Diets, Crowd Physics, Snowflake Citizen Science. January 4, 2019, Part 1

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Earlier this week, hundreds of thousands of revelers huddled together under the pouring rain in Times Square for an annual tradition: to watch the New Year’s ball drop. But once the clock struck midnight, the song was sung, and the loved ones were kissed, all anyone wanted to do was get out of there. The problem? How does a mass of 100,000 people move out of a few square blocks in midtown Manhattan? Luckily, scientists are studying this type of problem. Stanford University professor Nicholas Ouellette joins Ira to discuss the weird world of crowd movement. From low-carb, high protein, calorie counting, there are all sorts of diets that claim to help you lose weight. But how do all of these…