This story originally aired on NPR's All Things Considered, 1/10/12.

Ike Sriskandarajah, Turnstyle News

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Exeter, New Hampshire -- If campaigning for Republican Presidential candidates in New Hampshire sounds like hard work, try going door to door on primary weekend for Jesus.

That’s what Elder Taylor Bayles is doing in Exeter, New Hampshire. “Elder” is a religious title the Mormon Church gives this missionary even though he’s just 20 years old. His canvassing partner is Elder Kyle Hodson, who’s 21. The two blonde, conservatively dressed young men acknowledge that they tend to attract attention when they go door to door. “Generally, walking around New Hampshire in a suit and tie with a name tag makes you in the spotlight,” said Bayles.

They keep a rigorous schedule, sometimes from 10 in the morning to nine at night, talking to people about the Mormon faith. But in the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, there’s something else people want to talk to them about: who they are voting for.

“It’s definitely a topic of conversation that comes up quite a bit,” said Hodson. “Two people within just a couple minutes of each other asked us the exact same question. They just yelled at us, ‘Huntsman or Romney?’”

This story originally aired on NPR's All Things Considered, 1/3/12.

Young voters came out in huge numbers to elect Obama in 2008, but how many young people remain inspired and involved four years later? Democrats this year will be using their caucus to test how much support they have in the state, especially from the young voters. But those young caucus-goers may not show up this year -- at least not for Obama.

The Obama For America campaign’s communication director in Iowa, John Kraus says the caucuses are a chance to show that Obama’s network from 2008 hasn’t disappeared. Despite the state’s focus on Republican candidates, Kraus says young Iowans are still connected to the campaign and still devoted to Obama. “Whether it's the Iraq War or ending "don't ask don't tell," making college more affordable… Many of the things that he talked about in 2008 that inspired a lot of young people to get involved are issues that he delivered on,” said Kraus.

23 year-old Nick Cavanaugh is one of the more than 26,000 young Democrats who caucused for Obama in 2008. Back then, he was tan easy choice for Cavanaugh and his friends. “I'm pretty sure everybody was excited about Obama in 2008,” said Cavanugh.

But this year, Cavanaugh says he doesn’t know which candidate his peers support. Apart from a few Facebook posts here and there, no one talks about the caucuses. “It's the arguing in Washington, man, has really turned me off to it. So I’ve started ignoring it all. I used to be a lot more politically informed, but not anymore. I just kind of let it go,” he said.

Sayre Quevedo, Turnstyle News

State and federal governments are implementing new policies requiring schools to provide free drinking water in cafeterias at lunchtime, to promote health and fight obesity. Ideally, schools install “hydration stations” where students fill up reusable bottles with chilled, filtered water. But plenty of schools have to make due with old-fashioned water fountains.

That's definitely the case at my old high school (I graduated in the spring). A few months before California's law took effect, I spoke with my principal, Carmelo Sgarlato. He hadn't heard of it. But even after I told him, Sgarlato said that if it were up to him, there'd be lots of other upgrades that would come before water at our school. “Ventilation," he said, "way more important in this building because we have no windows that really open. Repairing leaks to cut down mold buildup. Those are two major areas that I would put money into before water.”

Plus, according to both state and federal law, my school is in compliance with the new water policies.The lunchroom water fountain counts. But in the eyes of most students I spoke to, like my friend Jessie Chen, water fountains are just nasty.

A version of this story aired on NPR's All Things Considered, 11/22/11.

Nina Porzucki, Turnstyle News

A few weeks ago, in the middle of Zuccotti Park 21-year-old Victoria Sobel set up a webcam on her refurbished laptop or “hackintosh,” as she called it, and logged into Livestream.com. Looking into the camera she called out to viewers watching all over the world, “Hi Livestream, are we live?”

A string of messages from people watching Sobel filled the screen. They wrote questions to her.

“Someone is asking if there’s a march today?” she said to me and then looked back into the camera to talk to viewers and answer the question. “I’m going to take you to the calendar board so we’ll find out. And I’m going to take a walk around the park.”

The Occupy Wall Street livestream feed and its offshoots in other cities are changing the way in which thousands of people around the world have viewed the protests – live and unedited.

Here’s how it happened. Protesters in Zuccotti Park in September wanted to get the word out. They set up a free Livestream account and began broadcasting. Initially not many people tuned in but then stuff started happening, like the arrests during the march across the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1. Suddenly, there were hundreds of people going to Livestream.com to watch what was happening.

