Podcasts about long history

For months now, agents working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have been carrying out raids, arresting people on the street, at work and at immigration courthouses. Often they are wearing plain clothes and masks.As U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown intensifies, so have the instances of arrests and detentions by ICE, sometimes without warrants or due process. Despite mass protests and pushback from opposition politicians and immigrants rights groups, the Trump administration has vowed the arrests will continue as they aim for one million deportations a year.But how, exactly, does ICE operate? How did the agency come to be and how does it compare to immigration enforcement in America's past? To help us dive deep into ICE's history and put it all into context, we're joined by Adam Goodman, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and the author of The Deportation Machine: America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In this episode of Medical Ethics Unpacked, hosts Dominic Sisti and Steve Levine welcome Jason Schwartz, PhD, associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, for a discussion on vaccine ethics, public health infrastructure, and the challenges of maintaining trust in immunization programs. Together, they explore how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped public attitudes toward vaccines, while also underscoring long-standing tensions between individual autonomy and collective responsibility. Schwartz, whose work focuses on vaccine policy and history, offers perspective on the systems and institutions, such as the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), helping to translate scientific evidence into public health recommendations. This episode comes at a time when ACIP is once again in the headlines as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently replaced all 17 members with a new slate of individuals, citing concerns about groupthink and conflicts of interest. The move has generated widespread commentary about the role and value of such expert advisory bodies in shaping public health decisions, especially in the face of growing skepticism and political scrutiny. Ethical questions about equity, communication, and responsibility are threaded throughout the discussion. The hosts and Schwartz reflect on what it means to make fair vaccine recommendations in the context of incomplete data, and how institutions can maintain public trust amid scientific uncertainty. They also discuss how the infrastructure behind public health decisions—committees, advisory boards, and interagency coordination—can either strengthen or undermine confidence depending on how they function and how well they are understood. Chapters 00:00 – Introduction and Vaccine Policy in Crisis 03:00 – The Long History and New Politics of Vaccine Skepticism 09:30 – Erosion of Public Health Infrastructure and Expert Advisory Systems 14:50 – Why Vaccines Became a Political Flashpoint 19:10 – Clinician Ethics and the Vaccine-Hesitant Patient 32:00 – Data, Misinformation, and the Future of Vaccine Trust References: Stone W. RFK Jr. names new slate of vaccine advisers after purging CDC panel. NPR. Published June 11, 2025. Accessed June 17, 2025. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/06/11/nx-s1-5430870/cdc-vaccine-experts-rfk-jr Asturias EJ, Brewer NT, Brooks O, et al. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at a Crossroads. JAMA. Published online June 16, 2025. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.10776

Democrats continue to push for slave labor in the US which is what is fueling their current LA riots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democrats continue to push for slave labor in the US, which is what is fueling their current LA riots.

This weekend there was a concentration of Minnesota teams on the West Coast. The Twins lost their series in Seattle while Minnesota United won in that same city. The Lynx won their game in San Francisco against the WNBA's newest team, the Golden State Valkyries. The Twins, Loons and Lynx will all be at home for their next games. Our sports contributors Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson joined Minnesota Now to tell us what to expect.

Ed English and the rest of The Beaker Brothers Band will be performing at the Inside Out Reentry Community Spring Concert “Be an Instrument for Change” Annual Fundraiser, June 1, 3pm at Chauncey Swan Park in Iowa City. He and Dai Gwilliam from the Inside Out fundraising committee are in the studio to talk about … Continue reading

The United States has often been celebrated as a nation of immigrants. Yet over the last century, the U.S. government expelled more people than were allowed to stay permanently. Historian Adam Goodman describes the U.S. state's “deportation machine,” motivated by a shifting combination of bureaucratic self-interest, capitalist gain, and racism, which Trump has now put at the center of his presidency. He also discusses how immigrants and their allies have fought back over this long history of expulsion and terror. Adam Goodman, The Deportation Machine: America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants Princeton University Press, 2020 The post Driving Out Immigrants appeared first on KPFA.

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube and Rumble channels for video illustrations of this part of my Season 4 series of “Who is Israel?"Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePromisePerspective Subscribe on Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/the_promise_perspectiveVisit my website: www.promise-perspective.comFollow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_promise_perspective/Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/promiseperspectiveDonate on Venmo: https://venmo.com/u/stephanie-green0611Donate on PayPal: http://paypal.me/stephaniegreentppDonate on Patreon: http://patreon.com/ThePromisePerspectiveYour support is greatly appreciated ❤️Contact me: stephanie@promise-perspective.comSOURCES: Click hereSupport the show

A few weeks ago, New York Magazine dropped a bombshell story about U.S. Sen. John Fetterman — how the Democrat's behavior has grown increasingly erratic, worrying many of his staff members and even prompting fights with his wife, Gisele. City Cast Pittsburgh's Megan Harris and Mallory Falk talk about the story and all the reporting that's popped since, plus what we know about how Pittsburgh voters are reacting. Notes and references from today's show: Did Fetterman Dupe Progressives? [City Cast Pittsburgh] The Hidden Struggle of John Fetterman [New York Magazine] John Fetterman checks into hospital for depression [CBS Evening News]  Sen. John Fetterman raises alarms with outburst at meeting with union officials, AP sources say [AP News] Inside John Fetteran's office: canceled meetings, skipped votes and an outburst with PA teachers [Philadelphia Inquirer] Is John Fetterman ok? [Today Explained] Fetterman's Long History of Toxic Relationships in Braddock [Payday Report] Internal polling shows Fetterman's support is tanking with Democrats in his backyard [Politico] Learn more about the sponsors of this May 19th episode: Pittsburgh Pride Heinz History Center Bike Pittsburgh Become a member of City Cast Pittsburgh at membership.citycast.fm. Want more Pittsburgh news?  Sign up for our daily morning Hey Pittsburgh newsletter. We're on Instagram @CityCastPgh. Text or leave us a voicemail at 412-212-8893. Interested in advertising with City Cast? Find more info here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the rising cost of gaming pushing players away? We break down the price hike trends across consoles, games, subscriptions, and accessories and debate whether the gaming experience still justifies the price tag. We also react to the latest gaming news and share what we've been playing recently!Level 857 Video Game Podcast Ep-359: Is Gaming Too Expensive Now?00:00 - Intro02:30 - Games Played Discussion - Anima Flux, Marvel Rivals, A Way Out, Multiversus22:41 - Al played Gorri Cuddly Carnage, Kaiborg30:41 - Choc played Fatal Fury City of the Wolves, Smash Ultimate, Street Fighter 638:04 - Turb played Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Future Redeemed42:40 - Stikz played Claire Obscur: Expedition 3349:57 - Stal played Assassin's Creed Mirage57:10 - Indie Game of the Week Spotlight - Snipperclips1:00:10 - Break: Patreon/Fourthwall/Free Game Giveaway Reminder1:03:57 - PS Plus, Xbox Game Pass Are Not the Future of Gaming, Says US Analyst 1:12:38 - Helldivers 2 CEO Says You'll 'Sh*t Your Pants' Over What's Coming Down the Pipe 1:18:39 - Ubisoft Drops Heavy Hints Of A Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown Sequel 1:23:37 - We Shouldn't Be Surprised GTA 6 Was Delayed, Rockstar Has a Long History of Doing Just That1:35:25 - Upcoming Virtua Fighter Project Reveals Classic Character Redesign 1:39:29 - Is Gaming Too Expensive Now?If you enjoyed the podcast and would like to show support, feel free to do so in any of the following ways below:(1) Subscribe and share this podcast with close friends/family(2) Rate/Review us on your preferred podcasting platform: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/level857(3) Become a member on either Fourthwall or Patreon for exclusive perks and discounts on merch! https://www.857ent.com/#membership(4) Hit the bell and subscribe to our live podcast and multiplayer, co-op gaming channel: https://goo.gl/Zy9RTD

Companies all across the state are chipping into Ohio's #2 ranking in making the salty snack.

Author Mark Reinhart, the subject of an upcoming event at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, joined Springfield's Morning News to discuss the long history of film and television portrayal of Lincoln. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Buffett's long-term success was built on compounding—but that only works as long as the currency holds its value. Even Warren himself recently hinted that the U.S. dollar is in trouble over the coming decades, and our current leaders aren't equipped to fix it. Meanwhile, gold and silver continue rising quietly, with silver's supply-demand gap widening and central banks hoarding bullion.  Gallup Shows Gold Sentiment Climbing A recent Gallup poll shows nearly 1 in 4 Americans now view gold as the best long-term investment—yet physical bullion sales remain quiet. Classic case of sentiment leading price Buffett's Long History with Silver Back in the late '90s, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought nearly 130 million ounces of silver—so much that it spiked lease rates to 70% annually. They sold in 2006, likely under pressure during legal negotiations. Gold vs Berkshire Since 2000 Gold has outperformed Berkshire Hathaway stock over the last 27 years—despite Buffett's public criticism of gold.      

Recently, it was announced that the Daughters of Charity are leaving ministry at the Cathedral of St. Peter. On this episode of Catholic Forum, after a news update from TheDialog.org, we speak with Sister JoAnne Goecke, DC and Sister Mary Ellen Thomas, DC, two Daughters of Charity who live at the Cathedral of St. Peter Convent. Sister JoAnne teaches religion and is the librarian at the Cathedral of St. Peter School. Sister Mary Ellen works at the Saint Patrick Center offering services to the elderly and poor on Wilmington's East Side. The Sisters tell us about the founding of the Daughters of Charity by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, how the Daughters came to Wilmington 195 years ago and about their work at the School and Center. All are invited to a Mass in celebration of the Daughters of Charity on May 13, 2025 at 11:00 a.m. at the Cathedral of St. Peter. The Mass will be live-streamed on the Diocese of Wilmington YouTube channel, where you can also see a video of thie interview. Catholic Forum is a production of the Office of Communication of the Diocese of Wilmington. Please like, subscribe and share.

Disability Series. Episode #3 of 4. Since the advent of epidemiology (the study of infectious disease, its spread and prevention), humanists and scientists have been able to study mass-disabling events related to epidemic disease, especially prior to widespread vaccination. For example, the WHO has estimated that more than 20 million people who would otherwise be disabled are typically-abled today because of the poliomyelitis vaccine. The data from the pre-vaccine era is poor so it's difficult to make such a precise claim but it's still possible to look at historical “mass-disabling events” and to explore the ways that such events impacted society as a whole and disabled people specifically. That's what we're doing today. Find show notes and transcripts at www.digpodcast.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Technology reporter Nicole Kobie, author of "The Long History of the Future," talks about how technology evolves and discusses why many predicted technologies – including driverless and flying cars, smart cities, hyperloops, and autonomous robots – haven't become a reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Technology reporter Nicole Kobie, author of "The Long History of the Future," talks about how technology evolves and discusses why many predicted technologies – including driverless and flying cars, smart cities, hyperloops, and autonomous robots – haven't become a reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when decades of conservation experience meets cutting-edge technology? Kent Bohnhoff, retired Illinois grain farmer and former NRCS district conservationist, recently received a grant from One Good Idea to implement automated drainage water management systems on his land. Hear Kent's unique perspective gained from over 30 years in agricultural conservation, and why he believes the system will benefit both crop yields and water quality.Chapters:00:00 Introduction 00:36 A Long History in Farming and Conservation01:59 Connecting Farming Passion with a Career at the NRCS05:03 Satisfaction from Helping Farmers Implement Conservation08:15 Technological Advancements in Agriculture and Drainage Over 30 Years11:19 Family Farming Legacy and Future Involvement12:36One Good Idea Grant13:51 Initial Observations and Benefits of the Automated System15:53 The Importance of Water Storage and Slowing Down Runoff16:46 Landscape Changes and the Role of Conservation Practices17:47 Looking to the Future and Benefits for the Next Generation18:42 Staying in Touch and the Impact of Drought19:38 Closing RemarksRelated content:Best Practices: Drainage Water Recycling#120 | One Good Idea: An Educational Clearinghouse for Farmers#113 | Drainage Water Recycling: Creating Resiliency Amidst Dwindling Resources#71 | Is Drainage Infrastructure More Valuable Than Underground Transit?Find us on social media!Facebook Twitter InstagramListen on these podcast platformsApple Podcasts Spotify YouTube MusicYouTubeVisit our website to explore more episodes & water management education.

Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and their cousin, detached accessory dwelling units (DADUs), can offer tremendous benefits and add value to a property. On this solo episode of Zen and the Art of Real Estate Investing, Jonathan shares his long history with ADUs and DADUs, beginning with his childhood. He outlines the main differences between ADUs and DADUs and the regulations that can impact them in your particular location. You'll hear how these units can offer independent living spaces to teenagers and young adults while keeping them close, the benefits of using them as short- or mid-term rentals, and why Jonathan views them as a big value-add when considering a property. Jonathan has a long and varied history with real estate, and his unique take on ADUs and DADUs may make you think twice before turning down a property with one on the premises. In this episode, you will hear: ADUs and DADUs as a solution to the affordable housing crisis The differences between an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) and a detached accessory dwelling unit (DADU) Understanding the regulations surrounding ADUs and DADUs in your area Jonathan's personal history with this real estate asset class and using them as an independent living space as a teenager The benefits of putting teenagers in ADUs or DADUs for the summer vacations Renting your ADU as a short-term or mid-term rental when your community allows it The multiple uses ADUs can have and buying homes with them as a feature Added value and opportunities these units add to a property Follow and Review: We'd love for you to follow us if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Supporting Resources: Website - www.streamlined.properties YouTube - www.youtube.com/c/JonathanGreeneRE/videos Instagram - www.instagram.com/trustgreene Instagram - www.instagram.com/streamlinedproperties TikTok - www.tiktok.com/@trustgreene Zillow - www.zillow.com/profile/StreamlinedReal Bigger Pockets - www.biggerpockets.com/users/TrustGreene Facebook - www.facebook.com/streamlinedproperties Email - info@streamlined.properties Episode Credits If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.

Ireland has long flirted with the far-right – and has had political movements with profoundly antisemitic views. Historian Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc has written a new book - ‘Burn Them Out – A History of Fascism and The Far-Right in Ireland' investigating the history of fascism in Ireland. He joined Ciarán Dunbar. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Preview: Colleague Bill Roggio of FDD reports on the long history of Tehran employing the Taliban to project and/or to support terror in the region and transnationally. More.. 1940 KHYBER PASS

Eleanor Goldfield speaks with Chip Gibbons, who details the acquiescence of academia and corporate media to the Trump  administration and Israel and sets these in the historical context of prior federal attacks on First Amendment rights. Next, Gene Bruskin explains the connection between the militarized U.S. economy and the daily pocketbook issues that confront American workers. GUESTS: Chip Gibbons is Policy Director at Defending Rights and Dissent (www.rightsanddissent.org), a free-speech-advocacy organization. His book on the history of the FBI is scheduled for release in 2026. He has a recent article in Jacobin magazine. Gene Bruskin is a 50-year labor activist, and the cofounder of the National Labor Network for a Cease-Fire.   The post Long history of attacks on free speech / How the militarized economy makes us poorer appeared first on KPFA.

We are joined by Chip Gibbons of Defending Rights and Dissent to talk about the global war on freedom of speech. Read Chip's piece here: https://jacobin.com/2025/03/khalil-dissent-immigration-law-deportation

It was so good to see our longtime friend Justin Moore Saturday night at CountryFest! We got to catch up and remember when we first met almost 10 years ago.There is a lot of history there, including that time he snuck John and Tammy in to meet Keith Urban at a CMA party!

Representatives from Russia and Ukraine will be in meetings to try to hammer out details of a ceasefire on Monday. But peace is still a long way off.For starters it's only a partial ceasefire—no strikes on energy infrastructure. It's only for 30 days.And the Ukrainians and Russians aren't even meeting with each other. The U.S. will be a go-between.One of the biggest things working against a new agreement, is what happened after Ukraine's last agreement with Russia. And the ones before that.Ukraine says it won't trust a promise from Russia. It needs security guarantees. To understand why, you've got to go back to the birth of independent Ukraine.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at considerthis@npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From 1960s riots to the 2020 destruction, the Left has always used violence to push its agenda. The recent attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships are part of a long history of leftist terrorism in the United States. A near-monopoly on media and education has allowed progressives to rewrite history, erasing their movement's violent past. Follow on: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-auron-macintyre-show/id1657770114 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3S6z4LBs8Fi7COupy7YYuM?si=4d9662cb34d148af Substack: https://auronmacintyre.substack.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre Gab: https://gab.com/AuronMacIntyre YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/c/AuronMacIntyre Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-390155 Odysee: https://odysee.com/@AuronMacIntyre:f Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auronmacintyre/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

222 - The Two Buckets: A Simple Way to Solve Life's Problems Hi everyone, it's Jill from the North Woods! In this episode, I'm sharing one of the biggest life lessons I ever learned—the concept of putting problems into two buckets: things I can change and things I cannot. This idea, rooted in the Serenity Prayer, has helped me navigate everything from growing up with an alcoholic parent to financial struggles, career changes, and even weight loss. I'll take you through the history of this powerful mindset, from ancient Greek philosophers to modern problem-solving techniques, and share real-life examples of how shifting my focus has made all the difference. If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure of how to tackle life's challenges, this episode is for you. The Serenity Prayer and How It Shaped My ThinkingI first learned the Serenity Prayer in my teens while attending Alateen, a support group for children of alcoholics. This simple yet profound message helped me reframe my struggles, allowing me to focus on what I could change instead of feeling powerless over what I couldn't. The Long History of This WisdomThe idea of separating problems into what's within our control and what isn't has been around for centuries. I share insights from historical figures like Epictetus, Solomon ibn Gabirol, and Shantideva, all of whom recognized the power of focusing on what we can control. Real-Life Applications of the Two Buckets Approach-Growing Up with an Alcoholic Parent – I couldn't stop my dad from drinking, but I could create a full, active life outside of that challenge.-Politics & Global Issues – I can't change everything, but I can vote, volunteer, and contribute where I can.-Financial Stability & Retirement Worries – Social Security's future is uncertain, but I can prepare by saving more and making smart financial decisions.-Weight Loss & Health – I once thought my weight was out of my control until I found new solutions and the right support. Re-Evaluating What's in Your “Can't Change” BucketSometimes, we assume a problem is out of our hands when it's really not. I share examples of creative problem-solving—like how a simple change (adding mirrors) made people stop complaining about slow elevators. The key is to step back, get a new perspective, and challenge assumptions. Takeaways:✅ Put problems into two buckets: Can you change it or not?✅ Focus on action instead of worrying about things beyond your control.✅ Re-evaluate your buckets over time—something that seemed unchangeable might have a solution you haven't seen yet.✅ Seek outside advice when you feel stuck—sometimes an expert or a fresh perspective can make all the difference.✅ If something is in the "can change" bucket, take the first step today. This mindset shift has helped me reduce stress and solve problems more effectively, and I hope it helps you too. Now, I challenge you—think about a problem in your life right now. Which bucket does it belong in? Let me know what you think! Email me at Jill@startwithsmallsteps.com, comment on my channel, or share this episode with someone who might need it. Thanks for listening, and have a great week! https://startwithsmallsteps.com/the-two-buckets-a-simple-way-to-solve-lifes-problems/ Jill's Links https://abetterlifeinsmallsteps.com https://affiliate.notion.so/NorthwoodsJillday https://affiliate.notion.so/NorthwoodsAI https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallstepspodcast https://www.buymeacoffee.com/smallstepspod https://twitter.com/schmern Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com

Donald Trump's 2024 campaign promised “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Will he be able to achieve this goal? What would this kind of mass deportation look like, and what would its human costs be? And what is the current “largest deportation operation in American history,” anyway? We get answers from Adam Goodman. Goodman is an associate professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies and Department of History at the University of Illinois Chicago, and the author of the award-winning book, The Deportation Machine: America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691182155/the-deportation-machine https://immpolicytracking.org/ https://www.icirr.org/ https://ndlon.org/

