Step forward. There are women in parliament, ensuring there are female representations. Afghans are a patriarchial society. Many women cannot go out. Four paralyzed patients regained control over certain muscles in the also. Their doctors probably said theyll never be able to move. You forget how tall you are. It brings tears to my eyes. We are bruising is tradition memorising the gettysburg address. This is one of the most famous speeches much. If i can recite the address i feel like i can do anything i want. Women have made Great Strides in afghanistan gan society, many feel it can slip away because afghanistan is a nation at a crossroads. As the votes in the president ial election are counted, the future of the country are certain. A Bilateral Agreement is yet to be signed by the Afghan Government. Security concerns are mounting in the face of a taliban resurgence. Women fear losing the rights and freedoms that they fought ard to save. I spoke to a leader in a country where women were shunned from public life and girls barred from school. She is a member of the parliament and the first woman elected to be the Deputy Speaker of the national assembly. She is determined to make sure life is better for her own two daughters and the next generation of girls and boys. Shes the author of a book. A pleasure to have you with us. Afghanistan has almost a contradictory record on womens rights. You are a member of the parliament. 25 of parliamentary seats are reserved for women, giving women better representation in the u. K. Are or in the United States. At the same time girls are still harassed and abused by the taliban for going to school in certain areas. How repressive does Afghan Society remain. If you compare the situation with the taliban regime or ruling time. I can say its almost an opportunity, a golden opportunity for a woman from afghanistan. We have had progress in many arena, and including in political arena. We have almost 27 persons, Women Participation in the parliament. Women active in society, et cetera. In the meantime, still huge majority in afghanistan are suffering from different kind of violence, including Domestic Violence and security, threats by taliban, and simply we have had an increase in the number of violence against women, and one of the reason is the lack of proper or strong rule of law to put on trial the perpetrators. A culture of impunity. Above all, the main worry is 2013, luckily we have had wonderful elections and just last week anticipation in the election was extraordinary, but i think the main concern now is the post 2014 withdrawal of International Community, because already its becoming more difficult for a woman activist to work. There are certainly elements, extremist elements who would like to adopt themselves to a new situation, which is International Community withdrawal, and perhaps somehow return of taliban back to power. The extremism within parliament. And outside of parliament becomes more cautious to prepare nms for the new themselves for the new situation. Its more difficult for women, and that is the main concern. If the International Community leaves, women rights would be one. First to sacrifice. Do you think that could happen, that things will change for the worse, because the Afghan Government has not signed a Bilateral Agreement. The reaction is that that is an issue for karz your, and whoever is electeded in this will be more open to signing the agreement and keeping american and n. A. T. O. Forces there. We are hoping as the president ial candidates clearly announced during the campaigns, that one of the first thing they do would be at least for the front runners to sign the bilateral security agreement. We hope they keep their promise, because they are signing of the bsa does not only help in terms of planning for security, but also the bigger message it gives to the neighbouring countries to those influence k the situation in afghanistan, in particular to the women of afghanistan. The bigger message is gives is afghanistan will not be abandoned by the International Community. It will help the situation of every citizen in afghanistan, particularly the woman, which is very much collected or connected with the International Community presence. And do you think the elizabeth will end up helping or hurting women . As we have seen over the past 10 years hamid karzai is married to someone who used to be a practicing gynaecologist. She has not been seen at Public Events in 10 years. Now, in this election, there were a number of candidates, and only one of them ever had his wife out in public. Thats true. Absolutely. I used to say leaders want democracy for their neighbours, not themselves. Its easy to talk about womens rights, but wowed bringing their own wives, the question still remains that how committed the leaders are in terms of woman rites. But overall, i think women turn outside in the election was a sign that women in afghanistan are reliable political partners, not just somebody you can take care, but somebody that is a reliable partner. In the remote areas. Women queue out to vote. That is a sign that women of afghanistan, political knowledge increases and they cannot be ignored by any government or group. Therefore im hopeful that the election might result a Better Future for afghanistan. Elections itself is a big no to extremism, and its a sign of democracy. People of afghanistan demonth rouge support for democracy and extremism. Now, of course, we have to wait, because a lot still to come in terms of the results, whether the results will be acceptable by the loser candidate, in fact. So, deliver, i think the solution would be for the leading candidate