All this attention has caused a big bump for the company Livestream.com, but with odd consequences. Back in September, when the occupiers first set up their free channel, viewers sympathetic to the movement complained – loudly. As they watched the movement unfold, they were subjected to advertisements. The concept “Live from Zuccotti Park brought to you by TMobile, Hyundai, or Toshiba,” didn’t sit so well with Occupy supporters.

Sayre Quevedo, Turnstyle News

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Alexander Monsanto has achieved a lot of firsts. He’s a first generation American, the first in his family to graduate high school, and the first to get a college degree. All eyes are on him to succeed, but it’s been ten months since he got his accounting degree from Florida Atlantic University, and still no job.

“There are times where I would question what I was doing," said Monsanto. "I studied accounting for four years. If it’s going to be this difficult to get a job, is this really the field I want to be in?”

The jobless rate in the San Francisco Bay Area is above the national average, and unemployment is especially high for recent college grads. Month after month, Alexander Monsanto emailed resumes and wrote cover letters with little success. One morning he says he responded to every Craigslist ad in the San Francisco Bay Area that mentioned accounting, and didn’t receive a single response.

“It turns into this viscous cycle where it’s not helping to stay home to look for a job. You kind of have to just get out of the house and go and network and put yourself out there. I needed to find something different,” said Monsanto. And that is exactly what he did.

The lanky 25 year-old is a regular commuter on a 7:45 AM bus from Berkeley to San Francisco, but unlike most on the bus, Monsanto is hunting for a job instead of heading to one. When he arrives in San Francisco, Monsanto pulls two straps over his shoulders and begins walking the streets of the financial district wearing a sandwich board with the words "Hire Me" spelled out on the front with big black sticky letters. The sign beats against his chest with every step.

It’s a moment that he says fills him with embarrassment every time, but the need for a job eclipses any insecurities. “Whatever it takes, that's what I keep telling myself,” said Monsanto. “I mean a lot of people probably think I’m crazy but I’m not.”

In Oakland, California last night, thousands of residents gathered in front of City Hall to plan for a general strike, in the wake of violent clashes between police and Occupy Oakland protesters earlier in the week. Many were also there for a vigil for Scott Olsen, a former Marine taking part in the protests who was wounded on Tuesday night.

Olsen has become a symbol for protesters, drawing attention to excessive force used by the police department, and sparking criticism of the mayor’s handling of the Occupy movement.

The video of a Olsen being injured Tuesday night spread all over the internet. His bloodied face is  a big part of what's kept the national spotlight on Oakland. He’s a 24-yr-old Iraq veteran. He came to Occupy Oakland Tuesday night to support protesters after his workday at a Bay Area tech firm.

Video from moments earlier show Olsen standing in his Marine camouflage jacket and hat with his arms at his side. He’s standing next to someone in a Navy uniform with a flag that reads Veterans for Peace.org. Police start shooting projectiles into the crowd. Suddenly, Olsen is down. Protesters rush towards him where he is lying on the ground. But they scatter when a tear gas canister explodes on the ground next to Olsen. Eventually, protesters carried Olsen away and drove him to the hospital.

Twenty-year-old protester Clare Chadwick was one of those rescuers. Outside Highland Hospital yesterday, she stood holding Olsen’s wide brimmed camouflage hat. "When he was getting carried away his hat fell off. I ran back and grabbed it. His military hat, I though he would want it back," she said.

Parents and advocates in one East Oakland, California, neighborhood have stepped up their activism in response to pimps targeting their middle school-aged daughters.

Last year, All Things Considered and Youth Radio collaborated on an investigative series from young people's point of view that revealed what it's like being trafficked and also how police efforts to combat the problem often criminalize young women.

Nhuanh Ly is the program coordinator for Banteay Srei — a group that works with neighborhood girls – to build self-esteem and to teach them how to avoid being recruited by pimps. School district officials say it’s hard to prevent because the pimps just look like regular guys.

And recruitment can happen anywhere, says Ly. “It happens at the bus stops, it happens in front of homes, and it happens in front of schools…Not too long ago, one of the girls who attends our afterschool programs called me and she was really, really distraught. She was like ‘Nhuanh! Nhuanh! I can’t believe this just happened! A pimp just tried to recruit me and he actually picked me up in his car.”

