Please Explain (the Leonard Lopate Show)

Tax season is here which means that it’s the best time of the year for phone scams, financial fraud and identity theft. On this week’s Please Explain, identity theft expert Steven Weisman tells us all about the most common scams and how to avoid them. He’ll also offer ways to protect yourself against identity theft. He’s the author of several books on the topic, including Identity Theft Alert, and writes the “Scamacide” blog. He’s joined by Beth Finkel, the NY State Director of AARP, who offers ways to help seniors avoid targeted scams.  The AARP is hosting Shred Fest events from April 26 through May 1. For more information, check out their website, which will be updated as the event grows near, for more details. Do you have questions about phone scams or identity theft? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Kurt Vonnegut once gave this piece of creative writing advice: "First rule: Do not use semicolons... All they do is show you've been to college.”   There's no question that punctuation elicits strong feelings. On today's Please Explain, linguist David Crystal teaches us how to correctly use punctuation, and gives us a history of why we punctuate the way we do. His latest book, Making a Point: The Persnickety Story of English Punctuation, completes his trilogy of books on the English language. Do you have questions about punctuation? Write to us in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

While some may cringe at the thought of eating brains, sweetbreads, also known as offal, are celebrated in many cuisines around the world. On today's Please Explain food writer Robert Sietsema and butcher Brent Young of The Meat Hook, tell you all you'll ever need to know about buying, preparing and eating offal. They'll also share the best local restaurants offering exciting offal options. Do you have questions about offal? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! Check out recipes from Chef Chris Consentino of Offal Good! Marinated Tripe, New Potatoes & ParsleyExtracted from Beginnings: My Way To Start a Meal by Chris Cosentino -1 1/3 cups each coarsely chopped carrot, celery, and onion-2 heads garlic, split, plus 5 cloves, minced-1 bunch fresh thyme-2 bay leaves-1 tbsp fennel seeds-Kosher salt-2 vanilla beans, split lengthwise-1/2 cup dry white wine-Juice of 1 lemon-4 tbsp Champagne vinegar-2 lb honeycomb beef tripe, preferably organic and unbleached-10 fingerli

Processed foods tend to have long lists of ingredients that add flavor, color and texture, along with preservatives to extend shelf life. On today's Please Explain, we'll take a close look at the most common food additives, from xanthan gum to MSG. Photographer Dwight Eschliman and author Steve Ettlinger created a detailed visual guide in Ingredients: A Visual Exploration of 75 Additives and 25 Food Products, and they'll help take the mystery out of the ingredients list. Charles Mueller, clinical associate professor of nutrition at NYU Steinhardt, will discuss the health effects of the common additives.  Do you have questions about food additives? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Over the past few years, tacos have risen from humble street food (and Americanized fast food) to trendy options at a growing number of restaurants. A staple of Mexican cuisine, they’ve been adopted by different cultures and are even showing up on brunch and dessert menus. On this week’s Please Explain, Chef Alex Stupak, owner of the Empellón restaurant group, and food writer Jordana Rothman, will tell us how to make fresh tortillas, salsas, moles, as well as traditional and modern fillings. They'll also share tips and recipes from their book Tacos: Recipes and Provocations.   Do you have questions about tacos? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! Recipe: Tacos al Pastor (From Tacos: Recipes and Provocations by Alex Stupak & Jordana Rothman) Short of investing in a vertical broiler, this hack is the closest you’ll get to al pastor tacos at home. We tend to think of pork shoulder as something that needs to be braised, but a well-butchered shoulder steak given a

The depths of winter make this the peak of sauce season. Whether you love the classic comfort of tomato sauce or a rich, fragrant curry, on today's Please Explain we're sharing the secrets of sauce and answering your questions! Chef James Peterson, author of the award-winning book Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making, will take us through all the sauces, from traditional French hollandaise and béchamel, to Italian Osso Buco and North African Harissa sauce.   Do you have questions about sauces and sauce-making? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!  