to sit and make a coalition government. That is how they cap prevent any kind of further conflict, and the fragile stability in afghanistan because at the end of the day the people, and particularly the women that will be affected by any kind of insecurity and instability. Its not just women participating by voting or candidates. You wanted to run for president , but you were months short of the minimum age, a number of other women were on the ballots, including 300 fror provincial council seats. A major vicepresident ial candidate was a womanment with that presence and woman. With that presence and participation are you concerned the gains in womens rites could be reversed . Comparing to the past elections, in terms of woman running, unfortunately we didnt have woman running in the ticket like as a candidate itself. There was woman in the vice president. And in some of the provinces there was number of woman running for provincial coup was less than as it was in 2009. So already you can see how the signs of, you know, participation by woman in some of the provinces. It has become more difficult for women activists in the parliament. There are certain extremism parliamentarians that are more openmouthed when it comes to the wom jj issues. It has woman issues. In 2013, it was not a good legislative year for a woman. The law on violence was not passed because it was blocked by extreme figure. And this is one of the very important laws for a woman. And the electoral law, one of the important laws. They reduce the number of the percentage of Women Participation in the provincial council from 25 to 20 , which is, again, a sign of backwording. But i think overall, over all the momentum by woman is there. I think we will not get to the zero point, because society transformed. People of afghanistan, the media plays an Important Role in terms of it. They get together to prevent women getting to the zero point. If the security concentration dert rates, if International Community withdraws without putting an end to the war, i think there are Major Concerns that we will lose the fragile gapes we have had for the womens rites. I now you have spoken about how womens microphones have been cut off in parliament, and how you fear for your life every day because of how outbone you are. I wish you the best of luck with your ests, to important. It is really a pleasure to have you on our show. Thank you for your time. The u. S. Economy may be turning around. For some groups more than others. The National Urban league released its report on the state of america. Showing african america lagging behind whites and black his panics when it comes to jobs and wellbeing. Unemployment for blacks was over 13 , compared to 9 for his panics and 6. 5 for whites. Underemployment was twice as bad for blacks and whites, with hispanic underemployment not much better. For more, im joined from new york. Great to be with you. This is a tremendous information. It is astonishing. Its a big report, a lot of information. What was different is we have information on 80 american cities. So the Unemployment Rate comparison, the Median Income comparison for 80 cities is in the book, and we only had national data. That creates a chance for people to see. You talk about everything. Education, health. Across the board general wellbeing. That raises my first question. There has been tremendous strides when it comes to educations. The High School Dropout rate has plunged. How do you explain the lagging numbers when it comes to employment . You have got to point to a variety of the factors. The continued existence of discrimination in the workplace that blacks and latinos face, and even women face. That is a factor that is involved. Secondly, we have got to not only increase the High School Graduation rates, but we have to increase the College Matriculation and completion rates. Education is still the best way for an individual and for society to improve economic outcomes. Theres no doubt about that. I think that if theres a lens to which i hope people look at the report, its that in the post recession environment, the community of colours are not coming back as fast when it comes to economic growth. The rebound is lower. Lower. Which is why we need continued stimulation in the economy. We need continued public policies. We cannot rest with where we are. You look at something called the overall equality index. That shows that equality for black americans around 71 of rites. Hispanic americans, and this includes all sorts of factors, civic engagement. Health, across the board. What other things can lead you to close the gap. Business formation, asset building, home ownership. I also think that the president s Affordable Care act overtime is going to help to close the gap when it comes to health disparities. But i want to say that for washington, particularly the congress, to continue to starve investments in education and workforce and infrastructure is not the way to go. This obsession with othery, extreme austerity is damning the ability of the economy to create more jobs. Really you are on the side of more spending is necessary from the government. I believe that more investment and more incentives from the government. Its a combination of things, and we are spending, but we spend 50 of our discretionary budget on the military. Well bring the dollars home. You said that it is one of the very interesting things about the report, how you did go across the country, not just focussing on numbers, but city, and you found in some cities blacks and whites are relatively comparable. In some cities his panics are doing better than whites. Theres geographical differences. It