Kai Kupferschmidt, contributing correspondent for Science magazine, joins us to discuss why we so often overlook the rarity of the color blue and his trek around the globe to better understand it.
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How Amazon Is Reshaping America’s Cities And Economy
Alec MacGillis, senior reporter for ProPublica, joins us to discuss how Amazon and other digital retailers are affecting the larger economy as they drive some cities to either boom or bust.
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The Tension Between Public Health and Individual Liberty
Ed Yong received a Pulitzer Prize for his Covid coverage in The Atlantic, and he joins us to talk about how the pandemic is forcing the CDC to rethink its mission as it struggles to protect the greater good in an era of unchecked individualism.
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What Does A Depressed Brain Look Like?
Simon Lewsen joins us to discuss why researchers looking into the origins and biology of depression have such a hard time collecting complete data to build a brain modeling system to help diagnose disease.
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The Unintended Consequences Of Vaping
Health and science journalist Laura Beil joins us to talk about how a pair of graduate students created the Juul vape pen in hopes to end smoking. Instead, they created another health hazard more attractive to teenagers than the one they were trying to end.
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The Link Between Opioids And Alzheimer’s
Science journalist Lauren Aguirre joins us to talk about the amnesia opioid addicts sometimes suffer from, new breakthroughs in understanding Alzheimer’s, and her own experience with temporary memory loss.
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Venture Capitalists Should Be Funding Adaptive Technologies
Devi Lockwood is an assistant editor at Rest of World, and she joins us to talk about significant advancements in technology that can help users hear, see, and talk, and what’s standing in the way of those advancements reaching the people who could use them most.
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Computers Weren’t Designed For Human Bodies
Laine Nooney, assistant professor of media and information studies at New York University, joins us to talk about the ailments brought about computer usage – and about the trouble with shutting down your work computer for the day only to pick up your tablet.
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Look To Nature For Your Weather Forecast
Explorer Tristan Gooley joins us to talk about the subtle — and not so subtle — signs nature gives us to interpret the wind, rain, snow and sun.
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It’s OK To Use Emojis With Your Co-Workers
Leadership expert Erica Dhawan joins us to talk about the clues and cues needed for successful online dialogue and how to make working from home work for you.
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You’ve Got The Shot. Are You Still Freaking Out?
Dr. Monica Gandhi is professor of medicine and associate division chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF San Francisco General Hospital. She joins us to discuss our behavior as pandemic restrictions are lifted and how information is disseminated and ingested.
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What’s The Longest You Can Possibly Live?
Steven Johnson is host of the PBS/BBC series “How We Got to Now,” and the “American Innovations” podcast. He joins us to talk about societal change that has pushed us to live older, fuller lives and why that’s dependent on the greater good.
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