Before getting into this new podcast, have you checked out the recent newsletter editions and podcasts of Ground Truths?—the first diagnostic immunome—a Covid nasal vaccine update—medical storytelling and uncertainty—why did doctors with A.I. get outperformed by A.I. alone?The audio is available on iTunes and Spotify. The full video is embedded here, at the top, and also can be found on YouTube.Transcript with links to Audio and External Links Eric Topol (00:07):Well, hello. It's Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I am just thrilled today to welcome Carl Zimmer, who is one of the great science journalists of our times. He's written 14 books. He writes for the New York Times and many other venues of great science, journalism, and he has a new book, which I absolutely love called Air-Borne. And you can see I have all these rabbit pages tagged and there's lots to talk about here because this book is the book of air. I mean, we're talking about everything that you ever wanted to know about air and where we need to go, how we missed the boat, and Covid and everything else. So welcome, Carl.Carl Zimmer (00:51):Thanks so much. Great to be here.A Book Inspired by the PandemicEric Topol (00:54):Well, the book starts off with the Skagit Valley Chorale that you and your wife Grace attended a few years later, I guess, in Washington, which is really interesting. And I guess my first question is, it had the look that this whole book was inspired by the pandemic, is that right?Carl Zimmer (01:18):Certainly, the seed was planted in the pandemic. I was working as a journalist at the New York Times with a bunch of other reporters at the Times. There were lots of other science writers also just trying to make sense of this totally new disease. And we were talking with scientists who were also trying to make sense of the disease. And so, there was a lot of uncertainty, ambiguity, and things started to come into focus. And I was really puzzled by how hard it was for consensus to emerge about how Covid spread. And I did some reporting along with other people on this conflict about was this something that was spreading on surfaces or was it the word people were using was airborne? And the World Health Organization said, no, it's not airborne, it's not airborne until they said it was airborne. And that just seemed like not quantum physics, you know what I'm saying? In the sense that it seemed like that would be the kind of thing that would get sorted out pretty quickly. And I think that actually more spoke to my own unfamiliarity with the depth of this field. And so, I would talk to experts like say, Donald Milton at the University of Maryland. I'd be like, so help me understand this. How did this happen? And he would say, well, you need to get to know some people like William Wells. And I said, who?Eric Topol (02:50):Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought.Carl Zimmer (02:53):Yeah, there were just a whole bunch of people from a century ago or more that have been forgotten. They've been lost in history, and yet they were real visionaries, but they were also incredibly embattled. And the question of how we messed up understanding why Covid was airborne turned out to have an answer that took me back thousands of years and really plunged me into this whole science that's known as aerobiology.Eric Topol (03:26):Yeah, no, it's striking. And we're going to get, of course, into the Covid story and how it got completely botched as to how it was being transmitted. But of course, as you go through history, you see a lot of the same themes of confusion and naysayers and just extraordinary denialism. But as you said, this goes back thousands of years and perhaps the miasma, the moral stain in the air that was start, this is of course long before there was thing called germ theory. Is that really where the air thing got going?A Long History of Looking Into Bad AirCarl Zimmer (04:12):Well, certainly some of the earliest evidence we have that people were looking at the air and thinking about the air and thinking there's something about the air that matters to us. Aristotle thought, well, there's clearly something important about the air. Life just seems to be revolve around breathing and he didn't know why. And Hippocrates felt that there could be this stain on the air, this corruption of the air, and this could explain why a lot of people in a particular area, young and old, might suddenly all get sick at the same time. And so, he put forward this miasma theory, and there were also people who were looking at farm fields and asking, well, why are all my crops dead suddenly? What happened? And there were explanations that God sends something down to punish us because we've been bad, or even that the air itself had a kind of miasma that affected plants as well as animals. So these ideas were certainly there, well over 2,000 years ago.Eric Topol (05:22):Now, as we go fast forward, we're going to get to, of course into the critical work of William and Mildred Wells, who I'd never heard of before until I read your book, I have to say, talk about seven, eight decades filed into oblivion. But before we get to them, because their work was seminal, you really get into the contributions of Louis Pasteur. Maybe you could give us a skinny on what his contributions were because I was unaware of his work and the glaciers, Mer de Glace and figuring out what was going on in the air. So what did he really do to help this field?Carl Zimmer (06:05):Yeah, and this is another example of how we can kind of twist and deform history. Louis Pasteur is a household name. People know who Louis Pasteur is. People know about pasteurization of milk. Pasteur is associated with vaccines. Pasteur did other things as well. And he was also perhaps the first aerobiologist because he got interested in the fact that say, in a factory where beet juice was being fermented to make alcohol, sometimes it would spoil. And he was able to determine that there were some, what we know now are bacteria that were getting into the beet juice. And so, it was interrupting the usual fermentation from the yeast. That in itself was a huge discovery. But he was saying, well, wait, so why are there these, what we call bacteria in the spoiled juice? And he thought, well, maybe they just float in the air.Carl Zimmer (07:08):And this was really a controversial idea in say, 1860, because even then, there were many people who were persuaded that when you found microorganisms in something, they were the result of spontaneous generation. In other words, the beet juice spontaneously produced this life. This was standard view of how life worked and Pasteur was like, I'm not sure I buy this. And this basically led to him into an incredible series of studies around Paris. He would have a flask, and he'd have a long neck on it, and the flask was full of sterile broth, and he would just take it places and he would just hold it there for a while, and eventually bacteria would fall down that long neck and they would settle in the broth, and they would multiply in there. It would turn cloudy so he could prove that there was life in the air.Carl Zimmer (08:13):And they went to different places. He went to farm fields, he went to mountains. And the most amazing trip he took, it was actually to the top of a glacier, which was very difficult, especially for someone like Pasteur, who you get the impression he just hated leaving the lab. This was not a rugged outdoorsman at all. But there he is, climbing around on the ice with this flask raising it over his head, and he caught bacteria there as well. And that actually was pivotal to destroying spontaneous generation as a theory. So aerobiology among many, many other things, destroyed this idea that life could spontaneously burst into existence.Eric Topol (08:53):Yeah, no. He says ‘these gentlemen, are the germs of microscopic beings' shown in the existence of microorganisms in the air. So yeah, amazing contribution. And of course, I wasn't familiar with his work in the air like this, and it was extensive. Another notable figure in the world of germ theory that you bring up in the book with another surprise for me was the great Robert Koch of the Koch postulates. So is it true he never did the third postulate about he never fulfilled his own three postulates?Carl Zimmer (09:26):Not quite. Yeah, so he had these ideas about what it would take to actually show that some particular pathogen, a germ, actually caused a disease, and that involved isolating it from patients, culturing it outside of them. And then actually experimentally infecting an animal and showing the symptoms again. And he did that with things like anthrax and tuberculosis. He nailed that. But then when it came to cholera, there was this huge outbreak in Egypt, and people were still battling over what caused cholera. Was it miasma? Was it corruption in the air, or was it as Koch and others believe some type of bacteria? And he found a particular kind of bacteria in the stool of people who were dying or dead of cholera, and he could culture it, and he consistently found it. And when he injected animals with it, it just didn't quite work.Eric Topol (10:31):Okay. Yeah, so at least for cholera, the Koch's third postulate of injecting in animals, reproducing the disease, maybe not was fulfilled. Okay, that's good.Eric Topol (10:42):Now, there's a lot of other players here. I mean, with Fred Meier and Charles Lindbergh getting samples in the air from the planes and Carl Flügge. And before we get to the Wells, I just want to mention these naysayers like Charles Chapin, Alex Langmuir, the fact that they said, well, people that were sensitive to pollen, it was just neurosis. It wasn't the pollen. I mean, just amazing stuff. But anyway, the principles of what I got from the book was the Wells, the husband and wife, very interesting characters who eventually even split up, I guess. But can you tell us about their contributions? Because they're really notable when we look back.William and Mildred Wells Carl Zimmer (11:26):Yeah, they really are. And although by the time they had died around 1960, they were pretty much forgotten already. And yet in the 1930s, the two of them, first at Harvard and then at University of Pennsylvania did some incredible work to actually challenge this idea that airborne infection was not anything real, or at least nothing really to worry about. Because once the miasmas have been cleared away, people who embrace the germ theory of disease said, look, we've got cholera in water. We've got yellow fever in mosquitoes. We've got syphilis in sex. We have all these ways that germs can get from one person to the next. We don't need to worry about the air anymore. Relax. And William Wells thought, I don't know if that's true. And we actually invented a new device for actually sampling the air, a very clever kind of centrifuge. And he started to discover, actually, there's a lot of stuff floating around in the air.Carl Zimmer (12:37):And then with a medical student of his, Richard Riley started to develop a physical model. How does this happen? Well, you and I are talking, as we are talking we are expelling tiny droplets, and those droplets can potentially contain pathogens. We can sneeze out big droplets or cough them too. Really big droplets might fall to the floor, but lots of other droplets will float. They might be pushed along by our breath like in a cloud, or they just may be so light, they just resist gravity. And so, this was the basic idea that he put forward. And then he made real headlines by saying, well, maybe there's something that we can do to these germs while they're still in the air to protect our own health. In the same way you'd protect water so that you don't get cholera. And he stumbled on ultraviolet light. So basically, you could totally knock out influenza and a bunch of other pathogens just by hitting these droplets in the air with light. And so, the Wells, they were very difficult to work with. They got thrown out of Harvard. Fortunately, they got hired at Penn, and they lasted there just long enough that they could run an experiment in some schools around Philadelphia. And they put up ultraviolet lamps in the classrooms. And those kids did not get hit by huge measles outbreak that swept through Philadelphia not long afterwards.Eric Topol (14:05):Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I had never heard of them. And here they were prescient. They did the experiments. They had this infection machine where they could put the animal in and blow in the air, and it was basically like the Koch's third postulate here of inducing the illness. He wrote a book, William and he's a pretty confident fellow quoted, ‘the book is not for here and now. It is from now on.' So he wasn't a really kind of a soft character. He was pretty strong, I guess. Do you think his kind of personality and all the difficulties that he and his wife had contributed to why their legacy was forgotten by most?Carl Zimmer (14:52):Yes. They were incredibly difficult to work with, and there's no biography of the Wellses. So I had to go into archives and find letters and unpublished documents and memos, and people will just say like, oh my goodness, these people are so unbearable. They just were fighting all the time. They were fighting with each other. They were peculiar, particularly William was terrible with language and just people couldn't deal with them. So because they were in these constant fights, they had very few friends. And when you have a big consensus against you and you don't have very many friends to not even to help you keep a job, it's not going to turn out well, unfortunately. They did themselves no favors, but it is still really remarkable and sad just how much they figured out, which was then dismissed and forgotten.Eric Topol (15:53):Yeah, I mean, I'm just amazed by it because it's telling about your legacy in science. You want to have friends, you want to be, I think, received well by your colleagues in your community. And when you're not, you could get buried, your work could get buried. And it kind of was until, for me, at least, your book Air-Borne. Now we go from that time, which is 60, 70 years ago, to fast forward H1N1 with Linsey Marr from Virginia Tech, who in 2009 was already looking back at the Wells work and saying, wait a minute there's something here that this doesn't compute, kind of thing. Can you give us the summary about Linsey? Of course, we're going to go to 2018 again all before the pandemic with Lydia, but let's first talk about Linsey.Linsey MarrSee my previous Ground Truths podcast with Prof Marr hereCarl Zimmer (16:52):Sure. So Linsey Marr belongs to this new generation of scientists in the 21st century who start to individually rediscover the Welles. And then in Lindsey Marr's case, she was studying air pollution. She's an atmospheric scientist and she's at Virginia Tech. And she and her husband are trying to juggle their jobs and raising a little kid, and their son is constantly coming home from daycare because he's constantly getting sick, or there's a bunch of kids who are sick there and so on. And that got Linsey Marr actually really curious like what's going on because they were being careful about washing objects and so on, and doing their best to keep the kids healthy. And she started looking into ideas about transmission of diseases. And she got very interested in the flu because in 2009, there was a new pandemic, in other words that you had this new strain of influenza surging throughout the world. And so, she said, well, let me look at what people are saying. And as soon as she started looking at it, she just said, well, people are saying things that as a physicist I know make no sense. They're saying that droplets bigger than five microns just plummet to the ground.Carl Zimmer (18:21):And in a way that was part of a sort of a general rejection of airborne transmission. And she said, look, I teach this every year. I just go to the blackboard and derive a formula to show that particles much bigger than this can stay airborne. So there's something really wrong here. And she started spending more and more time studying airborne disease, and she kept seeing the Welles as being cited. And she was like, who are these? Didn't know who they were. And she had to dig back because finding his book is not easy, I will tell you that. You can't buy it on Amazon. It's like it was a total flop.Eric Topol (18:59):Wow.Carl Zimmer (19:00):And eventually she started reading his papers and getting deeper in it, and she was like, huh. He was pretty smart. And he didn't say any of the things that people today are claiming he said. There's a big disconnect here. And that led her into join a very small group of people who really were taking the idea of airborne infection seriously, in the early 2000s.Lydia BourouibaEric Topol (19:24):Yeah, I mean, it's pretty incredible because had we listened to her early on in the pandemic and many others that we're going to get into, this wouldn't have gone years of neglect of airborne transmission of Covid. Now, in 2018, there was, I guess, a really important TEDMED talk by Lydia. I don't know how you pronounce her last name, Bourouiba or something. Oh, yeah. And she basically presented graphically. Of course, all this stuff is more strained for people to believe because of the invisibility story, but she, I guess, gave demos that were highly convincing to her audience if only more people were in her audience. Right?Carl Zimmer (20:09):That's right. That's right. Yeah. So Lydia was, again, not an infectious disease expert at first. She was actually trained as a physicist. She studied turbulence like what you get in spinning galaxies or spinning water in a bathtub as it goes down the drain. But she was very taken aback by the SARS outbreak in 2003, which did hit Canada where she was a student.Carl Zimmer (20:40):And it really got her getting interested in infectious diseases, emerging diseases, and asking herself, what tools can I bring from physics to this? And she's looked into a lot of different things, and she came to MIT and MIT is where Harold Edgerton built those magnificent stroboscope cameras. And we've all seen these stroboscope images of the droplets of milk frozen in space, or a bullet going through a card or things like that that he made in the 1930s and 1940s and so on. Well, one of the really famous images that was used by those cameras was a sneeze actually, around 1940. That was the first time many Americans would see these droplets frozen in space. Of course, they forgot them.Carl Zimmer (21:34):So she comes there and there's a whole center set up for this kind of high-speed visualization, and she starts playing with these cameras, and she starts doing experiments with things like breathing and sneezes and so on. But now she's using digital video, and she discovers that she goes and looks at William Wells and stuff. She's like, that's pretty good, but it's pretty simple. It's pretty crude. I mean, of course it is. It was in the 1930s. So she brings a whole new sophistication of physics to studying these things, which she finds that, especially with a sneeze, it sort of creates a new kind of physics. So you actually have a cloud that just shoots forward, and it even carries the bigger droplets with it. And it doesn't just go three feet and drop. In her studies looking at her video, it could go 10 feet, 20 feet, it could just keep going.Eric Topol (22:24):27 feet, I think I saw. Yeah, right.Carl Zimmer (22:26):Yeah. It just keeps on going. And so, in 2018, she gets up and at one of these TEDMED talks and gives this very impressive talk with lots of pictures. And I would say the world didn't really listen.Eric Topol (22:48):Geez and amazing. Now, the case that you, I think centered on to show how stupid we were, not everyone, not this group of 36, we're going to talk about not everyone, but the rest of the world, like the WHO and the CDC and others was this choir, the Skagit Valley Chorale in Washington state. Now, this was in March 2020 early on in the pandemic, there were 61 people exposed to one symptomatic person, and 52 were hit with Covid. 52 out of 61, only 8 didn't get Covid. 87% attack rate eventually was written up by an MMWR report that we'll link to. This is extraordinary because it defied the idea of that it could only be liquid droplets. So why couldn't this early event, which was so extraordinary, opened up people's mind that there's not this six-foot rule and it's all these liquid droplets and the rest of the whole story that was wrong.Carl Zimmer (24:10):I think there's a whole world of psychological research to be done on why people accept or don't accept scientific research and I'm not just talking about the public. This is a question about how science itself works, because there were lots of scientists who looked at the claims that Linsey Marr and others made about the Skagit Valley Chorale outbreak and said, I don't know, I'm not convinced. You didn't culture viable virus from the air. How do you really know? Really, people have said that in print. So it does raise the question of a deep question, I think about how does science judge what the right standard of proof is to interpret things like how diseases spread and also how to set public health policy. But you're certainly right that and March 10th, there was this outbreak, and by the end of March, it had started to make news and because the public health workers were figuring out all the people who were sick and so on, and people like Linsey Marr were like, this kind of looks like airborne to me, but they wanted to do a closer study of it. But still at that same time, places like the World Health Organization (WHO) were really insisting Covid is not airborne.“This is so mind-boggling to me. It just made it obvious that they [WHO] were full of s**t.”