seemed hard to come up with patterns, but the blacks did worst in the rust belt. Yes, the rust belt everyone is taking a hit in the rust belt. Everyone is doing badly. Afghan americans were heavily vested in manufacturing, and in the Industrial Companies that made the rust belt the rust belt. And when those economies the building of not only automobiles and refrigerators and vacuum cleaners and Home Appliances declined. This is a trend beginning 20 years ago, it affected africanamericans in a material way. I have to say something, and this is important. The disparities that exist exist in every american city. They may be narrower in some, lets be cautious. In some cities, where the gap is narrow, its because of white Unemployment Rate is higher. Or. Not so much the africanamericans are doing better, whites might be doing worse. I encourage people to get the book and look up their own home town. The information is there. It also looks at household income, and your boom found that black homes earning about 34,000, his panics more than 40,000, whites more than 56,000. There was an anomaly i noticed in all of this, that black males have a higher Median Income than hispanic males. Why are hispanic households doing better than black households. It may be that there are some hows holds in the statistical base doing so well that they dry up the number. When you look at Median Income, its a median. It could mean on an overall basis the community is doing worse, but there are some that are doing so well. Thats why you see significant disparities in some communities, versus other communities, because you have great wealth, for example, and it drives up, if you will, the top of the numbers. It is one thing i did not see addressed, which is could it me that theres more single parent households in the African American community . That is a significant factor. There are more singleparent households, therefore theres only one breadwinner. That is something that concerns you and the urban league. It affects us because it affects the outcome of families. And the outcomes of children. And what we have to do is be candid with ourselves that all of the factors that address our strike i somehow say that affect and create the problem are not simply the responsibility of government to gix. We have fix. We have responsibility in our community, we have things we have to do, but we cant allow this false debate on whether theres government policy, weathers its a personal possibility, we think it takes a variety of things, steps, initiatives to address the challenges. I know you point out that this is important for everybody, because within a matter of years, white children will not be a majority in the country. Now the date where whites will cease to be a majority is 2035. One thing that struck me about all this is that blacks are more optimistic about the future. Africanamericans have been, i think, toughened and strengthened and become resilient because we understand the difficulty days of the past. The difficulty times, the path to rogz has taken progress has taken a tremendous struggle by our forefathers and mothers. Theres an eternal optimism that is out there. Lets not mistake this fact, and i think this is big. We can say this is important because the country is changing demographically. What we also have to do is address the idea that a country of great prosperity, a country of the great wealth, a county of ingenuity and innovation, that the United States represents has to be able to ensure that that is spread and that opportunity provide upward mobility for everyone. That is the large question for the United States in the 21st century. I think underlying the report, i hope thats what people take away from it. Lets hope the optimism is well founded. The state of black american, one nation underemployed. And you can get the reports and read it for free or buy the book. Thank you. Head of the urban league. Consider this will be the most celebrated speech in American History is a funeral oration drawing little attention when delivered. Its short, takes 2 minutes to recite. Abraham lincolns gettysburg address. Lincolns stirring call four months after the battle of gettysburg, for america to dedicate itself to ideals has resonated, especially for children at a vermont boarding school where boys with larsh differences learning differences memorise the gettysburg address. Their moving story and the cry for fullied om are the subject of a freedoms are a subject for a new documentary. Its creator is documentary filmmaker ken burns. Whom i spoke with about the address. Great to have you with us. The civil war was your big break through. Youve been nominated for oscars at that point. Why had you decided to go back and deal with an important part of that era . People ask me how i choose projects, and how they choose me. I live in a town of rural new hampshire, across the connecticut river, is putney school, and they asked me to be a gauge at the gettysburg res itation thing. I wept and wept. I fully admit i cried at the inspirational nature. Finally as 150 was approaching, i said we have to do this, i have to put my money where my mouth is. I wanted to make a film about the heroic study of the boys. Its challenging the rest of the country. Challenging the rest of the country to do something toot, have everyone memorise it. If these boys can do it, we can to. Lets look at what you did. We have five living. Forescore and seven years ago. Our fadsers brought forth. And dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war. Testing whether that nation so conceived and dedicated long endured. Why is it important for people to go back and