Ly says, as shocking as it seems, the average age that girls get recruited into trafficking in the US is 12 years old. It’s a common misconception that girls are trafficked after being kidnapped. But many times it’s more subtle than that. It can start with a seduction or even a relationship. So Ly encourages families to have frank conversations early about dating and sex. “Yeah, it’s awkward talking to your parents about sex, right? … A common response for parents is to try shut their children away from seeing this. But the reality is that it’s so visible and it’s so prevalent that we

By: Nishat Kurwa, Turnstyle News

In the San Francisco Bay Area, a first-of-its kind program rolling out next month will steer at-risk and low income youth into public health careers, a play to turn neglected neighborhoods into fertile ground for recruiting new emergency responders.

The EMS Corps, established by Alameda County’s Health Services Agency, trains young adults for internships within the department; others complete a first responder training program administered in partnership with the county. And the program has grown to include young people who have been in trouble with the law.

Errnesto Diaz is a sweet, bright 19-year-old spent seven months at Camp Sweeney, a residential facility for youth offenders. He’d been arrested on assault charges. Diaz said given the opportunities that have resulted from the mentorship and training he received, “…if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change anything. I would go to Camp Sweeney, do that time, because it’s worth it.”

The county health department training during his sentence has put him on course to a career as an emergency medical technician. The program’s motto pretty much sums up the transformation – “save lives, don’t destroy lives.”

County health department Director Alex Briscoe led the team that developed the EMS Corps, the program that will create employment opportunities for young men like Diaz. “In marginalized communities your sense of the future gets constrained,” Briscoe said. “Young people need to be shown a world of possibility, and then given a specific and clear path to achieving it.” (Disclosure: Briscoe’s department funds programs at Turnstyle’s parent company, Youth Radio).

Originally published on Turnstyle News.

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Say you're at Walgreens to buy shampoo. While browsing the hair product aisle, there’s one bottle that calls out to you like a familiar face in an overwhelming array of hair tonic options. It just feels like… the ONE. Why is that?

If you believe the scientists doing research in the growing business of neuromarketing, it all comes down to what happens to your brain when you encounter an advertisement. Using the tools of neuroscience, these researchers and entrepreneurs say they can measure how a good ad grabs your attention to makes you aware of a certain brand. And, perhaps more lucratively, how a great ad triggers your emotions and primes you to be drawn to the brand when you encounter it again.

Which may sound scary to some people. But I’ve always thought my brain was different from other teenage brains. See, my therapist mom taught me from a young age never to surrender to the manipulations of advertising. When I was in second grade, she even started an after-school class where my classmates and I analyzed commercials and tried to spot product placements in our favorite TV shows.

“The kids were used to going into that zone where you just stop thinking and just watch,” said my mom when I asked why she had developed the class. “This interrupted that, and made people stop watching and start thinking.”

I, for one, started thinking a lot about ads, and really never stopped. But recently, I’ve been wondering if that critical thinking has made any difference and, in the end, just how much control I have over my own thoughts when it comes to ads. Which is how I ended up looking at my brain waves with A. K. Pradeep, a neuromarketing pioneer and CEO of the Berkeley-based company, NeuroFocus. Although it makes some scientists antsy, he tells advertisers how to make better commercials by replacing focus groups with an electroencephalogram.

“What neuroscience had done is taken us a step further,” said Pradeep, “close to where the action happens, to where the truth really is.”

To measure that action, Pradeep monitored the electrical currents in different parts of my brain as I watched a commercial – a Honda Civic ad that was chosen especially for my demo. Watch the video below to see Pradeep’s analysis of how my brain responded to those images and sounds of zooming cars.

My Brain on Ads from Turnstyle Video on Vimeo.

This story was broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered on 6/3/2011, and was originally published on Turnstyle News..

A lot has changed since the 80’s. Or so I’m told. I wasn’t born until 1991 – the same year Magic Johnson announced that he had HIV. I’m 19 now, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people joke that Magic Johnson discovered the cure to AIDS…money.

Katherine Hood knows the same joke. She’s a senior at UC Berkeley and has grown up knowing about the disease her whole life. Regardless of the jokes, we both know HIV is still deadly serious. “I think it’s interesting because while I don’t think it’s the same sort of death sentence mentality,” says Hood, “To me if I actually stop and think about it, it still seems like a horrifying thought.”

Hood and lots of kids we talked to say their school Sex Ed classes were pretty good. Thanks to my school’s health classes, I had seen a condom by the 7th grade and knew what it was for. My mom even bought me a book called Deal With It. I remember my friends coming over after school to giggle about stick figure illustrations of sexual positions.