—Jose-Luis JimenezGetting It Wrong, Terribly WrongEric Topol (25:56):It's amazing. I mean, one of the quotes that there was, another one grabbed me in the book, in that group of the people that did air research understanding this whole field, the leaders, there's a fellow Jose-Luis Jimenez from University of Colorado Boulder, he said, ‘this is so mind-boggling to me. It just made it obvious that they were full of s**t.' Now, that's basically what he's saying about these people that are holding onto this liquid droplet crap and that there's no airborne. But we know, for example, when you can't see cigarette smoke, you can't see the perfume odor, but you can smell it that there's stuff in the air, it's airborne, and it's not necessarily three or six feet away. There's something here that doesn't compute in people's minds. And by the way, even by March and April, there were videos like the one that Lydia showed in 2018 that we're circling around to show, hey, this stuff is all over the place. It's not just the mouth going to the other person. So then this group of 36 got together, which included the people we were talking about, other people who I know, like Joe Allen and many really great contributors, and they lobbied the CDC and the WHO to get with it, but it seemed like it took two years.Carl Zimmer (27:32):It was a slow process, yes. Yes. Because well, I mean, the reason that they got together and sort of formed this band is because early on, even at the end of January, beginning of February 2020, people like Joe Allen, people like Linsey Marr, people like Lidia Morawska in Australia, they were trying to raise the alarm. And so, they would say like, oh, I will write up my concerns and I will get it published somewhere. And journals would reject them and reject them and reject them. They'd say, well, we know this isn't true. Or they'd say like, oh, they're already looking into it. Don't worry about it. This is not a reason for concern. All of them independently kept getting rejected. And then at the same time, the World Health Organization was going out of their way to insist that Covid is not airborne. And so, Lidia Morawska just said like, we have to do something. And she, from her home in Australia, marshaled first this group of 36 people, and they tried to get the World Health Organization to listen to them, and they really felt very rebuffed it didn't really work out. So then they went public with a very strong open letter. And the New York Times and other publications covered that and that really started to get things moving. But still, these guidelines and so on were incredibly slow to be updated, let alone what people might actually do to sort of safeguard us from an airborne disease.Eric Topol (29:15):Well, yeah, I mean, we went from March 2020 when it was Captain Obvious with the choir to the end of 2021 with Omicron before this got recognized, which is amazing to me when you look back, right? That here you've got millions of people dying and getting infected, getting Long Covid, all this stuff, and we have this denial of what is the real way of transmission. Now, this was not just a science conflict, this is that we had people saying, you don't need to wear a mask. People like Jerome Adams, the Surgeon General, people like Tony Fauci before there was an adjustment later, oh, you don't need masks. You just stay more than six feet away. And meanwhile, the other parts of the world, as you pointed out in Japan with the three Cs, they're already into, hey, this is airborne and don't go into rooms indoors with a lot of people and clusters and whatnot. How could we be this far off where the leading public health, and this includes the CDC, are giving such bad guidance that basically was promoting Covid spread.Carl Zimmer (30:30):I think there are a number of different reasons, and I've tried to figure that out, and I've talked to people like Anthony Fauci to try to better understand what was going on. And there was a lot of ambiguity at the time and a lot of mixed signals. I think that also in the United States in particular, we were dealing with a really bad history of preparing for pandemics in the sense that the United States actually had said, we might need a lot of masks for a pandemic, which implicitly means that we acknowledge that the next pandemic might to some extent be airborne. At least our healthcare folks are going to need masks, good masks, and they stockpiled them, and then they started using them, and then they didn't really replace them very well, and supplies ran out, or they got old. So you had someone like Rick Bright who was a public health official in the administration in January 2020, trying to tell everybody, hey, we need masks.The Mess with MasksCarl Zimmer (31:56):And people are like, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. Look, if we have a problem with masks, he said this, and he recounted this later. Look, if the health workers run out of masks, we just tell the public just to not use masks and then we'll have enough for the health workers. And Bright was like, that makes no sense. That makes no sense. And lo and behold, there was a shortage among American health workers, and China was having its own health surge, so they were going to be helping us out, and it was chaos. And so, a lot of those messages about telling the public don't wear a mask was don't wear a mask, the healthcare workers need them, and we need to make sure they have enough. And if you think about that, there's a problem there.Carl Zimmer (32:51):Yeah, fine. Why don't the healthcare workers have their own independent supply of masks? And then we can sort of address the question, do masks work in the general community? Which is a legitimate scientific question. I know there are people who are say, oh, masks don't work. There's plenty of studies that show that they can reduce risk. But unfortunately, you actually had people like Fauci himself who were saying like, oh, you might see people wearing masks in other countries. I wouldn't do it. And then just a few weeks later when it was really clear just how bad things were getting, he turns around and says, people should wear masks. But Jerome Adams, who you mentioned, Surgeon General, he gets on TV and he's trying to wrap a cloth around his face and saying, look, you can make your own mask. And it was not ideal, shall we say?Eric Topol (33:55):Oh, no. It just led to mass confusion and the anti-science people were having just a field day for them to say that these are nincompoops. And it just really, when you look back, it's sad. Now, I didn't realize the history of the N95 speaking of healthcare workers and fitted masks, and that was back with the fashion from the bra. I mean, can you tell us about that? That's pretty interesting.Carl Zimmer (34:24):Yeah. Yeah, it's a fascinating story. So there was a woman who was working for 3M. She was consulting with them on just making new products, and she really liked the technology they used for making these sort of gift ribbons and sort of blown-fiber. And she's like, wow, you should think about other stuff. How about a bra? And so, they actually went forward with this sort of sprayed polyester fiber bra, which was getting much nicer than the kind of medieval stuff that women had to put up with before then. And then she's at the same time spending a lot of time in hospitals because a lot of her family was sick with various ailments, and she was looking at these doctors and nurses who were wearing masks, which just weren't fitting them very well. And she thought, wait a minute, you could take a bra cup and just basically fit it on people's faces.Carl Zimmer (35:29):She goes to 3M and is like, hey, what about this? And they're like, hmm, interesting. And at first it didn't seem actually like it worked well against viruses and other pathogens, but it was good on dust. So it started showing up in hardware stores in the 70s, and then there were further experiments that basically figured showed you could essentially kind of amazingly give the material a little static charge. And that was good enough that then if you put it on, it traps droplets that contain viruses and doesn't let them through. So N95s are a really good way to keep viruses from coming into your mouth or going out.Eric Topol (36:14):Yeah. Well, I mean it's striking too, because in the beginning, as you said, when there finally was some consensus that masks could help, there wasn't differentiation between cotton masks, surgical masks, KN95s. And so, all this added to the mix of ambiguity and confusion. So we get to the point finally that we understand the transmission. It took way too long. And that kind of tells the Covid story. And towards the end of the book, you're back at the Skagit Valley Chorale. It's a full circle, just amazing story. Now, it also brings up all lessons that we've learned and where we're headed with this whole knowledge of the aerobiome, which is fascinating. I didn't know that we breathe 2000 to 3000 gallons a day of air, each of us.Every Breath We TakeEric Topol (37:11):Wow, I didn't know. Well, of course, air is a vector for disease. And of course, going back to the Wells, the famous Wells that have been, you've brought them back to light about how we're aerial oysters. So these things in the air, which we're going to get to the California fires, for example, they travel a long ways. Right? We're not talking about six feet here. We're talking about, can you tell us a bit about that?Carl Zimmer (37:42):Well, yeah. So we are releasing living things into the air with every breath, but we're not the only ones. So I'm looking at you and I see beyond you the ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Every time those waves crash down on the surf, it's spewing up vast numbers of tiny droplets, kind of like the ocean's own lungs, spraying up droplets, some of which have bacteria and viruses and other living things. And those go up in the air. The wind catches them, and they blow around. Some of them go very, very high, many, many miles. Some of them go into the clouds and they do blow all over the place. And so, science is really starting to come into its own of studying the planetary wide pattern of the flow of life, not just for oceans, but from the ground, things come out of the ground all of the time. The soil is rich with microbes, and those are rising up. Of course, there's plants, we are familiar with plants having pollen, but plants themselves are also slathered in fungi and other organisms. They shed those into the air as well. And so, you just have this tremendous swirl of life that how high it can go, nobody's quite sure. They can certainly go up maybe 12 miles, some expeditions, rocket emissions have claimed to find them 40 miles in the air.Carl Zimmer (39:31):It's not clear, but we're talking 10, 20, 30 miles up is where all this life gets. So people call this the aerobiome, and we're living in it. It's like we're in an ocean and we're breathing in that ocean. And so, you are breathing in some of those organisms literally with every breath.Eric Topol (39:50):Yeah, no, it's extraordinary. I mean, it really widens, the book takes us so much more broad than the narrow world of Covid and how that got all off track and gives us the big picture. One of the things that happened more recently post Covid was finally in the US there was the commitment to make buildings safer. That is adopting the principles of ventilation filtration. And I wonder if you could comment at that. And also, do you use your CO2 monitor that you mentioned early in the book? Because a lot of people haven't gotten onto the CO2 monitor.Carl Zimmer (40:33):So yes, I do have a CO2 monitor. It's in the other room. And I take it with me partly to protect my own health, but also partly out of curiosity because carbon dioxide (CO2) in the room is actually a pretty good way of figuring out how much ventilation there is in the room and what your potential risk is of getting sick if someone is breathing out Covid or some other airborne disease. They're not that expensive and they're not that big. And taking them on planes is particularly illuminating. It's just incredible just how high the carbon dioxide rate goes up when you're sitting on the plane, they've closed the doors, you haven't taken off yet, shoots way up. Once again, the air and the filter system starts up, it starts going down, which is good, but then you land and back up again. But in terms of when we're not flying, we're spending a lot of our time indoors. Yeah, so you used the word commitment to describe quality standards.Eric Topol (41:38):What's missing is the money and the action, right?Carl Zimmer (41:42):I think, yeah. I think commitment is putting it a little strongly.Eric Topol (41:45):Yeah. Sorry.Carl Zimmer (41:45):Biden administration is setting targets. They're encouraging that that people meet certain targets. And those people you mentioned like Joe Allen at Harvard have actually been putting together standards like saying, okay, let's say that when you build a new school or a new building, let's say that you make sure that you don't get carbon dioxide readings above this rate. Let's try to get 14 liters per second per person of ventilated fresh air. And they're actually going further. They've actually said, now we think this should be law. We think these should be government mandates. We have government mandates for clean water. We have government mandates for clean food. We don't just say, it'd be nice if your bottled water didn't have cholera on it in it. We'll make a little prize. Who's got the least cholera in their water? We don't do that. We don't expect that. We expect more. We expect when you get the water or if you get anything, you expect it to be clean and you expect people to be following the law. So what Joseph Allen, Lidia Morawska, Linsey Marr and others are saying is like, okay, let's have a law.Eric Topol (43:13):Yeah. No, and I think that distinction, I've interviewed Joe Allen and Linsey Marr on Ground Truths, and they've made these points. And we need the commitment, I should say, we need the law because otherwise it's a good idea that doesn't get actualized. And we know how much keeping ventilation would make schools safer.Carl Zimmer (43:35):Just to jump in for a second, just to circle back to William and Mildred Wells, none of what I just said is new. William and Mildred Wells were saying over and over again in speeches they gave, in letters they wrote to friends they were like, we've had this incredible revolution in the early 1900s of getting clean water and clean food. Why don't we have clean air yet? We deserve clean air. Everyone deserves clean air. And so, really all that people like Linsey Marr and Joseph Allen and others are doing is trying to finally deliver on that call almost a century later.Eric Topol (44:17):Yeah, totally. That's amazing how it's taken all this time and how much disease and morbidity even death could have been prevented. Before I ask about planning for the future, I do want to get your comments about the dirty air with the particulate matter less than 2.5 particles and what we're seeing now with wildfires, of course in Los Angeles, but obviously they're just part of what we're seeing in many parts of the world and what that does, what carries so the dirty air, but also what we're now seeing with the crisis of climate change.Carl Zimmer (45:01):So if you inhale smoke from a wildfire, it's not going to start growing inside of you, but those particles are going to cause a lot of damage. They're going to cause a lot of inflammation. They can cause not just lung damage, but they can potentially cause a bunch of other medical issues. And unfortunately, climate change plus the increasing urbanization of these kinds of environments, like in Southern California where fires, it's a fire ecology already. That is going to be a recipe for more smoke in the air. We will be, unfortunately, seeing more fire. Here in the Northeast, we were dealing with really awful smoke coming all the way from Canada. So this is not a problem that respects borders. And even if there were no wildfires, we still have a huge global, terrible problem with particulate matter coming from cars and coal fire power plants and so on. Several million people, their lives are cut short every year, just day in, day out. And you can see pictures in places like Delhi and India and so on. But there are lots of avoidable deaths in the United States as well, because we're starting to realize that even what we thought were nice low levels of air pollution probably are still killing more people than we realized.Eric Topol (46:53):Yeah, I mean, just this week in Nature is a feature on how this dirty air pollution, the urbanization that's leading to brain damage, Alzheimer's, but also as you pointed out, it increases everything, all-cause mortality, cardiovascular, various cancers. I mean, it's just bad news.Carl Zimmer (47:15):And one way in which the aerobiome intersects with what we're talking about is that those little particles floating around, things can live on them and certain species can ride along on these little particles of pollution and then we inhale them. And there's some studies that seem to suggest that maybe pathogens are really benefiting from riding around on these. And also, the wildfire smoke is not just lofting, just bits of dead plant matter into the air. It's lofting vast numbers of bacteria and fungal spores into the air as well. And then those blow very, very far away. It's possible that long distance winds can deliver fungal spores and other microorganisms that can actually cause certain diseases, this Kawasaki disease or Valley fever and so on. Yeah, so everything we're doing is influencing the aerobiome. We're changing the world in so many ways. We're also changing the aerobiome.Eric Topol (48:30):Yeah. And to your point, there were several reports during the pandemic that air pollution potentiated SARS-CoV-2 infections because of that point that you're making that is as a carrier.Carl Zimmer (48:46):Well, I've seen some of those studies and it wasn't clear to me. I'm not sure that SARS-CoV-2 can really survive like long distances outdoors. But it may be that, it kind of weakens people and also sets up their lungs for a serious disease. I'm not as familiar with that research as I'd like to be.Eric Topol (49:11):Yeah, no, it could just be that because they have more inflammation of their lungs that they're just more sensitive to when they get the infection. But there seems like you said, to be some interactions between pathogens and polluted air. I don't know that we want to get into germ warfare because that's whole another topic, but you cover that well, it's very scary stuff.Carl Zimmer (49:37):It's the dark side of aerobiology.Eric Topol (49:39):Oh my gosh, yes. And then the last thing I wanted just to get into is, if we took this all seriously and learned, which we don't seem to do that well in some respects, wouldn't we change the way, for example, the way our cities, the way we increase our world of plants and vegetation, rather than just basically take it all down. What can we do in the future to make our ecosystem with air a healthier one?Carl Zimmer (50:17):I think that's a really important question. And it sounds odd, but that's only because it's unfamiliar. And even after all this time and after the rediscovery of a lot of scientists who had been long forgotten, there's still a lot we don't know. So there is suggestive research that when we breathe in air that's blowing over vegetation, forest and so on. That's actually in some ways good for our health. We do have a relationship with the air, and we've had it ever since our ancestors came out the water and started breathing with their lungs. And so, our immune systems may be tuned to not breathing in sterile air, but we don't understand the relationship. And so, I can't say like, oh, well, here's the prescription. We need to be doing this. We don't know.Eric Topol (51:21):Yeah. No, it's fascinating.Carl Zimmer (51:23):We should find out. And there are a few studies going on, but not many I would have to say. And the thing goes for how do we protect indoor spaces and so on? Well, we kind of have an idea of how airborne Covid is. Influenza, we're not that sure and there are lots of other diseases that we just don't know. And you certainly, if a disease is not traveling through the air at all, you don't want to take these measures. But we need to understand they're spread more and it's still very difficult to study these things.Eric Topol (52:00):Yeah, such a great point. Now before we wrap up, is there anything that you want to highlight that I haven't touched on in this amazing book?Carl Zimmer (52:14):I hope that when people read it, they sort of see that science is a messy process and there aren't that many clear villains and good guys in the sense that there can be people who are totally, almost insanely wrong in hindsight about some things and are brilliant visionaries in other ways. And one figure that I learned about was Max von Pettenkofer, who really did the research behind those carbon dioxide meters. He figured out in the mid-1800s that you could figure out the ventilation in a room by looking at the carbon dioxide. We call it the Pettenkofer number, how much CO2 is in the room. Visionary guy also totally refused to believe in the germ theory of disease. He shot it tooth in the nail even. He tried to convince people that cholera was airborne, and he did it. He took a vial. He was an old man. He took a vial full of cholera. The bacteria that caused cholera drank it down to prove his point. He didn't feel well afterwards, but he survived. And he said, that's proof. So this history of science is not the simple story that we imagine it to be.Eric Topol (53:32):Yeah. Well, congratulations. This was a tour de force. You had to put in a lot of work to pull this all together, and you're enlightening us about air like never before. So thanks so much for joining, Carl.Carl Zimmer (53:46):It was a real pleasure. Thanks for having me.**********************************************Thanks for listening, watching or reading Ground Truths. Your subscription is greatly appreciated.If you found this podcast interesting please share it!That makes the work involved in putting these together especially worthwhile.All content on Ground Truths—newsletters, analyses, and podcasts—is free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. And such support is becoming more vital In light of current changes of funding by US biomedical research at NIH and other governmental agencies. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