memorise the address. One of them is that we stopped asking people to memorise. It wasnt good, and there was no relevance. The evidence crystalises something. Theres a sense of accomplishment. For the boys the a the greenwood school, its like a talisman, something they carry with them. We reached out. No one said no. History is a table around which we can have a civil discourse. We have bill oreilly, marco rubio, nancy pelosi, all the five living president s are contributing to this. Do they see eye to eye on day to day events. No, of course not. If you love abraham lincoln, as everyone i know does, then that is a place to begun, to reinstill this civil discourse that is possible, to appeal to the better angels of our nature. Link , himself, would abraham lincoln, himself, would say. Its a way to repair what we have lost if you are educational resistance . Memorisation may lead to a better handing. Lets look at this. Our fathers. Brought forth. On this. New nation. To the proposition. That all men are create equal. It ends up being a lot of work for a lot of them, but it has all sorts of tremendous effects. It does. They all suffer from some sort of learning difference. It may be dyslexia, disgraphia, executive function, adhd, a whole alphabet soup of stuff. Some of them can mem rice it, but are terrified to speak it. Particularly in front of a crowd, which they are asked to do. Thats the other component. Public res tigs. Some of them have language difficulties that make it hard to memorise or speak. They help each other, its a boarding school for kids at home, and they are sort of held together by the loving kindness of the school, and the superimposition of the gettysburg address, and the kids help each other. They emerge from the struggles, and its an amazingly inspirational thing that takes place. Especially on the day when they go in front of the public and speak about it. Lets see that. That we hear highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vape. That this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. [ clapping ] [ cheering and applause ] so that is beautiful max. I took that with my smart phone, because i realised we were covering the parental reactions while they were giving the address, when i saw him coming back and i know that max had not knew the speech cold, but was terrified about doing it in public. And an hour before he wasnt going to do it. He did it. He did it magnificently and came back and melted into his mother. It expresses all the exhalation. That must have been a great moment for you to see. It was amazing. Turning to what is killing some of our riff. The latest list of endangered rivers is out from a washington d. C. Environmental group. Drought a reason that this river made the sop of the list top of the list. The mississippi, and colorado are listed for a host of prime ministers. Christopher williams is the Senior Vice President for conservation at american rimps that is the group that put out the list. Good to have you on the show. How endangered are our riff now, compared to the past. We have seen some improvements, its been a long time since we have seen a river catch on fire like in the 1960s. Water quality is generally better. In many cases connectivity and flow is better. Rivers face challenges, particularly with Climate Change and potential drought out west becoming worse and worse. We have problems with pollution, as the recent spills in West Virginia and in carolina, coal catch and toxic chemicals. Refers are chopped apart from dams and infrastructure, which impacts fish and wildlife. Rivers face huge challenges in the u. S. , even today. The san war king is at the top of the list, provides Drinking Water to san francisco, and irrigation for some of the countries fertile farm land. I know californias drought is a part of the problem. In addition to that, are other are human actions to blame . Yes, they are. Unfortunately. The san war king river suffers from an outdated Water Management regime, which allows too much water to be diverted from the river for a variety of uses. Under good conditions, 70 of the flow of the san war king river is diverted for agriculture, domestic, smiling Drinking Water for millions, supports agriculture, and result the river faces a host of problems water quality, habitat problems, flow interruptions in any given here, as much as 100 miles of the river can run dry. The diversions are really damaging the river, and have for a long time. Drought is a natural phenomenon. Droughts come and go, there has been droughts before in california, and in the future. The way to deal with the droughts is to put in place a modern management regime that emphasis conservation, aquifer recharge and other 21st century tools for managing water and conserving rivers. You say it can be managed. Many of the things you point out are things that are human needs, we need water for. So there are ways of satisfying those needs, and still managing a river so that it stays healthy. Yes, absolutely. Its through conservation and efficiency, and through storage of water in times of plenty. In the case of a place like the san war keen, theres a lot of things that can be done to improve the efficiency of water use in agriculture and domestic use, and we should mind the conservation principles at all times, and in years of plenty, when theres a lot of rain and throughs. We need to store the water. Where we store water in natural aquifers in the ground, rather than expensive and costly infrastructures. Problems with reverse means problems for fish and wildlife, and people that might think they may be unaffected. What are the consequences of problems with refers