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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The ABC’s Of STD’s
Dr. Ina Park is a medical consultant at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of STD Prevention, and she joins us for an open conversation about how STDs are spread and how they affect the body.
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Extra! Extra! Read All About It! (On Nextdoor)
Will Oremus joins us to talk about how as local newspapers die out, the social media site Nextdoor is filling that need.
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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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Artificial Solutions To Preserve The Natural World
New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert joins us to talk about how scientists are looking to address climate change by studying the ways plants and animals have already adapted to live alongside humans.
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Economic Growth Isn’t The Answer To Inequality
Stephen J. Macekura of Indiana University joins us to make the case that an ever-increasing GDP isn’t the answer to inequality and other social issues.
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How Ancient Cities Created The Modern World
Author Ben Wilson joins us to talk about the innovations of ancient cities, which connect the Sumerian city of Uruk to the world’s urban mega-centers of today.
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Inside NASA’s Mission To Diversify Its Ranks
Jay Bennett, science editor at National Geographic, joins us to talk about how NASA is pinning its future on a diverse collection of scientists and future astronauts.
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Do Women Really Need All Those C-Sections?
Jacqueline H. Wolf, professor of the history of medicine at Ohio University, joins us to talk about the history of cesarean birth and the impacts it has on women’s lives and the public health system as a whole.
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Why The Thing We Want Most Is Nothingness
Kyle Chayka joins us to discuss the barriers we put up to isolate ourselves from the world, why that’s caught on as a health craze, and how that disconnect might link to a more pessimistic outlook on life than we’d like to acknowledge.
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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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