Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a contributing writer at National Geographic, and he joins us to talk about his journey into the world of telemarketers and their phone mills selling dubious products.
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History’s Real-Life Fashion Police
Stanford Law professor Richard Thompson Ford joins us to talk about a long and fascinating list of rules about who could dress in which ways and why, and how they were often used as a cudgel to keep people from rising above their station.
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How The Medical Research System Gets Around Informed Consent
Harriet A. Washington, a lecturer in bioethics at Columbia University, joins us to talk about her research into a patient’s right to decline a procedure and the ethics of forcing experiments or new treatments in the name of research.
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A Post-Mortem On Texas’s Colossal Energy Failure
University of Houston energy fellow Ed Hirs and Texas Water Resources Institute associate director Wendy Jepson join us to explain why one of the toughest weeks in Texas history was likely preventable – and what the state needs to do to make sure an energy disaster doesn’t strike again.
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Egg Freezing: Empowerment Or Impediment
Lucy van de Wiel, research associate at the Reproductive Sociology Research Group, University of Cambridge, joins us to discuss how this reproductive technology offers a chance at parenting but also can lead to a heartbreaking journey into a largely unregulated industry.
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Rethinking Russia’s Place On The International Stage
Kathryn E. Stoner is the deputy director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and she joins us to explain how Vladimir Putin has used his iron grip on domestic power to rachet up his country’s influence on international affairs.
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How Public Education Props Up Our Democracy
University of South Carolina School of Law professor Derek W. Black joins us to talk about why a public education system built to serve all students is fundamental to creating an equitable society.
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How Pocahontas Kept The Peace
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Silver Professor of History Emerita at New York University, joins us to talk about how Pocahontas collaborated with a trio of English boys to keep communication flowing between the colonists and their Indian neighbors.
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How A Murderer Got Out To Kill Again
Robert Riggs joins us to talk about the flaws in the parole system that allowed a murderer to walk free several times over.
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The Heavy Weight of American Racism
Mary-Frances Winters, president and CEO of diversity and inclusion consulting firm The Winters Group, joins us to discuss the exhaustion that comes with constantly fighting for a seat at the table, especially amid white fragility and empty promises for change.
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Is America Really A Christian Nation?
Boston University professor Jay Wexler joins us to talk about religious rights in the public sphere beyond Christianity, Judaism and Islam and how they fit into a country that increasingly disavows religion altogether.
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Biden Promised To Fix The Climate – Here’s What He Can Do
Heather Hansman of Outside magazine joins us to discuss a myriad of options the president now has before him to mitigate environmental damage, and the political costs of choosing which path to take.
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