Jake Tapper's Long History of Being Absolute Trash https://lpgeorgia.com/event/convention-2025-fundraising-dinner-2025-03/ https://anartistcollective.com/events/thirdeyecarnivalnashville2025/ tinyurl.com/propshow https://www.youtube.com/BradBinkley https://linktr.ee/bradbinkley https://x.com/freedomactradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2/11/25 Democrat Congresswoman Maxine Dexter confesses the fantasies she has about Donald Trump. The media can’t stop talking about “big balls.” Elon Musk has changed his social media alias to “hairy balls.” A Georgetown University psychology professor says patients are not dealing well with Trump’s presidency. Pete Hegseth gets creative in renaming Ft Liberty back to Ft Bragg. Vince speaks with Reagan Reese, White House Correspondent for the Daily Caller about Reagan National Airport having suffered countless near misses between aircrafts over the last few decades, an issue the FAA has done little to solve. For more coverage on the issues that matter to you visit www.WMAL.com, download the WMAL app or tune in live on WMAL-FM 105.9 from 3-6pm. To join the conversation, check us out on social media: @WMAL @VinceCoglianese. Executive Producer: Corey Inganamort @TheBirdWords See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With Eliot traveling Eric welcomes Eugene Finkel, the Kenneth H. Keller Professor of International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to discuss his recent book Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (New York:  Basic Books, 2024). They discuss the long-term Russian effort to dominate, subordinate and eliminate Ukrainian nationality, culture and language. They touch on the pillars of Russian national identify and how Russians came to see Ukraine and Ukrainians as inferior members of a hierarchy of Russian-ness and how the emergence of Ukrainian nationalism in Poland and later the Austro-Hungarian empire came to represent an existential threat to Russian ethnic domination of St. Petersburg's multinational empire in the run up to world war one. They discuss the collapse of the Russian Empire and the emergence of an independent Ukraine, the reasons for its failure and Stalin's efforts to destroy Ukrainian nationalism, his drive for collectivization of agriculture and the ensuing Holodomor -- a man-made famine that cost perhaps as many as 5 million lives. They also discuss Ukraine during World War Two, caught between the Wehrmacht and Red Army. The collaboration of some Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis and the guerrilla war to prevent Soviet re-occupation of Ukraine which lasted into the early 1950s, cost perhaps 100 thousand lives and gave birth to the Russian notion that Ukrainian nationalism was inherently fascist. They consider Ukraine's independence in 1992, the negotiation of the Budapest Memorandum and the myth that Ukraine "gave up nuclear weapons, as well as the cultural shift that will have to take place in Russia if there is to be lasting peace that ends the current war. Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine: https://a.co/d/5fsdy8L Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Our Way Black History Fact examines the very history of Black History Month, itself.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/civiccipher?utm_source=searchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The final frontier. It turns out Newfoundland and Labrador have lots of connections to the world beyond our atmosphere. The CBC's Leigh Anne Power told us about some of them.