for all americans . For americans that love fish and wildlife. They have to care about rivers. For example, the majority of animals that are listed on the endangered species list in the u. S. Live in or on rivers. If you love wildlife and nature, of course riff are essential to that. Theres an incredible economic value to rivers. The fishing industry, for example, produces billions a year from anglers and fishing enthusiasts. Theres a recreational industry as far as rafting and hiking. Again it produces millions and hundreds and thousands in jobs across the u. S. Never mind how much we dependent on rivers as water sources for agriculture and cities. We depend on them to dispose of waste, transport our goods. The economic value is almost beyond imagining and the way to preserve it is to preserve healthy vibe rant rivers. Your organization put out the list, can they be saved, have they been saved in the past, like we see with the upper colorado river. They can be saved. I can give you a few examples stemming from our most endangered rivers list. The biggest damn removal in the United States, in the history of the United States was on the elwood river in washington state. That was a result of attention brought to that issue by listing the elweigh as an endangered rif. The holl back, in montana, threatened by oil and gas was put into permanent protection as a result of the listing. We are seeing now in bristol bay alaska, listing the riff of bristol bay, and the epa is looking at trying to prevent further damage to the rivers of brust ol bay bristol bay. We see rivers cleaned of pollution, protected under the wild and Scenic Rivers act, management of stormwater in cities, improved to reduce populated run off into rivers. There are all sorts of tools available. We need to have the political will, and the resources to do it. As we saw from the map, the issues are across the country, those are the top 10 rivers having problems. Christopher williams, good of you to join us, bet of luck with your efforts. Thank you. Well be back with more of consider this. Imagine being paralyzed from the neck down and suddenly being able to move. Millions of paralyzed americans have new hope this week thanks to a new kind of therapy. Researchers at the university of louieville implanted electrical stimulators in the spinal chords of four men, all regaining some control over their legs. Im joined by the physician that evaluated the me, a professor of physical med son and wraction at the university of lou viville school of medicine amongst others. You chose four men with severe injuries, and planted a stimulator in their spinal cords. How did it works, and were you surprised it worked as well as it did. We were surprised. When we initially implanted the stimulator we were not anticipating functional recovering for the patients. It was surprising when the stimulator was on, and rob summers, the patient, felt he could move his toe. When we asked him to voluntarily remove his leg. The ph. D. Neurophysicsologist asked rob to move his leg. We were overwhelmed, shocked, crying. It was an amazing moment, and very satisfying. The electric jolt does not make the muscle move. Thats correct. Whats it the stimulator is implanted into the spinal cord, and it provides an application of electricity at varying intensities, and frequencies to the lower portion of the chord that controls the hips, the needs, the ankles and the toes. When electricity is applied at the varying frequencies and intensities, the patient is able to move voluntarily their legs, because this intensity is in some ways awakening the nervous system so that there is voluntary response. As time went on then, the men needed less electrical stimulation. I read that. Is that the most encouraging part, that somehow a severely damaged spinal network can still learn. Thats the key aspect of this. So when the patients were imapplicant and we miraculously saw vomentry movement voluntary movement, we went back and did activity based tripping, we call it training, we call it body weight supportive, they are placed into a harness and have facilitated ambulation. As the intensity conditioned obvious months with the stimulation and the local motor training, patients required less stimulation, meaning the nervous system was awakening and learning, essentially, how to move again. How much control did they have . So when a stimulator is on, patients have all regained the ability to move their lower extremities, which is remarkable. Everyone is able to stand, and several patients have been able to walk. Its impressive. When the stimulator is on, they can perform the function. When its off, they are not. We know the stimulation with the trusty plays a key role in it. We know that the spinal charred has been awakened and relearnt or reactivated its ability to move the legs. What level of walking and balance are we talking about . So rob, who is the first patient implanted. After the placement of epidural stimulator was able to move his legs. We went back and started a course of activity based therapy, locko motor training, body weight supported locko motor training and rod had 180 sessions of loko motorive training, he was able to walk distances up to 400 feet with a walker when he had no voluntary movement of his legs previously. Thats incredible. Very exciting. This is the area of the spinal cord that deals with the lower extremities. How about the arms . Two of the patients implanned have quadripledgia and their injury was higher, into the neck area. The nerves that control the arms are high in the neg. We havent really seen much voluntary movement in the neck area because really what we are targetting is the lower portion of the cord at this time. Interestingly, the two patients who had neck injuries do have one has significant hand function and arm function, and really appears as kun who has par someone who has par pledgia, not quadripleegeia and the other has hand function. Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation was instrumental in the project. How optimistic are you that a mission of the foundation that paralysis no longer be a lifetime sentence will become a reality . I fully believe that with time paralysis will not be a lifetime reality. I believe enny dural stimulation is a component that will play a role in a cure for spinal cord injury. Over time i believe therell be many factors playing a role in the cure, which will include therapies, like activitybased therapies, epidural stimulation, stem cells, et cetera. I believe therell be a cocktail that will lead to a cure. And im hopeful as a physician of people and care for spinal cord injury, i feel excited with the results that we had from the epidural stimulation study published in the journal brain. That we are taking some significant strides forward. 6 million americans and their families who are paralyzed are all hopeful, as you are, that this ends up working out. Steve williams, a pleasure to have you on the show. Consider this will be right back. Have you tried to sit and read. The reason for that in your pocket. The Research Suggests that the digital revolution may be changing the way the brain absorbs and interprets information. As our brains are rewired for the digital world, it may come at the expense of our ability to do serious indepth reading the oldfashioned way. Joining us from austin texas is professor andrew dillon. He teaches classes in information, psychologiry and information risk and operations management. Good to have you with us. What is the Research Showing that we, that the way we read on computers, tablet and smart phones is changing our brains. I wouldnt go that far. That is certainly an implication that people are trying to draw, because the data seems interesting. But, you know, humans are not born with an ability to read, its an acquired skill. It involves rewiring the brain to learn to become a serious skilled reader. We invest resources in trying to bring everyone in the society up to a minimal level. The way we have interacted with information over centuries have not changed. The written forms we is had 300 years ago, the books of those eras and ages are not different to the books up to the 20th century. What has changed it the information spaces we are dealing with, and that is causing us to react a little differently to create different kinds of information and manifest different information behaviours. And that is what is getting a lot of attention at the moment. It is a big change. Is it the technology or the way the content is made to fit the technology, we see shorter articles, side slows, integrated picture and videos, all the things leading to us losing reading attention span. Yes, i mean, i think you have to look at these not as one or the other being causal. They are hand in clove. The new technologies evolve, and they evolve quickly, you know, compared to human history, we are looking at devices which are smaller, faster, mobile, carried everywhere, accessing vast quantities of information that was never previously available on the spot anywhere. Thats a different ecology. Consequently we are engaging with it differently. On the provider side people are writing for those platforms, and they dont enable huge amounts of written text to be delivered in the way the paper medium can be. You see the twin engines, if you like, driving behavioural response. People are using the technology and its most amenable to quick digestion of short messages, and people are writing quick, dijestable messages. Theres a professor tuff quoted in a the washington post, and she talked about how tv news led us to focus on shorter listening Attention Spans by listening to sound bites. Now we talk about eye bites, looking at brief things on the internet. Is there a difference in the way we read and a book and the way we look at something on the internet that we are just skimming and scanning . Yes. They are different reading behaviours. The reading process is very complicated and is made up of the multiple staples of activity stages of activity. The moment you read a classic novel, we say you cant judge a book by its cover, but you can and you do. The quick scannings of a lengthy text tells us how am i to approach this. I get knews from the layout and i proceed to engage and have a lengthy engagement with the book. With the electronic medium its the early intersectionses, what we dont do is necessarily folio with the long deep intersection. Is that how we read news head lines, and scan paragraphs. We can do that. We can emers ourselves deeply if we choose to do so. Its harder with new technology, because you are bombarded not just with the information you are seeking, new informs is coming out, you have movement, animation, sound, hypermedia mixed in, and these capture the information system. Attention is finite, and its something you cant increase, you are wired from primitive times to respond and give attention. A medium that makes use of the qualities will capture your intention in a certain way and makes you engage in an experience space. Its the same out system. The medium is driving a form of response, different to the newspaper or magazine or a book. Are you concerned about the consequences. I know theres an israeli study finding people learn better by reading on paper. Theres early studies poipding to a com