Cast iron cookware has been around for centuries, but many modern cooks are intimidated by it. How do you clean it? What can (and can't) you cook in it? Should you season it?  In this week's Please Explain, Julia Collin Davison, the executive food editor at America’s Test Kitchen and author of the forthcoming book Cook it in Cast Iron: Kitchen-Tested Recipes for the One Pan That Does It All (Cook's Country), and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, Managing Culinary Director of Serious Eats and author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, answer all your burning cast iron questions and dispel the many myths surrounding the classic cookware. Do you have questions about cast iron cookware? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! Recipe: Classic Roast Chicken with Lemon-Thyme Pan Sauce from Cook It in Cast Iron from America’s Test Kitchen Classic Roast Chicken with Lemon-Thyme Pan Sauce from "Cook It in Cast Iron" from America’s Test Kitchen ("Cook It in Ca

With the rise of independent distilleries and specialty cocktail bars, it's safe to say that whiskey is having a moment. But for many curious tasters and adventurous drinkers, there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding whiskey and its incarnations. In our latest Please Explain, Heather Greene, whiskey sommelier and author of Whiskey Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life, talks about the history, and the many cultural variations of whiskey, along with tips on tasting, pairing and serving suggestions. Dr. Renee Hernandez, owner of Tirado Distillery in the Bronx, will also be joining us to talk about all that’s involved in making his "NY Corn Whiskey.”  Do you have questions about whiskey, bourbon or other grain spirits? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know Twitter or Facebook!  

There are trillions of microbes inside of you. They can make you sick, but many of them keep you alive.

Everyone gets a little paranoid sometimes, but with politicians and presidential candidates lobbing warnings about the threat of terrorism left and right, it can be hard to know when to stop worrying. But as psychologist and author David J. LaPorte explains in his book, Paranoid: Exploring Suspicion from the Dubious to the Delusional paranoia can take on many forms and wriggle its way into even the most trusting minds. On this edition of Please Explain, LaPorte answers your questions on the psychology and neuroscience of paranoia and how the uncertainty of the post-9/11 world makes it easy for paranoia to set down roots. Send us your questions by writing a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!  

Caring for the dead, mourning the dead, and commemoration the dead, has always been an essential part of human civilization. For this week's Please Explain, we are talking to historian Thomas Laqueur, whose latest book, The Work of the Dead, exhaustively details why our treatment of death has always been such an important part of human life. 

Everybody lies, sometimes even when we know it's wrong. But then why do we do it? Behavioral scientist Dan Ariely tells us the truth about lying in our latest edition of Please Explain. 

In our latest Please Explain, we examine expert witnesses to find out their role in courts, their influence in trials, and their impact in both civil and criminal cases.

When the World Health Organization announced their findings about the risk factors of eating red meat, many media outlets ran headlines equating bacon to cigarettes. Red meat, coffee, wine, fish, and other foods and drinks have been the source of stories in the media that have been misleading, vague, and contradictory. For this week’s Please Explain, we are talking all about how the media covers nutrition, and what you need to know when reading health and nutrition reporting, with Anahad O’Connor, health reporter at The New York Times.    Does bacon give you cancer? Up next, please explain is all about nutrition in the headlines. Have a question? Send it our way. — Leonard Lopate (@LeonardLopate) November 13, 2015 Absolute risk of colon cancer is much lower that people thing https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ — Leonard Lopate (@LeonardLopate) November 13, 2015 "The critical word is 'association'" @anahadoconnor breaks down observational scientific studies https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ — Leonard Lopate (@LeonardLopate) Novembe

Cervantes, Voltaire, the Bible: English audiences rely on translators to access to some of the world’s most important texts, but when it comes to translation, there is no magic formula.

For our latest Please Explain, we are talking to the journalist Wendy Williams about the history of horses. Horses and humans have worked together for thousands of years, and they have made a big impact on the course of human civilization. Williams' book is The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion. Event: Wendy Williams will be speaking and signing books at Rutgers' G.H. Cook Campus, at the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health Building, 65 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, on Nov. 2 at 7:00 p.m.

In 2006, Congress tried to crack down on illegal online sports betting. Nearly a decade later, Internet gambling is flourishing, and a new business that increasingly looks like gambling, fantasy sports, is winning millions of players and stoking controversy. For this week's Please Explain, we talk to James Glanz and Walt Bogdanich, part of the New York Times investigative team that, with the PBS series "Frontline," investigated the business, and the technology, of illegal gambling in the Internet age. 

When Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 a pill, it brought the issue of drug prices to the spotlight. Today's Please Explain: Drug Prices.

Don't freak out! But our latest Please Explain is all about fear. Sociologist Margee Karr discusses what fear does to our brains, why we scream, and why we love horror movies.

In our latest Please Explain, 'New Yorker' staff writer John Seabrook unravels how to make musical hits, the business behind them, and what they do to our brains.