Is AI the latest chapter in our long history of creating an all-knowing God? AI ethicist Christopher DiCarlo certainly suspects it is. In his new book "Building a God: The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and the Race to Control It, DiCarlo argues that we are creating AI systems with godlike capabilities that will eventually exceed all human intelligence through their ability to make unprecedented inferences and connections. Like so many other self-styled ethicists, DiCarlo emphasizes the urgent need to establish ethical guardrails and principles for AI development. He expresses both hope for AI's potential benefits, particularly in medicine, while warning about the risks of losing control of super intelligent systems that might, one day, develop their own ethical frameworks. Given that AI development is currently largely controlled by profit-driven companies and shaped by geopolitical competition rather than ethical considerations, DiCarlo advocates for raising public awareness and establishing robust international oversight bodies (similar to the IAEA for nuclear weapons) to govern AI development. He argues that AI's potential for systemic manipulation and control makes it potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons, as it wouldn't require human intervention for the technology to destroy humanity. Christopher is a Senior Researcher at Convergence Analysis, an AI consultancy. He teaches in the Department of Biology at the University of Toronto and The Life Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University and is a past Visiting Research Scholar at Harvard University. He is the founder of Critical Thinking Solutions, the Ethics Chair for the Canadian Mental Health Association, a lifetime member of Humanist Canada, and an Expert Advisor for the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Christopher has published three books, including an international best-seller. He has won several awards including TV Ontario's Big Ideas Best Lecturer in Ontario Award and Canada's Humanist of the Year.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

