favorite parody account in the history of Twitter, Emo Kylo Ren, created by The Washington Post 's Alexandra Petri. (Contains intermittent Star Wars spoilers. Hilarious spoilers.)

I have to tack on one quick thing that wasn't from this year but that I found this year, which is a YouTube videoin which user Bunan Tsokolatte paid gorgeous musical tribute to "Sparks, Nevada," a segment from The Thrilling Adventure Hour . For a bunch of reasons — how loving and clever and charming it is, how it salutes a great project that moved into new chapters this year, how unexpected it is — this was one of my real highlights, and I just couldn't bear to leave it out for calendar reasons alone.

And let me close with a few personal things that I enjoyed doing or working on in 2015: talking to Trevor Noah; talking to Judy Blume; hearing Audie Cornish talk to Shonda Rhimes; Chris Klimek's reviewof San Andreas, which was a delight to edit; multiple live shows; and more words about Cinderellathan I ever thought I'd get to write. Thank you for listening and reading, and happy 2016.