pointing to a compresentation gap, reading electronically or digitally. People dont see it themselves. They are over confident in an ability to comprehend. There are consequences with that. For a generation born and bred and raised on largely Digital Information that is shorter and pushed at them. I think we have to be conscious of the skill set that is involved in deep emersion with long extended reading and be concess of doing that. We have a form of biliteracy. We are favouring one particular kind of literacy over another. That will have grave consequences as our civilisation evolves. Its a fascinating story. Andrew dillon, pleasure to have you on the show. Well be back with more of consider this. Could love be based entirely on chemistry . Dating has become a multibillion industry, and new companies are looking for new ways to capitalize. One had people swab their cheeks to get d. N. A. To find a scientific match. There are pheromone parties, people smell tshirts in plastic bags to find a mate. If they take a shine to a smell, that woman didnt they are a match. Is this a science. Dr wendy walsh is a doctor of psychology, and an advisor to a company that deals with d. N. A. Swabs, significant chemistry. Good to see you. Billions to be made in the dating world. Lets start with the fera moan parties. Can we figure out if we have chemistry with someone by smelling a tshirt they slept in . Believe it or not, we dan. Pheromones indicate dispirit immunecm. When two mate, they take blue eyes from one, long legs from one, brown hair from another. With immune systems they combane. The more different, the more wide range of diseases they can fend off, the fitter the child will be. If the child is fitter, Mother Nature has made a way to get the child, that is hot, sexual fashion. Smelling pheromones creates better sex, its well documented. I can see rejecting someone because of not liking the way they smell. If you are not attracted to the person physically, how you know, your personality doesnt match with them, how would the smell make a difference. Spoken like a perfect man. Your eyes are the things you are looking for in a woman to show fertility, fitness, but women use their nose, and women cant tell a guys fitness unless they smell the immune system. For women the smell is important. Here is the problem. We take showers before a date, pile on perfumes, women have the Birth Control pill, and it may impair their ability to smell, because the body mimics pregnancy. There is some substance to the pheromone party, but they are small, its like smelling tshirts is not looking at a database. I imagine that defeats the purpose. It can defeat the purpose. But i want to tell you, antonio, pheromones are a piece of the chemical puzzle. You mention earlier, instantchemistry. Com. What they look at is the amount of genes that the the group of genes creating immune system. They look at the genes that show sarah tonin uptake, related to emotions, personality, mood swings, and they have looked at long studies of people married a long period of time and compared the d. N. A. To figure this out. You are telling me that you look at the dna of one person and look at the database and say, oh, this d. N. A. , because of the serra tonin is a match to these other people on the database. So sarah tonin uptake indicates sometimes wide mood swings. What we know about how couples relate and have conflict. If you have two partners with wild mood swings, you have a wild divorce rate. If you have one stable partner, then the other person can be tempered by that. Its not the biology is destiny, but choosing an environment that sort of suppresses the negative biology is helpful. That is your relationship. Choosing a relationship that enhances the good parts of neurochemistry is the game. I know this is new. What success rate is this having . Well, at this point, instantchemistry. Com is working with match makers, wanting to provide it to highend clients. They are working on developing the stir stick, an instant read almost like a home pregnancy test. You can do it in bars, a check swab test. A red, green or yellow light. That will be exciting. What do you tell people who think this cant work, its a gimmick. Come on, we ask people to take a test for stds, why wouldnt we want to know if their immune system is enough to make a healthy baby. Do you think youll find it out from that quick of a d. N. A. Test . Believe it or not, yes. Its exciting. Its the cuttingage in mating cutting edge in mating. Its something we did in the hunter gatherer past. We used taste, touch, smell and site to determine if someone was a good mate. We messed it up with online dating. How can you smell someone in another city that you found on a website. I dont know, its hard to think of smell as being the thing that will draw you to someone. Its huge. It does work. And you smell delicious from here. Thank you, wendy. I wish i could say the same. But your knows is clearly better nose is clearly better than mine. Wendy walsh, good to have you on the show. The show may be over, but the consider continues, al jazeera, or facebook or google . Find us on twitter. See you next time. We are going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity and we are doing it in a unique way. This is a show about science by scientists. Lets check out our team of hardcore nerds. Dr. Shim soma are. A, tonight, ojbriganse motivates with his voice. Get ready for something great. Stay humble and hungry. Imagine if he still had his real voice. Next, the technology thats allowing patients to save a valuable part of themselves. Thats significant. Before its too late. Lindsey moran is a former cia