My 2023 book, The Conservative Futurist, is based on the idea that we, as a society, are failing to meet our potential: Inefficiency, overregulation, and an overabundance of caution is robbing us of the world we might be living in.Nicole Kobie shares some of my frustrations in her recent book, The Long History of the Future: Why tomorrow's technology still isn't here. She explores the evolutionary history of past technologies and why we just can't seem to arrive at the future we've all been waiting for.Today on Faster, Please — The Podcast, I chat with Kobie about the role of regulators, the pace of progress, and what careers in journalism have taught us about innovation hypeKobie is a science and technology journalist whose articles appear in publications fromTeen Vogue, toNew Scientist, toGQ. She is the futures editor forPC Pro and a contributing editor forWired. She is based out of London.In This Episode* Repeating history (1:42)* The American system of innovation (7:12)* The cost of risk-aversion (16:10)* The problem dynamic (20:28)* Our future rate of change (23:34)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Repeating history (1:42)I'm supposed to forget that I basically wrote the same version of this story a year ago . . .Pethokoukis: I wrote a book about a year ago, and I wrote that book out of frustration. I was frustrated, when I originally started writing it in 2020, that, how come we already didn't have a vaccine for Covid? And then I started thinking about all the other technologies that we didn't have, and it was that frustration that led me write my book.I'm guessing there was a frustration that led you to write your much better-written book.Kobie: So I think it's really interesting that you start with Covid vaccines because here, out in the UK, the vaccine that was developed here — this is not something of my area of expertise, but obviously all journalists ended up having to write about Covid quite a bit — but the reason we managed to create a vaccine so quickly (they usually take several years) is because we have this vaccine platform that they'd been coming up with, and they kind of had this virus in their heads of, “Oh, it would probably be this type of a virus, and if we were to design a system that would help us design a vaccine really quickly, what would it look like?” And they had it mostly done when everything hit, so actually we got quite lucky on that one. It could have been a lot worse, we could have been much further behind.But you're right, I have been writing about technology for a very long time and I keep hearing things about AI, things about driverless cars, and you just feel like you're writing the same headline time after time after time because news has such a short memory. I'm supposed to forget that I basically wrote the same version of this story a year ago, and that every year I'm writing about driverless cars and how they're going to be here imminently, and then 10 years goes by and I'm like, “Maybe I should have renewed my license.” That sort of a thing. And I find that very frustrating because I don't like hype. I like having the reality of the situation, even if it's a bit pessimistic, even if it's not the most happy scenario of what could happen with technology. I'd rather know the downsides and have a better sense of what is actually going to happen. So it really came out of that.I was writing a section for a British computing magazine called PC Pro, a future section, and it's a very cynical magazine a lot of the time, so I kind of got used to writing why things weren't going to happen and I had this whole list of these different technologies that I'm not necessarily pessimistic about, but I could see why they weren't going to happen as quickly as everyone has said. So just put it together in a book. So a little bit the same as you, but bit of a different story.So that phenomenon, and I wonder, is it partly sort of a reporter's problem? Because most reporters you have a certain . . . you don't want to write the same story over and over again. I think a lot of reporters have a soft spot for novelty. I think that's not just true with technology, I think it's with economic theories, it's with a lot of things. Then you have the founders or technologists themselves, many of whom probably would like to raise money and to continue raising money, so they're going to hype it, but yet, history would suggest that there's nothing new about this phenomenon, that things always take longer to get from the breakthrough to where it is a ubiquitous technology, everything from electrification, to PCs, to the internal combustion engine.Is there an actual problem or is it really a problem of our perceptions?I think it is a problem of perception. We have this idea that technology happens so quickly, that development happens so quickly, and it does, especially something like a smartphone. It went from being something you heard about to something you carried with you in a matter of years — very, very quickly. Of course, the technologies that make up a smartphone took many, many, several decades, a long, long time.The problem with a lot of innovation and development, especially when it's things like things like AI, they start as almost a philosophical, academic idea. Then they become science and we start to work out the science of how something's going to work. And then you have to engineer it and make it work physically. And then you have to commercialize it. And for every single different aspect of a technology, that's what you're kind of doing. That is a very long road involving very different people. And the academics are like, “Yeah, we solved this. I wrote a paper about this ages ago, a hundred years ago we were talking about AI.” And then the scientists who are doing stuff in the lab, they can make it work in the lab, they can make it work in theory, they can do that in-the-lab bit, and that's amazing. We read about those breakthroughs. Those are the kinds of things that make really great headlines and journalists love those kinds of stories because, hey, it's new. And then you've got engineers who've actually got to physically build it, and that is where the money really needs to come in because this is always harder. Building anything is harder than you think it's going to be. It doesn't matter what it is, it's always harder because you've got the real world, you're out of the lab and you have to think about all of the things that the scientists who were very smart people did not think about.And then you've got to try to come up with a way to make it work for people, and people are hard. You need to think about regulators, you need to think about business models, and all of that sort of thing. There's a lot of problems in all of that, and a lot of the time, the innovation isn't about that original academic idea. It's about how you're going to bring it to market, or how you're going to make it safe, and all of those kinds of things. There's so much to think about with even the smallest piece of technology.The American system of innovation (7:12)It's too easy for people to just kind of jump up and say, “Well, it's corporations being evil. That's the problem.” Well sometimes, yeah. “It's governments being too heavy-handed and regulators being too tight. That's the problem.” Well, it is until your plane crashes, then you definitely wish that those aviation regulators were stricter, right?I'm old enough to remember in the 1990s, I remember writing stories when I was a reporter about AI. There was a huge AI boom in the 1990s which then kind of fizzled out, and then it sort of came up again. So I've certainly heard about the hype about technologies, and when people talk about hype, often they'll point out the Internet Boom — but to me, that's, again, really just a case of things taking longer than what people expected because all the big moneymaking ideas in the 2010s about how to use the internet and apps — these are not new ideas. These are all ideas people had in the '90s, but what they lacked was bandwidth to make them work out, and we also lacked the smartphones, but the idea of ordering things online or the sharing economy, the technology wasn't there.Sometimes the problem is that the technology just isn't there yet. Is there an actual problem — you're in Great Britain — is there a problem with the American system of innovation, which, the stylized version of that would be: government funds lots of basic research on the kinds of questions that businesses would never really do their own — even though they do a lot of R&D, they don't do that kind of R&D because it's not immediately commercial — and that creates this stock of knowledge that then businesses can use to commercialize, see what people will actually buy as a way of valuing it., does it pass the market test, and then we end up with stuff that businesses and consumers can use — that, ideally, is the American system.Is that a good system? Can that system be improved? What is your contention?It depends what you're making. If you're making a consumer product, I think yeah, that works decently well. You can see in some ways where it doesn't work, and you can see in some ways where it does work, and to me that's where regulation and the government needs to sit, is to try to push things the right way. Obviously, social media probably needed something helping it along the way at some point so it didn't go down the road that we have now. Smartphones are pretty good, they're a pretty great technology, we're used to using them, there's some issues with surveillance and that sort of thing, but that kind of worked pretty well.But it depends on the technology. Like I mentioned, these Covid vaccines. Here in the UK, that wasn't a project that was funded by corporations. It definitely got out in the world and was mass-produced by them quickly, which was great, but it was something that came through the academic world here and there was a lot of government funding involved. Of course, the UK has a very strong academic system, and an academic network, and how you get funding for these things.It depends on the product, it depends what you're trying to buy, and this is the issue when you come into things like transport: so driverless cars, or goofy ideas like hyperloop, or flying taxis and things like that. Is that a consumer product? Is that public transport? How are we deciding what the value is in this? Is it just about how much money it makes for Google, or is it about how it solves problems for cities? And we probably need it to do both, and walking that line to make sure that it does both in a way that works for everybody is very difficult, and I don't think we have easy answers for any of that, partially some of this stuff is so new and partially because we're not very good at talking about these things.It's too easy for people to just kind of jump up and say, “Well, it's corporations being evil. That's the problem.” Well sometimes, yeah. “It's governments being too heavy-handed and regulators being too tight. That's the problem.” Well, it is until your plane crashes, then you definitely wish that those aviation regulators were stricter, right? So it depends on what the technology is, and we just use technology to cover such a range of innovation that maybe we need some different ways of talking about this.Flying cars has become such the example, but the reason there isn't a flying car, some might blame regulation, but I think, whether it's regulations were too heavy for some reason, or the technology wasn't there, it didn't make economic sense. And even though there's been a lot of flying taxi startups, it still may not make economic sense. So who determines if it makes economic sense? Does the government determine or do you need to raise money and then try out a product, then the entrepreneur realizes it doesn't make economic sense, and then the company collapses?To me, that's what I see as the American system, that somebody has an idea, maybe they base the idea off research, and then they try the idea, and they raise money, and then they actually try to create a product, and then the thing fails, and, well, now we know. Now we know that's probably not ready.Is there a different way of doing it? What country does it better?I think China does, and I think that's because companies in China and the government are much more linked, and they serve each other. That's not necessarily a good thing, to be clear, especially not for the wider world, all of the time, but China has driverless cars and they're out on the roads. It's not that they work better than the ones in the US, they don't, but there's less of a concern about some of the negative impacts. Where you fall on where that sits, that's kind of up to individuals. Personally, I think a driverless car shouldn't be on the road if it's not perfectly safe, if it's not a really trusted technology, and I am willing to wait for that because I think it is a thing that is worth waiting for, or ensuring that we can actually build it in a way that's affordable. But they're out on the roads in China, they're being tested, you can catch a robot taxi there.But that should be a worse system because it sounds like you're very skeptical about how safe they are. The fact that they're only on the roads in this country in certain places, in certain cities, there's a slow rollout — that should be a better system.Personally, I think it is. Now, if you live in San Francisco or you live in the places that are kind of being treated as test labs for these vehicles, you might not be a fan of them, and there's been a lot of pushback in San Francisco around this, especially because it's taken so long and they can actually be quite disruptive to the cities when they don't work out, and it's not like you, as somebody who lives locally, gets compensated because you get delayed on your way to work because a Waymo car got on the way of your bus, or whatever.But I think that we do need to be slower with technology, and I think that there's nothing wrong with taking a bit of time to make sure that we get it right. It is very likely that, in the next couple of years, there are going to be cities that have these air taxis. To a certain extent, they're just electric helicopters that are cheaper and easier to fly, and we already have those to get people above traffic to get between places. That's an idea that already exists. This isn't a huge, massive leap forward. It is going to happen in cities where people are a little bit less afraid of disrupting everybody. But again, I'm not sure that that's right for people. That might be right for the company; so all of the various aviation companies that are trying this, they're going to end up flying for the first time in cities like Dubai and places like that that aren't worried about what everyday people on the ground think, they don't really care what you think. A place like New York or LA, it's going to be a little bit tougher to convince people that they should have to suffer the safety implications of this if one of these things crashes, because people in the US have a really great ability to be able to speak out about these technologies, and better government regulations, and things like that.I think it is a very tough question and I think it is almost impossible to get it perfectly, so the question is more about getting it to be good enough, and to me, what I think that requires is good communication between companies and regulators. And in aviation, that is pretty good— you will not talk to any company that is making the so-called “flying cars” and the air taxis. They all go on about how well they work with regulators and how much they appreciate the support of regulators, and I think that's a good thing, but regulators are probably also maybe not making it as easy as it could be to develop a new technology because one of the problems with these companies is that it takes a certain length of time to come up with this idea and how the technology is going to work, and then you have to get all these different certifications, and it is a long road — and this is good, you want to make sure the plane works, but by the time you're certified, the technology has come along enough that now you're out-of-date and your technology is out-of-date, so you want to drop a new piece of technology, a new battery, a new idea, AI, and whatever. To a certain extent you have to come back to the beginning, and now you're behind again, and by the time you get everything certified, that's out-of-date again. So we probably do need to come up with faster ways of looking at new technologies and finding new ways of letting these companies safely work in a new technology into an existing design, new things like that.The cost of risk-aversion (16:10)I don't want to talk about this really wide-ranging AI stuff. I want really specifics now, now that we're starting to apply this stuff and we have really specific AI models that work in a very specific way, let's talk about that. Isn't that kind of the big story, that the reason we don't have some of these technologies is because we've been — at least in the United States — we've been wildly risk-averse. That's the whole story of nuclear energy: We became very risk-averse, and now we're sitting here worried about climate change when we have an established technology that, had we not paused it, we would've had 50 years of improvements, and when we talk about small nuclear reactors, or microreactors, or even fusion, we're 50 years behind where we could be. So don't some of these tech folks have a point that there was a proper reaction in the '50s and '60s about regulation and the environment and then we had an overreaction, now it's become just very hard to build things in this country and get them deployed, whether it's flying taxis or nuclear reactors. Now we're going to have this debate about AI. Does does that sound logical to you?I'm not sure that that is always what is holding these things back. The thing that has been holding AI back is just processing power. Jeffrey Hinton was working on all of these ideas in the '90s, and he couldn't make it work because the technology wasn't there, and it has taken us this long to get to a point where maybe some of these systems are starting to do useful things. And it is being deployed, it is being used and we should do that.But some people don't want it deployed, they would like to pause it. You've described this ideal that we've been developing this, and the technology's not there yet, it repeatedly took longer than what people expected, I think you correctly know. And now we're at the point where it seems to maybe be there, and now the second it's there, they're like, “Stop it. Let's slow down.” That's sort of the exact problem you've identified.Yeah, I do think it is fair to be concerned about the impact of this huge technology. When the whole internet thing happened, we probably should have been slightly more afraid of it and slightly more careful, but you can kind of solve a lot of problems along the way and kind of, “Oh, okay, we need to think about safety of children online — probably should have thought of that a little bit sooner,” and things like that. There's problems that you can kind of solve as you go along, but I think the biggest problem with the discussion and the debate around AI now is we're talking about this huge range of technology. AI is not one thing. So when you say, “AI is here now,” well, AI has been here for decades, it's been doing things for decades, it's not new, but we're talking about a very specific type of AI, we're talking about generative AI that is run by large language models.Personally, I have absolutely no problem with a large language model generating an AI response to an email so I can just hit a button and say, “Yeah, thanks, that sounds good” without having to type it all out. No one is scared of that. Lots of people are concerned about if you start rolling this out in government widely, which is what the UK government is planning at the moment, and you're letting AI make decisions and reply to people. You're going to get some problems, you're going to get people getting letters from their doctor that are incorrect, or people getting turned down for benefits, and things like that when they should be getting those benefits.That doesn't mean we can't use AI, it just means we need to think about what are all the downsides. What are the ways that we can mitigate those downsides? What are the ways we can mitigate those risks? But if you ask anyone at an AI developing company now, “Well, how are we going to fix this?” They're like, “Oh, the AI will do it.” Well, how? I just want to specific answer. How are you going to use the AI? What's it actually going to do? What problems do you see and how are you going to fix those problems? Very specific. I don't want to talk about this really wide-ranging AI stuff. I want really specifics now, now that we're starting to apply this stuff and we have really specific AI models that work in a very specific way, let's talk about that. And I think people are capable of having that conversation, but we just really gloss over the details with this one a lot.The problem dynamic (20:28)We need more nuance, really, and realize that there aren't villains, this isn't us versus them, it doesn't need to be like this.So do you view as sort of the problem players here, are they regulators, are they technologists, are they entrepreneurs? Is it the public — which, again, has a very poor understanding of technology, what technology can do. A lot of people I know, when they first tried ChatGPT, they were a little disappointed because they figured, after watching all these sci-fi movies, “I thought computers were already supposed to be able to do this.”I don't want to say who are the villains, but who are the problem players and what do you do about it?I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I think that framing is the problem.Good, that's fine, attack my framing, that is totally permitted!I think all of this would be better if we didn't have an “us versus them” thing. I think it's great that OpenAI is trying to develop this technology and is trying to make it useful and to make it work in a way that we might benefit from it. That's what they say they're trying to do, they're trying to make a lot of money while doing it. That's great. That's how this all works. That's fine. Regulators are keeping a close eye on it and want more information from them, and they want to know more about what they're doing, and what they're planning, and how these things are going to work. That seems fair. That's not OpenAI battling regulators, that's not regulators slapping down OpenAI.Journalists have a lot of blame on this because of the way we frame things. Everything is a battle. Everything is people going head-to-head — no, this is how this is supposed to work. Regulators are supposed to keep them in check. That can be very difficult when you are trying to regulate a very, very new technology. How could you possibly know anything about it? Where are you going to get your information from? From the company themselves. That kind of brings in some inherent challenges, but I think that's all surmountable.It's kind of like this idea that you're either a Luddite, and you hate AI, and you think it's evil, or you're completely pro-AI and you just can't wait to have your brain uploaded — there's a lot of nuance and variety of what people actually think in between. I think what you mentioned about ChatGPT and how, when you go use it the first time, you're kind of like, “Huh, this is it, hey?”I think that is the number one thing: Everyone should go use it, and then you're going to be half impressed that this machine is talking to you, that this system can actually chat with you, but then also a little bit disappointed because it's making things up, it's incorrect, it's a bit silly sometimes, that sort of a thing. Personally, I look at it and I just go, I wouldn't trust my business to this. I wouldn't trust the running of a government to a system that operates like this.Could it write some letters to help the NHS out here not have to have a person sit and type all of these things out, or to send more personalized letters to people so they get better information, and things like that? Yeah, that sounds good. Is that going to completely change how government operates? No. So we need to be a bit more honest about the limitations. We need more nuance, really, and realize that there aren't villains, this isn't us versus them, it doesn't need to be like this. But I see why you think there's villains.Our future rate of change (23:34)I think we're really bad at tracking change mentally. We want to see a big, dramatic change and then we look back and we're like, “Whoa . . . This is all very different.”That was just more my provocative framing. This is a question that you may not like at all, but I'm still going to ask it: You've looked at all these technologies. Do you think that the world of 2035 will look significantly different? The difference between the world of 2025 versus 2015, whatever that change has been, do you anticipate a bigger change between 2025 and 2035, whether because of energy, AI, rockets, flying cars, CRISPR. . . ?I think it will be different, but I don't think it's going to be as different. I'm kind of thinking back to when I was a kid and how we all lived life pre-internet and things like that, and things were genuinely different, and that gap between that and now is such a big difference. I think about my kid, when she's an adult, how different is it going to be? I think it's going to be different. I think we're going to look back at conversations like this and be like, “Oh gosh, we were naive. How could we have thought this, or not thought this?”Do I think that no one is going to be working because AI is going to do all work? No, I don't think it's going to be capable of that. Do I think that things like medicine could be really changed by technologies like CRISPR? I really hope so. I think we spend a lot of time talking about things like AI without seeing some of the really big-picture stuff. I write a lot of business technology stories, and it's a lot about how we can improve productivity by a few points, or it might impact a few thousand jobs — let's talk about some bigger things. Let's talk about how we can really change life. Let's talk about how we could work less. I would love to be able to see people actually working three or four days a week instead of these five-day weeks and still maintain productivity and still maintain salaries. I love that idea. I don't think that's going to happen. I think the changes are going to be small and incremental ones.I think we'll have a lot better transport options. I think all this driverless technology, even if we don't end up with the driverless cars that we fantasize about, it's definitely going to get applied to public transportation in some really good ways. I'm hoping that medicine will change. I'm worried about the climate change side of it because we are not putting our technology and our innovation into that, the mitigations for that, and I really think that that's where we need some very creative thinking for how we're going to deal with all of this.So 10, 15, 20 years from now, I think life is going to be relatively the same, but I think in certain industries it's going to be really, really different — but I think I'm still going to be working five days a week sitting in front of a computer, more often than not.That's because we're grinders, we love to grind.I don't, I do not, no.My last question, I'm not sure if this is quoted in the book, I think it was a Bill Gates quote, “We overestimate what we can accomplish in two years,” or “We underestimate what we can accomplish in 10 years,” something like that. Is that sort of the phenomenon, that there's an announcement and we figure everything's going to be different in 10 years, and then it isn't, and then we look back in 10 years, we're like, “Whoa, actually, there has been a lot of change!”I think we're really bad at tracking change mentally. We want to see a big, dramatic change and then we look back and we're like, “Whoa,” like you say, “What happened? This is all very different.”I think we're so focused on the here and now all of the time, we're so thinking about what's going to happen in the next quarter for our company or within the next year with our family, or our careers and things like that, that it's very easy for us to just get caught up in the day-to-day, and I think it is a good thing to look back. That's one of the reasons I wanted to write my book as a history. If you look back, we were talking about flying cars in the '50s, we were talking about AI . . . the mid-'50s is when this idea kind of really came to life. It takes a long time, but also we've done a lot in that time. There's been a huge amount of change and a huge amount of technologies that have started to enable all of this, and all of that is really positive.I can get accused of being a bit of a cynic because I'm like, “Where are driverless cars?” But if we manage to make driverless cars happen by 2035, I don't think that that's bad that it took that long. That's just how long it took — and hey, now we have driverless cars. Creating technology is sometimes just going to take longer than we want it to, and that's okay. That's not that the technology is wrong, that's just that we're bad at predicting timelines. I never know how long it's going to take me to finish a story, or get ready in the morning or, whatever, so I'm not surprised that these world-changing technologies were bad judges of that, too.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedMicro Reads▶ Economics* Trump's Arrival Brightens U.S. Outlook, Darkens Everyone Else's - WSJ* Coup d'États, Institutional Change, and Productivity - SSRN* I, Google: Estimating the Impact of Corporate Involvement on AI Research - SSRN▶ Business* How Chinese A.I. Start-Up DeepSeek Is Competing With Silicon Valley Giants - NYT* OpenAI's Stargate Deal Heralds Shift Away From Microsoft - WSJ* Oracle Takes Run at Cloud's Big Three With Trump-Backed AI Pact - Bberg* Remote work matters, but culture is the elephant in the room - CEPR* Why Mark Zuckerberg Is Ditching Human Fact-Checkers - Wired* OpenAI spars with Elon Musk over $500bn Stargate project - FT* How Oracle Plays Cheaply in AI - WSJ▶ Policy/Politics* Who Is Russell Vought? Probably the Most Important Person in Trump 2.0. - NYT Opinion* Bannon berates Musk over his attacks on Trump's AI infrastructure project - Politico▶ AI/Digital* When A.I. Passes This Test, Look Out - NYT* Anthropic chief says AI could surpass “almost all humans at almost everything” shortly after 2027 - Ars* Elon Musk's Silence on AI Risks Is Deafening - Bberg Opinion* Worry About Sentient AI—Not for the Reasons You Think - IEEE* There can be no winners in a US-China AI arms race - MIT▶ Biotech/Health* Sam Altman-backed Retro Biosciences to raise $1bn for project to extend human life - FT* Scientists Complete First Comprehensive Map of Human DNA Recombination - The Debrief▶ Clean Energy/Climate* Private companies aim to demonstrate working fusion reactors in 2025 - Science* How Trump's executive orders could tilt US energy markets - E&E News* Trump's Dream of Energy Dominance Relies on Canada - Bberg Opinion* The Wind Industry Is Putting on a Brave Face - Heatmap▶ Space/Transportation* Beam me to the stars: Scientists propose wild new interstellar travel tech - Space* The Hyperloop: A 200-Year History of Hype and Failure - MIT Press▶ Up Wing/Down Wing* What Los Angeles Can Learn From Another Great American City That Burned - NYT Opinion▶ Substacks/Newsletters* What if AI timelines are too aggressive? - Understanding AI* Trump's executive orders: Five big takeaways - Noahpinion* Open-Source AI and the Future - Hyperdimensional* 'ChatGPT' Robotics Moment in 2025 - AI Supremacy* The Big Problem Paradox - Conversable EconomistFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. 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Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Don't miss the latest episode of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery Podcast, where Jennie and Dianne are joined by special guest Charles Johnson to chat about fictional cemeteries and ghost towns in the virtual world of video games and the real-life counterparts that inspired the game creators. Sometimes Ordinary Extraordinary history can be found in the most surprising places! View this episode on YouTube!https://youtu.be/XS9KnxrIBGQ?si=QKI2CG_Mc0g_ttOENeed an Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery Podcast tee, hoodie or mug? Find all our taphophile-fun much here:https://oecemetery.etsy.comResources used to research this episode include:Staff Reporters. "Crumptonia's Long History ." https://www.selmatimesjournal.com/. 13 Aug. 2007. www.selmatimesjournal.com/2007/08/13/crumptonias-long-history/. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "Fielding Vaughan Family Cemetery ." https://www.findagrave.com/. 28 Mar. 2018. www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2662791/fielding-vaughan-family-cemetery. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "Crocheron Columns at Old Cahawba ." https://www.ruralswalabama.org/. www.ruralswalabama.org/attraction/crocheron-columns-at-old-cahawba/. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "Cochran House at Crumptonia near Orrville, AL (built c. 1855) ." https://www.ruralswalabama.org/. www.ruralswalabama.org/attraction/cochran-house-crumptonia/. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "The grave of John A. Bell in the “New” Cemetery at Old Cahawba ." https://www.ruralswalabama.org/. www.ruralswalabama.org/attraction/john-bell-grave-old-cahawba-park/. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "St. Roch Cemetery #2 ." https://nolacatholiccemeteries.org/. nolacatholiccemeteries.org/st-roch-cemetery-2. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025., Mordy. "Helltown, Ohio ." https://www.atlasobscura.com/. 5 Oct. 2016. www.atlasobscura.com/places/helltown-ohio. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "Boston Mills - Hell Town ." https://www.ghostsofohio.org/. www.ghostsofohio.org/lore/ohio_lore_36.html. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.Dimuro, Gina. "Why Helltown, Ohio Actually Lives Up To Its Name." https://allthatsinteresting.com/. edited by Austin Harvey , 2 Oct. 2021. allthatsinteresting.com/helltown-ohio. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "Pleasance." https://reddead.fandom.com/. reddead.fandom.com/wiki/Pleasance. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "Shady Belle." https://reddead.fandom.com/. reddead.fandom.com/wiki/Shady_Belle. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "Shady Belle Graveyard ." https://reddead.fandom.com/. reddead.fandom.com/wiki/Shady_Belle_Graveyard. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. "Saint Denis Cemetery ." https://reddead.fandom.com/. reddead.fandom.com/wiki/Saint_Denis_Cemetery. "Saint Roches Cemetery ." https://left4dead.fandom.com/. left4dead.fandom.com/wiki/Saint_Roches_Cemetery. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.public.newsBen Schreckinger is an old-fashioned investigative journalist with Politico who wrote the best book on Joe Biden. Schreckinger's book is called, simply, The Bidens. Hachette published the book in 2021. “It got a fair amount of attention in the conservative press,” he told me recently, “but in terms of mainstream media attention, it was pretty muted. It was inconvenient for a lot of media outlets to have a more unvarnished look at these business dealings. It was the first mainstream book to say that the [Hunter Biden] laptop was largely genuine.”In truth, the book shows that Joe Biden has been involved in shady influence-peddling his entire career. While intense focus has rightly been paid to the Biden family's influence peddling with America's foreign adversaries, the evidence assembled by Schreckinger suggests that Biden owes his political career to election interference by the mafia.

Guest: Adam Goodman is a professor of History at the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is the author of The Deportation Machine: America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants. The post Operation Wetback and the Bipartisan Legacy of US Deportations appeared first on KPFA.

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Bill Berg, a retired wildlife biologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, discusses the history of beaver in Minnesota. This is part of "The Iconic Beaver", a series that investigates the influence of this keystone species in Minnesota. "The Iconic Beaver" is produced by Mark Jacobs.

This episode was originally released for Death Panel patrons on September 23rd. To support the show and help make episodes like this one possible, become a patron at www.patreon.com/deathpanelpod Beatrice and Jules discuss an amicus brief Jules co-authored for the Supreme Court case United States v. Skrmetti, a case heard at the court this week that could have a dramatic impact on young people's access to medical transition. We talk through the brief and the historical evidence it contains dispelling popular myths that trans kids are new or that transition is itself dangerous, and show that medical transition and youth transition have histories stretching back far further than popular accounts would lead you to believe. Read the brief here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-477/323955/20240903153746246_23-477tsacAmericanHistoricalAssociation.pdf Find our book Health Communism here: www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism Find Jules' new book, A Short History of Trans Misogyny, here: https://www.versobooks.com/products/3054-a-short-history-of-trans-misogyny As always, support Death Panel at www.patreon.com/deathpanelpod

An in-depth investigation by Rebecca John reveals the extent to which oil companies have usurped the democratic process for decades via deceptive front-groups parading as grassroots organizations opposed to oil taxes and curbs on carbon emissions.

Nicole Kobie, author, "The Long History of the Future" Tomaš Dvořák - "Game Boy Tune" - "Mark's intro" - "Interview with Nicole Kobie" [0:03:38] - "Mark's comments" [0:41:01] Chris Imler - "The Internet Will Break My Heart" [0:54:33] https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/146677

In this edition of our Mega series, we are taking a look at three articles dealing with Usher and his relationship with Diddy.   The relationship between Usher and Sean "Diddy" Combs has come under scrutiny following Combs' recent arrest on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking. Usher, who has had a professional relationship with Diddy since his teenage years, quickly made headlines when he deleted all of his posts on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after Combs' arrest. This sparked rumors that the move might be related to the scandal, given their close ties. However, Usher later claimed that his account was hacked and denied any connection between the deletions and Combs' legal troubles..Usher has not been implicated in any crimes, but his past experiences living with Diddy as a young artist have resurfaced in discussions about the mogul's controversial history. He has previously spoken about witnessing wild parties and "curious things" during his time with Diddy in the 1990s, though he has maintained a distance from the current allegations.(commercial at 8:41)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Usher Says He Saw 'Very Curious Things' When He Lived with Diddy at 13 for a Year (people.com)Segment two:The controversy surrounding the alleged deleted Usher tweets stems from claims that the R&B singer posted a series of controversial messages on social media, which were quickly deleted. While specific details about the content of these alleged tweets vary, the general narrative suggests that they may have been offensive or insensitive in nature, sparking backlash and prompting Usher or his team to remove them.Afterward, rumors and discussions circulated about what was actually posted, leading to debates on social media. Some argued that screenshots of the tweets were fabricated or taken out of context, while others expressed disappointment or criticism of Usher based on the claims.  So the question is, was content hidden or was Usher hacked like he says?   Let's dive in!(commercial at 7:31)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Usher says he was hacked after his Twitter account got wiped out following Diddy arrest: 'Y'all ran with it' | Daily Mail OnlineClosing out the episode in segment three:L.A. Reid's role in Sean "Diddy" Combs' story has become more significant as details about his decisions involving young artists resurface. In the 1990s, Reid sent a teenage Usher to live with Diddy as part of a mentorship program dubbed "Puffy Flavor Camp." Usher has since reflected on his experience, describing it as "wild" and revealing that he witnessed inappropriate activities during his time with Diddy. While Reid admitted in his memoir that sending Usher into Diddy's world was meant to help him develop a more mature, edgy sound, he also expressed uncertainty about whether the decision was wise, considering the environment that Diddy fostered. Usher has since hinted at the discomfort he felt witnessing adult behavior at such a young age and stated he would never subject his children to a similar experience.In addition to Usher, Reid was also connected to another young star who had a relationship with Diddy—Justin Bieber. A resurfaced 2009 video shows a then 15-year-old Bieber spending time with Diddy, who made unsettling remarks about getting girls for the underage singer. Reid, who had worked with Bieber early in his career, played a role in connecting the young artist with influential figures like Diddy. This interaction is now being scrutinized in light of the serious allegations against Diddy, raising concerns about the environments young stars like Usher and Bieber were exposed to under his mentorship​.These revelations have cast Reid's decisions in a more critical light, as both Usher and Bieber's experiences with Diddy are now being reexamined in the context of the accusations against the music mogul.(commercial at 10:22)to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Revealed: How Usher brought 'beautiful' 14-year-old boy Justin Bieber to music mogul L.A Reid as a 'gift' (and how it paved the way for singer's friendship with Diddy) | Daily Mail Online

Amy Freitag, president of the New York Community Trust, talks about the work of the trust, its centennial, the changing needs of New Yorkers, and how to participate in its future.

John discusses the ever increasing lies Trump is spreading about migrants and immigration. Then, he talks with author and historian Kenneth C. Davis about how sometimes history repeats itself and what we can learn from it. Then finally, TV's Frank Conniff is back to joke with listeners about pop culture, the election, and the mouth breathing MAGAs.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are betting markets more accurate than polls? What kind of chaos would a second Trump term bring? And is U.S. democracy really in danger, or just “sputtering on”? (Part two of a two-part series.) SOURCES:Eric Posner, professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School.Koleman Strumpf, professor of economics at Wake Forest University. RESOURCES:"A Trump Dictatorship Won't Happen," by Eric Posner (Project Syndicate, 2023).The Demagogue's Playbook: The Battle for American Democracy from the Founders to Trump, by Eric Posner (2020)."The Long History of Political Betting Markets: An International Perspective," by Paul W. Rhode and Koleman Strumpf (The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Gambling, 2013)."Manipulating Political Stock Markets: A Field Experiment and a Century of Observational Data," by Paul W. Rhode and Koleman S. Strumpf (Working Paper, 2007)."Historical Presidential Betting Markets," by Paul W. Rhode and Koleman S. Strumpf (Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2004). EXTRAS:"Has the U.S. Presidency Become a Dictatorship? (Update)," by Freakonomics Radio (2024).“Does the President Matter as Much as You Think?” by Freakonomics Radio (2020)."How Much Does the President Really Matter?" by Freakonomics Radio (2010).

Groceries are expensive. So, if you would like a simple yet effective technique to cut your grocery bill down, listen to the start of this episode to discover exactly how. Source: Eat This Not That by David Zinczenko (https://amzn.to/3ZKjVs6). For decades many of us have looked forward to flying cars, real human-like robots, smart cities, driverless cars and other technologies. Yet, they just never quite seem to get here. Why is that? Well, that is exactly what Nicole Kobie is here to explain and discuss. Nicole is a technology and science journalist and a contributing editor for Wired. She is author of the book The Long History of the Future: Why Tomorrow's Technology Still Isn't Here (https://amzn.to/3Bg3z0d). It is hard to imagine life without your teeth. You use them to eat, to talk and they are an important part of your appearance. Still, some animals have no teeth while other creatures grow new ones when the old ones fall out. There is a lot you likely don't know about teeth that I know you will find fascinating when you listen to my guest, Bill Schutt. He is a zoologist and author of six books. His research has been published in Natural History magazine, The New York Times, Newsday, the Economist, and Discover. His latest book is titled, Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans (https://amzn.to/3zvSVSK). Paying down your debt is considered good for your financial health. It appears to also be good for your physical health. Listen as I reveal some interesting research that shows the health benefits of lowering the amount you owe. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2013/08/high-debt-could-be-hazardous-to-your-health/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! MINT MOBILE: Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at https://MintMobile.com/something! $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.).  New customers on first 3 month plan only. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. INDEED:  Get a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING  Support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.  Indeed.com/SOMETHING.  Terms and conditions apply. SHOPIFY:  Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk . Go to SHOPIFY.com/sysk to grow your business – no matter what stage you're in! DELL:  Dell Technologies and Intel are creating technology that loves ideas, expanding your business and evolving your passions! We push what technology can do, so great ideas can happen. Bring your ideas to life at https://Dell.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why are some female athletes asked to prove her womanhood? To understand how we got here, we're bringing you episode one of Tested, a new podcast series by our play cousins over at Embedded, made in partnership with CBC in Canada.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy