Podcasts about Nobel Prize

The Cancer Therapies You're Not Being Told About This episode goes straight into the treatments that rarely make it past the walls of a conventional oncology clinic. I'm talking red light therapy, chlorine dioxide solution (CDS), and even urine therapy, modalities backed by real science, used around the world, and showing results in cancer recovery, thyroid health, autoimmune conditions, wound healing, autism, chronic fatigue, and more. I'm joined by Jonathan Otto, researcher, educator, and producer of groundbreaking health documentaries who pulls back the curtain on what's working for patients right now. He shares case studies you won't hear in a standard medical appointment, breaks down the research hiding in plain sight, and explains exactly how these approaches fit into real-world healing protocols. We're also taking on the myths, the misinformation, and the reasons therapies with Nobel Prize-level science behind them are still being ignored. This is a candid, fact-driven conversation designed to help you see your options clearly, so you can make informed decisions about your health without limits placed on you by outdated systems. If you've been told there's only one path forward, this episode will give you a much wider view. Connect with Jonathan Otto: Instagram: @jonno.otto

We’ve all imagined holding a winning lottery ticket, but what happens next? Hear from a man known as The Lottery Lawyer, who shares the most common mistakes people make when trying to claim their winnings. Plus, a man who scored a $28 million Powerball jackpot at just 21 years old reveals what life was like after the win—the highs, the surprises, and some challenges you might not expect. This episode originally aired on October 26, 2024. Suggested episodes: Aftershocks: Life after getting struck by lightning Welcome to the Punderdome! We're entering NYC's punniest pun competition The Guts & Glory Of Getting Into The Guinness Book Of World Records What it's like to win a Nobel Prize with Andrea Ghez and Martin Chalfie GUESTS: Kurt Panouses: ‘The Lottery Lawyer & CPA’, specializing in helping lottery winners claim their prizes and manage their money Timothy Schultz: Winner of a $28 million Powerball jackpot in 1999. Filmmaker, and host of the podcast, “Lottery, Dreams and Fortune” Support the show: https://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the United States secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr., announces a $500 million cut to mRNA vaccine research in the United States, we hear a statement from the Nobel Prize winning biologist who made mRNA vaccines possible. A team of scientists from Northwestern University have uncovered the pathway believed to protect some people from allergic reactions (even when they are sensitive to an allergen) and have tested a drug which could protect the most severely allergic. Also this week, satellite data shows that large parts of the Earth are running dangerously low on ground water. And although people often believe scientific fraud is committed by a few bad actors, a new paper uncovers networks of journals, editors, and authors who are allegedly cooperating to publish fraudulent papers. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber and Alex Mansfield Assistant Producer: Minnie Harrop Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth (Image: Allergy testing. Credit: Peter Dazeley via Getty Images)

Don investigates a Nobel Prize winner's risky experiment in the face of the Nazis, a creative sting operation that ended the career of a notorious crime boss and a lifesaving airlift out of Vietnam. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After years of media tiptoeing and carefully sanitized narratives, Bill Gates is finally facing serious public backlash over his longstanding relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. For a long time, Gates was largely shielded by his philanthropic image and tech titan status, with mainstream coverage downplaying the extent of his ties to Epstein. But as court documents, flight records, and internal emails began to surface, that protective bubble started to crack. Gates met with Epstein numerous times after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor, including private meetings at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse and reportedly discussing matters as sensitive as the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite his repeated claims that the relationship was purely about philanthropy, it's become increasingly clear that Gates engaged far more deeply with Epstein than he initially admitted—something even his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, cited as a major factor in their divorce.Now, the scrutiny Gates once managed to sidestep has caught up with him, and the tone of coverage has shifted dramatically. No longer is he simply the awkward genius turned do-gooder; he's a billionaire who maintained contact with a convicted sex offender long after most people ran the other way. Critics are questioning why Gates, a man with virtually unlimited resources and access, would have any reason to associate with Epstein—let alone repeatedly. The once-taboo questions are finally being asked: What did Gates know? What was he told? And why did he stay in contact for so long? As the public demands accountability from every angle of Epstein's network, Gates is no longer exempt. His name is now rightfully being dragged through the same mud he helped tread around for years.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Bill Gates believed Jeffrey Epstein could deliver the Nobel Prize he craved. Instead, their toxic dalliance destroyed Gates' marriage and stained his 'saintly' reputation for ever... as revealed in a new book about billionaire Microsoft founder | Daily Mail OnlineBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

Thank you for supporting my independent thought - how to support my work - My work is now driven entirely by donations or supporting my content creation Paypal Donations: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/drnaoiseoreillyPodcast channel: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/purple-psychology/id6446495392Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/purplepsychologyiBooks: http://books.apple.com/us/book/id6744105194MentionedSchool children 1966:https://www.instagram.com/p/DMvvR5uifbd/?img_index=1Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize in Physics 2024: Banquet speechhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f5WQAk3dYoBook:A Psalm for the Wild-BuiltBecky Chambershttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40864002-a-psalm-for-the-wild-builtOppenheimer Film:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/

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For five hundred years, scientists as credible as Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin and Freud chipped away at the scientific existence of God. So, by the beginning of the 20th century, Nietzsche was able to announce the death of God. A century later, however, modern science is now resurrecting God. That, at least, is the suggestion of Michel-Yves Bollore, the co-author of Europe's latest publishing sensation, GOD The Science The Evidence. It's a post Einsteinian science, Bollore and his co-author Olivier Bonnassies contend, which has enabled this kind of scientific Easter. With endorsements from Nobel Prize winners and over 400,000 copies sold across Europe, their controversial thesis argues that seven independent lines of evidence—from thermodynamics to quantum mechanics—point toward an absolute beginning of the universe, making materialism, in their words, 'an irrational belief' in the 21st century.1. The Historical Reversal For 400+ years (Galileo to Darwin to Freud), scientific discoveries seemed to eliminate the need for God. But since 1900, Bollore argues, every major discovery points in the opposite direction—toward the necessity of a creator.2. Seven Lines of Evidence for Absolute Beginning The authors present seven independent scientific arguments (thermodynamics, universe expansion, quantum mechanics, mathematics) that the universe had an absolute beginning—which they argue requires a creator, since "from nothing, nothing can come."3. The Multiverse Dilemma Materialism's only escape is the multiverse theory, but recent discoveries (2003) show infinite series of universes are impossible. This forces materialists into increasingly complex explanations while the "God hypothesis" remains simpler.4. Fine-Tuning as Evidence The universe's parameters are so precisely calibrated (down to the 15th decimal place for expansion speed) that tiny changes would prevent existence itself—suggesting intentional design rather than chance.5. Philosophical Not Religious The book deliberately avoids religious questions (who is God, what does God want) and focuses purely on whether scientific evidence supports the existence of a creator—making it accessible across different faiths and culturesKeen On America 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

Demis Hassabis, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, is shaping the future of humanity. As the CEO of Google DeepMind, he was first interviewed by correspondent Scott Pelley in 2023, during a time when chatbots marked the beginning of a new technological era. Since that interview, Hassabis has made headlines for his innovative work, including using an AI model to predict the structure of proteins, which earned him a Nobel Prize. Pelley returns to DeepMind's headquarters in London to discuss what's next for Hassabis, particularly his leadership in the effort to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a type of AI that has the potential to match the versatility and creativity of the human brain. Fertility rates in the United States are currently near historic lows, largely because fewer women are having children in their 20s. As women delay starting families, many are opting for egg freezing, the process of retrieving and freezing unfertilized eggs, to preserve their fertility for the future. Does egg freezing provide women with a way to pause their biological clock? Correspondent Lesley Stahl interviews women who have decided to freeze their eggs and explores what the process entails physically, emotionally and financially. She also speaks with fertility specialists and an ethicist about success rates, equity issues and the increasing market potential of egg freezing. This is a double-length segment. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While the White House claims the US economy is booming, recent data indicates otherwise, with one report in particular fueling concerns about a weak job market. In response, President Trump fired the person responsible for producing the numbers he claims were "rigged." So what's really happening? Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and Greg Mankiw, who served as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush, join the show to break it all down.  Also on today's show: Alexander Gabuev, Director, Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center; Barak Ravid, Global Affairs Correspondent, Axios; author Sami Tamimi ("Boutany")  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Laura dives into the world of Carbon 60 (C60), a Nobel Prize-winning molecule with powerful antioxidant properties. She's joined by C60 Power co-founders Ken Swartz and Jessica MacNaughton to explore how this “free radical sponge” may combat inflammation, boost energy, and support longevity. Plus, learn how it's helped each of them personally. Use code FUNC for a discount at C60 Power! Adapt Naturals: Code FUNC for 30% off at Adapt Naturals. Naturepedic: Code FUNC15 for 15% off organic mattresses and bedding at 

Sweet poison? New doubts cast over safety of erythritol; Is Greek yogurt a good way to enhance protein intake? Comparing whey, soy, and pea protein isolates; When taking supplements, is it advisable to take periodic breaks to enhance their effectiveness? Tommy John surgery pioneer and longtime Mets medical director dies at 68; Ivermectin, once branded useless “horse paste,” may prove a new weapon against malaria; New findings challenge notion that humans and apes share 99% of their DNA.

Is oxidative stress draining your energy, accelerating aging, and wrecking your sleep? In this episode, Dr. Tim sits down with longevity researcher and carbon nanomaterial expert Chris Burres to explore S60—a Nobel Prize-winning molecule now repurposed to fight oxidative stress, enhance sleep, boost recovery, and promote cellular health. Discover how this cutting-edge antioxidant could revolutionize your health routine and give you back your vitality—naturally.  

There's a powerful story behind the creamy, tangy yogurt that originated in the mountains of Bulgaria. In this episode, I'll share the fascinating legend of how Bulgarian yogurt healed a king, the science that won a Nobel Prize, and the probiotic strains—like Lactobacillus bulgaricus—that make this yogurt one of the most healing fermented foods you can eat. I'll also explain how you can make it at home with my favorite starters, and why it's become a daily staple in my kitchen (and heart). Episode link:  https://www.culturedfoodlife.com/podcast/episode-325-bulgarian-yogurt-the-ancient-culture-that-changed-everything/ Link(s) I talked about: Article: https://www.culturedfoodlife.com/bulgarian-yogurt-the-ancient-culture-that-changed-everything/ Check out these other links: My Story Video: https://youtu.be/CbX9Nv9OtGM For health tips and recipes, subscribe to our weekly emails. We'll also send you our free Getting Started Guide: http://bit.ly/2BnHpay Listen to all my podcasts: http://bit.ly/cflpodcast Become a Biotic Pro Member: http://bit.ly/2kkhwS1 Cultured Food Recipes: http://bit.ly/2UIfY2x Health and Food Topics: http://bit.ly/2SdzIOS My Amazon Shop: https://bit.ly/3KdhEge MY STARTER CULTURES Milk Kefir Grains: http://bit.ly/2rQ99PE L. Reuteri Superfood: https://bit.ly/LReuteriSuperfoodStarter L. Gasseri Superfood: https://bit.ly/LGasseriSuperfoodStarter Easy Kefir: http://bit.ly/2MQ1nPV Kefir Soda Starter: http://bit.ly/3YVErTa Kombucha Starter: http://bit.ly/2g2R9hE Vegetable Starter: http://bit.ly/2SzzVem Water Kefir Crystals:  http://bit.ly/2irmImW Sourdough Starter: http://bit.ly/2IjaaXK Other items in my store: http://bit.ly/2HTKZ27 STAY CONNECTED Instagram: http://instagram.com/culturedfoodlife/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CulturedFoodLife/ Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/donnaschwenk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/donnaschwenk

Dive into the extraordinary life of Harald Malmgren, a 27-year-old “whiz kid” who played a pivotal role in averting nuclear disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tasked by President JFK and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to outmaneuver General Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay, Malmgren bought critical time for diplomacy. His remarkable career didn't stop there—he advised Presidents LBJ, Nixon, and Ford, built relationships with global leaders like Vladimir Putin and every Japanese Prime Minister since the 1970s, and worked alongside luminaries like Howard Baker, George Shultz, and Nobel Prize winners Tom Schelling and Sir John Hicks. With unparalleled Q Clearances, Malmgren was entrusted with secrets few others could access.In this gripping episode, we uncover Malmgren's revelations about UFOs and extraterrestrial phenomena:His handling of mysterious UAP material from the 1962 Bluegill Triple Prime nuclear test, handed to him by Atomic Energy Commission director Lawrence Preston Gise.Briefings from CIA's Richard Bissell, the architect of Area 51, on “otherworld technologies” and historic crash retrievals, including the 1933 Magenta crash in Italy.Classified intelligence on antigravity research involving Tesla and Thomas Townsend Brown.A chilling deathbed confession to his daughter Pippa about UFO crash survivors, including footage of a surviving extraterrestrial from Roswell.Malmgren's belief that JFK's knowledge of UFOs, rooted in his Naval Intelligence days, and his push for Soviet collaboration on space and denuclearization may have contributed to his assassination.His rare mention of the secretive “Majestic” group, an elite circle overseeing the UFO issue, which tracked him from a young age.Harald Malmgren was a hero who saved the world from catastrophe and navigated a shadowy realm of secrets. His untold story, filled with courage and conviction, challenges world leaders to pause and reflect on the dangers of global brinkmanship. Tune in to explore the legacy of a man who walked among giants—and perhaps beings from beyond.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/total-disclosure-ufos-coverups-conspiracy--5975113/support.

It's Liberation Day…again. After two missed deadlines and only a few trade deals done, Trump's global tariffs officially go into effect today. To mark the occasion, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro says the president not only deserves a Nobel Peace Prize—but also a Nobel Prize in economics. Meanwhile, Trump can't stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein, telling reporters on Air Force One that Virginia Giuffre was "stolen" by Jeffrey Epstein from the Mar-a-Largo spa. Trump pressures Senate Republicans to kill a ban on congressional (and presidential) stock trading. Jon and Dan discuss the latest, including Democrats' shifting views on Gaza, Kamala Harris's decision not to run for California governor, and Texas Republicans' attempts to steal the 2026 midterm elections by redrawing their congressional map. Then, Congressman Jason Crow joins Tommy in the studio to talk about recruiting Democrats to run for office, and why he's suing ICE after being denied entry to a detention facility in his district.  

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Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/snm5MB0oMjA This week's guest is Ayurvedic health consultant, Dr Sam Watts. In this small section of our full weekly episode, we dive deep into the fundamental importance of circadian alignment for not only cancer prevention but overall health and longevity. Sam breaks down the science behind circadian medicine, including its Nobel Prize-winning recognition in 2018, and explains how even our ancient Palaeolithic genome influences our need for natural light exposure. We discuss the detrimental effects of circadian misalignment, now classified as a type 1A carcinogen, and provide practical tips for achieving optimal circadian rhythms by aligning sleep and wake cycles with natural light patterns. Join us for a comprehensive guide on how to live a healthier, happier life through circadian alignment. So tell me... Did we change your mind?

 What do Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe, and Martin Luther King Jr. have in common? None of them were born with those names. Discover the real stories behind seven iconic identities.You know their stage names—but what about the names they left behind?From Muhammad Ali to Marilyn Monroe and Martin Luther King Jr., this episode of An Ounce uncovers the hidden identities behind seven legendary figures.It's a fast-paced guessing game filled with name changes, reinventions, and the unexpected reasons behind them.Which reveal surprised you the most? Did you guess any right? Let us know in the comments. other episodes in the series:You Won't Believe WhoThese Names Belong To!     The “Name Change Series” from An OunceReleased on or about:(1) July 31, 2025:The Real Identities ofFamous Icons(2) August 14, 2025:They Changed Their Names-Then Changed Pop Culture(3) August 28, 2025:Masters of Disguise - When Changing Your Name Was the Only Way to Escape(4) September 4, 2025:The Reinvention Game ------------------------------------------------------------- If you could change your name… what would you choose?

We've covered the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, pretty consistently on Statecraft, since our first interview on PEPFAR, the flagship anti-AIDS program, in 2023. When DOGE came to USAID, I was extremely critical of the cuts to lifesaving aid, and the abrupt, pointlessly harmful ways in which they were enacted. In March, I wrote, “The DOGE team has axed the most effective and efficient programs at USAID, and forced out the chief economist, who was brought in to oversee a more aggressive push toward efficiency.”Today, we're talking to that forced-out chief economist, Dean Karlan. Dean spent two and a half years at the helm of the first-ever Office of the Chief Economist at USAID. In that role, he tried to help USAID get better value from its foreign aid spending. His office shifted $1.7 billion of spending towards programs with stronger evidence of effectiveness. He explains how he achieved this, building a start-up within a massive bureaucracy. I should note that Dean is one of the titans of development economics, leading some of the most important initiatives in the field (I won't list them, but see here for details), and I think there's a plausible case he deserves a Nobel.Throughout this conversation, Dean makes a point much better than I could: the status quo at USAID needed a lot of improvement. The same political mechanisms that get foreign aid funded by Congress also created major vulnerabilities for foreign aid, vulnerabilities that DOGE seized on. Dean believes foreign aid is hugely valuable, a good thing for us to spend our time, money, and resources on. But there's a lot USAID could do differently to make its marginal dollar spent more efficient.DOGE could have made USAID much more accountable and efficient by listening to people like Dean, and reformers of foreign aid should think carefully about Dean's criticisms of USAID, and his points for how to make foreign aid not just resilient but politically popular in the long term.We discuss* What does the Chief Economist do?* Why does 170% percent of USAID funds come already earmarked by Congress?* Why is evaluating program effectiveness institutionally difficult?* Why don't we just do cash transfers for everything?* Why institutions like USAID have trouble prioritizing* Should USAID get rid of gender/environment/fairness in procurement rules?* Did it rely too much on a small group of contractors?* What's changed in development economics over the last 20 years?* Should USAID spend more on governance and less on other forms of aid? * How DOGE killed USAID — and how to bring it back better* Is depoliticizing foreign aid even possible?* Did USAID build “soft power” for the United States?This is a long conversation: you can jump to a specific section with the index above. If you just want to hear about Dean's experience with DOGE, you can click here or go to the 45-minute mark in the audio. And if you want my abbreviated summary of the conversation, see these two Twitter threads. But I think the full conversation is enlightening, especially if you want to understand the American foreign aid system. Thanks to Harry Fletcher-Wood for his judicious edits.Our past coverage of USAIDDean, I'm curious about the limits of your authority. What can the Chief Economist of USAID do? What can they make people do?There had never been an Office of the Chief Economist before. In a sense, I was running a startup, within a 13,000-employee agency that had fairly baked-in, decentralized processes for doing things.Congress would say, "This is how much to spend on this sector and these countries." What you actually fund was decided by missions in the individual countries. It was exciting to have that purview across the world and across many areas, not just economic development, but also education, social protection, agriculture. But the reality is, we were running a consulting unit within USAID, trying to advise others on how to use evidence more effectively in order to maximize impact for every dollar spent.We were able to make some institutional changes, focused on basically a two-pronged strategy. One, what are the institutional enablers — the rules and the processes for how things get done — that are changeable? And two, let's get our hands dirty working with the budget holders who say, "I would love to use the evidence that's out there, please help guide us to be more effective with what we're doing."There were a lot of willing and eager people within USAID. We did not lack support to make that happen. We never would've achieved anything, had there not been an eager workforce who heard our mission and knocked on our door to say, "Please come help us do that."What do you mean when you say USAID has decentralized processes for doing things?Earmarks and directives come down from Congress. [Some are] about sector: $1 billion dollars to spend on primary school education to improve children's learning outcomes, for instance. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) [See our interview with former PEPFAR lead Mark Dybul] is one of the biggest earmarks to spend money specifically on specific diseases. Then there's directives that come down about how to allocate across countries.Those are two conversations I have very little engagement on, because some of that comes from Congress. It's a very complicated, intertwined set of constraints that are then adhered to and allocated to the different countries. Then what ends up happening is — this is the decentralized part — you might be a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) working in a country, your focus is education, and you're given a budget for that year from the earmark for education and told, "Go spend $80 million on a new award in education." You're working to figure out, “How should we spend that?” There might be some technical support from headquarters, but ultimately, you're responsible for making those decisions. Part of our role was to help guide those FSOs towards programs that had more evidence of effectiveness.Could you talk more about these earmarks? There's a popular perception that USAID decides what it wants to fund. But these big categories of humanitarian aid, or health, or governance, are all decided in Congress. Often it's specific congressmen or congresswomen who really want particular pet projects to be funded.That's right. And the number that I heard is that something in the ballpark of 150-170% of USAID funds were earmarked. That might sound horrible, but it's not.How is that possible?Congress double-dips, in a sense: we have two different demands. You must spend money on these two things. If the same dollar can satisfy both, that was completely legitimate. There was no hiding of that fact. It's all public record, and it all comes from congressional acts that create these earmarks. There's nothing hidden underneath the hood.Will you give me examples of double earmarking in practice? What kinds of goals could you satisfy with the same dollar?There's an earmark for Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) to do research, and an earmark for education. If DIV is going to fund an evaluation of something in the education space, there's a possibility that that can satisfy a dual earmark requirement. That's the kind of thing that would happen. One is an earmark for a process: “Do really careful, rigorous evaluations of interventions, so that we learn more about what works and what doesn't." And another is, "Here's money that has to be spent on education." That would be an example of a double dip on an earmark.And within those categories, the job of Chief Economist was to help USAID optimize the funding? If you're spending $2 billion on education, “Let's be as effective with that money as possible.”That's exactly right. We had two teams, Evidence Use and Evidence Generation. It was exactly what it sounds like. If there was an earmark for $1 billion dollars on education, the Evidence Use team worked to do systematic analysis: “What is the best evidence out there for what works for education for primary school learning outcomes?” Then, “How can we map that evidence to the kinds of things that USAID funds? What are the kinds of questions that need to be figured out?”It's not a cookie-cutter answer. A systematic review doesn't say, "Here's the intervention. Now just roll it out everywhere." We had to work with the missions — with people who know the local area — to understand, “What is the local context? How do you appropriately adapt this program in a procurement and contextualize it to that country, so that you can hire people to use that evidence?”Our Evidence Generation team was trying to identify knowledge gaps where the agency could lead in producing more knowledge about what works and what doesn't. If there was something innovative that USAID was funding, we were huge advocates of, "Great, let's contribute to the global public good of knowledge, so that we can learn more in the future about what to do, and so others can learn from us. So let's do good, careful evaluations."Being able to demonstrate what good came of an intervention also serves the purpose of accountability. But I've never been a fan of doing really rigorous evaluations just for the sake of accountability. It could discourage innovation and risk-taking, because if you fail, you'd be seen as a failure, rather than as a win for learning that an idea people thought was reasonable didn't turn out to work. It also probably leads to overspending on research, rather than doing programs. If you're doing something just for accountability purposes, you're better off with audits. "Did you actually deliver the program that you said you would deliver, or not?"Awards over $100 million dollars did go through the front office of USAID for approval. We added a process — it was actually a revamped old process — where they stopped off in my office. We were able to provide guidance on the cost-effectiveness of proposals that would then be factored into the decision on whether to proceed. When I was first trying to understand Project 2025, because we saw that as a blueprint for what changes to expect, one of the changes they proposed was actually that process. I remember thinking to myself, "We just did that. Hopefully this change that they had in mind when they wrote that was what we actually put in place." But I thought of it as a healthy process that had an impact, not just on that one award, but also in helping set an example for smaller awards of, “This is how to be more evidence-based in what you're doing.”[Further reading: Here's a position paper Karlan's office at USAID put out in 2024 on how USAID should evaluate cost-effectiveness.]You've also argued that USAID should take into account more research that has already been done on global development and humanitarian aid. Your ideal wouldn't be for USAID to do really rigorous research on every single thing it does. You can get a lot better just by incorporating things that other people have learned.That's absolutely right. I can say this as a researcher: to no one's surprise, it's more bureaucratic to work with the government as a research funder than it is to work with foundations and nimble NGOs. If I want to evaluate a particular program, and you give me a choice of who the funder should be, the only reason I would choose government is if it had a faster on-ramp to policy by being inside.The people who are setting policy should not be putting more weight on evidence that they paid for. In fact, one of the slogans that I often used at USAID is, "Evidence doesn't care who pays for it." We shouldn't be, as an agency, putting more weight on the things that we evaluated vs. things that others evaluated without us, and that we can learn from, mimic, replicate, and scale.We — and the we here is everyone, researchers and policymakers — put too much weight on individual studies, in a horrible way. The first to publish on something gets more accolades than the second, third and fourth. That's not healthy when it comes to policy. If we put too much weight on our own evidence, we end up putting too much weight on individual studies we happen to do. That's not healthy either.That was one of the big pieces of culture change that we tried to push internally at USAID. We had this one slide that we used repeatedly that showed the plethora of evidence out there in the world compared to 20 years ago. A lot more studies are now usable. You can aggregate that evidence and form much better policies.You had political support to innovate that not everybody going into government has. On the other hand, USAID is a big, bureaucratic entity. There are all kinds of cross-pressures against being super-effective per dollar spent. In doing culture change, what kinds of roadblocks did you run into internally?We had a lot of support and political cover, in the sense that the political appointees — I was not a political appointee — were huge fans. But political appointees under Republicans have also been huge fans of what we were doing. Disagreements are more about what to do and what causes to choose. But the basic idea of being effective with your dollars to push your policy agenda is something that cuts across both sides.In the days leading up to the inauguration, we were expecting to continue the work we were doing. Being more cost-effective was something some of the people who were coming in were huge advocates for. They did make progress under Trump I in pushing USAID in that direction. We saw ourselves as able to help further that goal. Obviously, that's not the way it played out, but there isn't really anything political about being more cost-effective.We'll come back to that, but I do want to talk about the 2.5 years you spent in the Biden administration. USAID is full of people with all kinds of incentives, including some folks who were fully on board and supportive. What kinds of challenges did you have in trying to change the culture to be more focused on evidence and effectiveness?There was a fairly large contingent of people who welcomed us, were eager, understood the space that we were coming from and the things that we wanted, and greeted us with open arms. There's no way we would've accomplished what we accomplished without that. We had a bean counter within the Office of the Chief Economist of moving about $1.7 billion towards programs that were more effective or had strong evaluations. That would've been $0 had there not been some individuals who were already eager and just didn't have the path for doing it.People can see economists as people who are going to come in negative and a bit dismal — the dismal science, so to speak. I got into economics for a positive reason. We tried as often as possible to show that with an economic lens, we can help people achieve their goals better, period. We would say repeatedly to people, "We're not here to actually make the difficult choices: to say whether health, education, or food security is the better use of money. We're here to accept your goal and help you achieve more of it for your dollar spent.” We always send a very disarming message: we're there simply to help people achieve their goals and to illuminate the trade-offs that naturally exist.Within USAID, you have a consensus-type organization. When you have 10 people sitting around a room trying to decide how to spend money towards a common goal, if you don't crystallize the trade-offs between the various ideas being put forward, you end up seeing a consensus built: that everybody gets a piece of the pie. Our way of trying to shift the culture is to take those moments and say, "Wait a second. All 10 might be good ideas relative to doing nothing, but they can't all be good relative to each other. We all share a common goal, so let's be clear about the trade-offs between these different programs. Let's identify the ones that are actually getting you the most bang for your buck."Can you give me an example of what those trade-offs might be in a given sector?Sure. Let's take social protection, what we would call the Humanitarian Nexus development space. It might be working in a refugee area — not dealing with the immediate crisis, but one, two, five, or ten years later — trying to help bring the refugees into a more stable environment and into economic activities. Sometimes, you would see some cash or food provided to households. The programs would all have the common goal of helping to build a sustainable livelihood for households, so that they can be more integrated into the local economy. There might be programs providing water, financial instruments like savings vehicles, and supporting vocational education. It'd be a myriad of things, all on this focused goal of income-generating activity for the households to make them more stable in the long run.Often, those kinds of programs doing 10 different things did not actually lead to an observable impact over five years. But a more focused approach has gone through evaluations: cash transfers. That's a good example where “reducing” doesn't always mean reduce your programs just to one thing, but there is this default option of starting with a base case: “What does a cash transfer generate?"And to clarify for people who don't follow development economics, the cash transfer is just, “What if we gave people money?”Sometimes it is just that. Sometimes it's thinking strategically, “Maybe we should do it as a lump sum so that it goes into investments. Maybe we should do it with a planning exercise to make those investments.” Let's just call it “cash-plus,” or “cash-with-a-little-plus,” then variations of that nature. There's a different model, maybe call it, “cash-plus-plus,” called the graduation model. That has gone through about 30 randomized trials, showing pretty striking impacts on long-run income-generating activity for households. At its core is a cash transfer, usually along with some training about income-generating activity — ideally one that is producing and exporting in some way, even a local export to the capital — and access to some form of savings. In some cases, that's an informal savings group, with a community that comes and saves together. In some cases, it's mobile money that's the core. It's a much simpler program, and it's easier to do it at scale. It has generated considerable, measured, repeatedly positive impacts, but not always. There's a lot more that needs to be learned about how to do it more effectively.[Further reading: Here's another position paper from Karlan's team at USAID on benchmarking against cash transfers.]One of your recurring refrains is, “If we're not sure that these other ideas have an impact, let's benchmark: would a cash-transfer model likely give us more bang for our buck than this panoply of other programs that we're trying to run?”The idea of having a benchmark is a great approach in general. You should always be able to beat X. X might be different in different contexts. In a lot of cases, cash is the right benchmark.Go back to education. What's your benchmark for improving learning outcomes for a primary school? Cash transfer is not the right benchmark. The evidence that cash transfers will single-handedly move the needle on learning outcomes is not that strong. On the other hand, a couple of different programs — one called Teaching at the Right Level, another called structured pedagogy — have proven repeatedly to generate very strong impacts at a fairly modest cost. In education, those should be the benchmark. If you want to innovate, great, innovate. But your goal is to beat those. If you can beat them consistently, you become the benchmark. That's a great process for the long run. It's very much part of our thinking about what the future of foreign aid should look like: to be structured around that benchmark.Let's go back to those roundtables you described, where you're trying to figure out what the intervention should be for a group of refugees in a foreign country. What were the responses when you'd say, “Look, if we're all pulling in the same direction, we have to toss out the three worst ideas”?One of the challenges is the psychology of ethics. There's probably a word for this, but one of the objections we would often get was about the scale of a program for an individual. Someone would argue, "But this won't work unless you do this one extra thing." That extra thing might be providing water to the household, along with a cash transfer for income-generating activity, financial support, and bank accounts. Another objection would be that, "You also have to provide consumption and food up to a certain level."These are things that individually might be good, relative to nothing, or maybe even relative to other water approaches or cash transfers. But if you're focused on whether to satisfy the household's food needs, or provide half of what's needed — if all you're thinking about is the trade-off between full and half — you immediately jump to this idea that, "No, we have to go full. That's what's needed to help this household." But if you go to half, you can help more people. There's an actual trade-off: 10,000 people will receive nothing because you're giving more to the people in your program.The same is true for nutritional supplements. Should you provide 2,000 calories a day, or 1,000 calories a day to more people? It's a very difficult conversation on the psychology of ethics. There's this idea that people in a program are sacrosanct, and you must do everything you can for them. But that ignores all the people who are not being reached at all.I would find myself in conversations where that's exactly the way I would try to put it. I would say, "Okay, wait, we have the 2,000,000 people that are eligible for this program in this context. Our program is only going to reach 250,000. That's the reality. Now, let's talk about how many people we're willing to leave untouched and unhelped whatsoever." That was, at least to me, the right way to frame this question. Do you go very intense for fewer people or broader support for more people?Did that help these roundtables reach consensus, or at least have a better sense of what things are trading off against each other?I definitely saw movement for some. I wouldn't say it was uniform, and these are difficult conversations. But there was a lot of appetite for this recognition that, as big as USAID was, it was still small, relative to the problems being approached. There were a lot of people in any given crisis who were being left unhelped. The minute you're able to help people focus more on those big numbers, as daunting as they are, I would see more openness to looking at the evidence to figure out how to do the most good with the resources we have?” We must recognize these inherent trade-offs, whether we like it or not.Back in 2023, you talked to Dylan Matthews at Vox — it's a great interview — about how it's hard to push people to measure cost-effectiveness, when it means adding another step to a big, complicated bureaucratic process of getting aid out the door. You said,"There are also bandwidth issues. There's a lot of competing demands. Some of these demands relate to important issues on gender environment, fairness in the procurement process. These add steps to the process that need to be adhered to. What you end up with is a lot of overworked people. And then you're saying, ‘Here's one more thing to do.'”Looking back, what do you think of those demands on, say, fairness in the procurement process?Given that we're going to be facing a new environment, there probably are some steps in the process that — hopefully, when things are put back in place in some form — someone can be thinking more carefully about. It's easier to put in a cleaner process that avoids some of these hiccups when you start with a blank slate.Having said that, it's also going to be fewer people to dole out less money. There's definitely a challenge that we're going to be facing as a country, to push out money in an effective way with many fewer people for oversight. I don't think it would be accurate to say we achieved this goal yet, but my goal was to make it so that adding cost-effectiveness was actually a negative-cost addition to the process. [We wanted] to do it in a way that successfully recognized that it wasn't a cookie-cutter solution from up top for every country. But [our goal was that] the work to contextualize in a country actually simplified the process for whoever's putting together the procurement docs and deciding what to put in them. I stand by that belief that if it's done well, we can make this a negative-cost process change.I just want to push a little bit. Would you be supportive of a USAID procurement and contracting process that stripped out a bunch of these requirements about gender, environment, or fairness in contracting? Would that make USAID a more effective institution?Some of those types of things did serve an important purpose for some areas and not others. The tricky thing is, how do you set up a process to decide when to do it, when not? There's definitely cases where you would see an environmental review of something that really had absolutely nothing to do with the environment. It was just a cog in the process, but you have to have a process for deciding the process. I don't know enough about the legislation that was put in place on each of these to say, “Was there a better way of deciding when to do them, when not to do them?” That is not something that I was involved in in a direct way. "Let's think about redoing how we introduce gender in our procurement process" was never put on the table.On gender, there's a fair amount of evidence in different contexts that says the way of dealing with a gender inequity is not to just take the same old program and say, "We're now going to do this for women." You need to understand something more about the local context. If all you do is take programs and say, "Add a gender component," you end up with a lot of false attribution, and you don't end up being effective at the very thing that the person [leading the program] cares to do.In that Vox interview, your host says, "USAID relies heavily on a small number of well-connected contractors to deliver most aid, while other groups are often deterred from even applying by the process's complexity." He goes on to say that the use of rigorous evaluation methods like randomized controlled trials is the exception, not the norm.On Statecraft, we talked to Kyle Newkirk, who ran USAID procurement in Afghanistan in the late 2000s, about the small set of well-connected contractors that took most of the contracts in Afghanistan. Often, there was very little oversight from USAID, either because it was hard to get out to those locations in a war-torn environment, or because the system of accountability wasn't built there. Did you talk to people about lessons learned from USAID operating in Afghanistan?No. I mean, only to the following extent: The lesson learned there, as I understand it, wasn't so much about the choice on what intervention to fund, it was procurement: the local politics and engagement with the governments or lack thereof. And dealing with the challenge of doing work in a context like that, where there's more risk of fraud and issues of that nature.Our emphasis was about the design of programs to say, “What are you actually going to try to fund?” Dealing with whether there's fraud in the execution would fall more under the Inspector General and other units. That's not an area that we engaged in when we would do evaluation.This actually gets to a key difference between impact evaluations and accountability. It's one of the areas where we see a lot of loosey-goosey language in the media reporting and Twitter. My office focused on impact evaluation. What changed in the world because of this intervention, that wouldn't otherwise have changed? By “change in the world,” we are making a causal statement. That's setting up things like randomized controlled trials to find out, “What was the impact of this program?” It does provide some accountability, but it really should be done to look forward, in order to know, “Does this help achieve the goals we have in mind?” If so, let's learn that, and replicate it, scale it, do it again.If you're going to deliver books to schools, medicine to health clinics, or cash to people, and you're concerned about fraud, then you need to audit that process and see, “Did the books get to the schools, the medicine to the people, the cash to the people?” You don't need to ask, "Did the medicine solve the disease?" There's been studies already. There's a reason that medicine was being prescribed. Once it's proven to be an effective drug, you don't run randomized trials for decades to learn what you already know. If it's the prescribed drug, you just prescribe the drug, and do accountability exercises to make sure that the drugs are getting into the right hands and there isn't theft or corruption along the way.I think it's a very intuitive thing. There's a confusion that often takes place in social science, in economic or education interventions. They somehow forget that once we know that a certain program generates a certain positive impact, we no longer need to track continuously to find out what happens. Instead, we just need to do accountability to make sure that the program is being delivered as it was designed, tested, and shown to work.There are all these criticisms — from the waste, fraud, and corruption perspective — of USAID working with a couple of big contractors. USAID works largely through these big development organizations like Chemonics. Would USAID dollars be more effective if it worked through a larger base of contractors?I don't think we know. There's probably a few different operating models that can deliver the same basic intervention. We need to focus on, ”What actually are we doing on the ground? What is it that we want the recipients of the program to receive, hear, or do?” and then think backwards from there: "Who's the right implementer for this?" If there's an implementer who is much more expensive for delivering the same product, let's find someone who's more cost-effective.It's helpful to break cost-effective programming into two things: the intervention itself and what benefits it accrues, and the cost for delivering that. Sometimes the improvement is not about the intervention, it's about the delivery model. Maybe that's what you're saying: “These players were too few, too large, and they had a grab on the market, so that they were able to charge too much money to deliver something that others were equally able to do at lower cost." If that's the case, that says, "We should reform our procurement process,” because the reason you would see that happen is they were really good at complying with requirements that came at USAID from Congress. You had an overworked workforce [within USAID] that had to comply with all these requirements. If you had a bid between two groups, one of which repeatedly delivered on the paperwork to get a good performance evaluation, and a new group that doesn't have that track record, who are you going to choose? That's how we ended up where we are.My understanding of the history is that it comes from a push from Republicans in the ‘80s, from [Senator] Jesse Helms, to outsource USAID efforts to contractors. So this is not a left-leaning thing. I wouldn't say it is right-leaning either. It was just a decision made decades ago. You combine that with the bureaucratic requirements of working with USAID, and you end up with a few firms and nonprofits skilled at dealing with it.It's definitely my impression that at various points in American history, different partisans are calling for insourcing or for outsourcing. But definitely, I think you're right that the NGO cluster around USAID does spring up out of a Republican push in the eighties.We talked to John Kamensky recently, who was on Al Gore's predecessor to DOGE in the ‘90s.I listened to this, yeah.I'm glad to hear it! I'm thinking of it because they also pushed to cut the workforce in the mid-90s and outsource federal functions.Earlier, you mentioned a slide that showed what we've learned in the field of development economics over the past 20 years. Will you narrate that slide for me?Let me do two slides for you. The slide that I was picturing was a count of randomized controlled trials in development that shows a fairly exponential growth. The movement started in the mid-to-late 1990s, but really took off in the 2000s. Even just in the past 10 years, it's seen a considerable increase. There's about 4-5,000 randomized controlled trials evaluating various programs of the kind USAID funds.That doesn't tell you the substance of what was learned. Here's an example of substance, which is cash transfers: probably the most studied intervention out there. We have a meta-analysis that counted 115 studies. That's where you start having a preponderance of evidence to be able to say something concrete. There's some variation: you get different results in different places; targeting and ways of doing it vary. A good systematic analysis can help tease out what we can say, not just about the effect of cash, but also how to do it and what to expect, depending on how it's done. Fifteen years ago, when we saw the first few come out, you just had, "Oh, that's interesting. But it's a couple of studies, how do you form policy around that?” With 115, we can say so much more.What else have we learned about development that USAID operators in the year 2000 would not have been able to act upon?Think about the development process in two steps. One is choosing good interventions; the other is implementing them well. The study of implementation is historically underdone. The challenge that we face — this is an area I was hoping USAID could make inroads on — was, studying a new intervention might be of high reward from an academic perspective. But it's a lot less interesting to an academic to do much more granular work to say, "That was an interesting program that created these groups [of aid recipients]; now let's do some further knock-on research to find out whether those groups should be made of four, six, or ten people.” It's going to have a lower reward for the researcher, but it's incredibly important.It's equivalent to the color of the envelope in direct marketing. You might run tests — if this were old-style direct marketing — as to whether the envelope should be blue or red. You might find that blue works better. Great, but that's not interesting to an academic. But if you run 50 of these, on a myriad of topics about how to implement better, you end up with a collection of knowledge that is moving the needle on how to achieve more impact per dollar.That collection is not just important for policy: it also helps us learn more about the development process and the bottlenecks for implementing good programs. As we're seeing more digital platforms and data being used, [refining implementation] is more possible compared to 20 years ago, where most of the research was at the intervention level: does this intervention work? That's an exciting transition. It's also a path to seeing how foreign aid can help in individual contexts, [as we] work with local governments to integrate evidence into their operations and be more efficient with their own resources.There's an argument I've seen a lot recently: we under-invest in governance relative to other foreign aid goals. If we care about economic growth and humanitarian outcomes, we should spend a lot more on supporting local governance. What do you make of that claim?I agree with it actually, but there's a big difference between recognizing the problem and seeing what the tool is to address it. It's one thing to say, “Politics matters, institutions matter.” There's lots of evidence to support that, including the recent Nobel Prize. It's another beast to say, “This particular intervention will improve institutions and governance.”The challenge is, “What do we do about this? What is working to improve this? What is resilient to the political process?” The minute you get into those kinds of questions, it's the other end of the spectrum from a cash transfer. A cash transfer has a kind of universality: Not to say you're going to get the same impact everywhere, but it's a bit easier to think about the design of a program. You have fewer parameters to decide. When you think about efforts to improve governance, you need bespoke thinking in every single place.As you point out, it's something of a meme to say “institutions matter” and to leave it at that, but the devil is in all of those details.In my younger years — I feel old saying that — I used to do a lot of work on financial inclusion, and financial literacy was always my go-to example. On a household level, it's really easy to show a correlation: people who are more financially literate make better financial decisions and have more wealth, etc. It's much harder to say, “How do you move the needle on financial literacy in a way that actually helps people make better decisions, absorb shocks better, build investment better, save better?” It's easy to show that the correlation is there. It's much harder to say this program, here, will actually move the needle. That same exact problem is much more complicated when thinking about governance and institutions.Let's talk about USAID as it stands today. You left USAID when it became clear to you that a lot of the work you were doing was not of interest to the people now running it. How did the agency end up so disconnected from a political base of support? There's still plenty of people who support USAID and would like it to be reinstated, but it was at least vulnerable enough to be tipped over by DOGE in a matter of weeks. How did that happen?I don't know that I would agree with the premise. I'm not sure that public support of foreign aid actually changed, I'd be curious to see that. I think aid has always been misunderstood. There are public opinion polls that show people thought 25% of the US budget was spent on foreign aid. One said, "What, do you think it should be?" People said 10%. The right answer is about 0.6%. You could say fine, people are bad at statistics, but those numbers are pretty dauntingly off. I don't know that that's changed. I heard numbers like that years ago.I think there was a vulnerability to an effort that doesn't create a visible impact to people's lives in America, the way that Social Security, Medicare, and roads do. Foreign aid just doesn't have that luxury. I think it's always been vulnerable. It has always had some bipartisan support, because of the understanding of the bigger picture and the soft power that's gained from it. And the recognition that we are a nation built on the idea of generosity and being good to others. That was always there, but it required Congress to step in and say, "Let's go spend this money on foreign aid." I don't think that changed. What changed was that you ended up with an administration that just did not share those values.There's this issue in foreign aid: Congress picks its priorities, but those priorities are not a ranked list of what Congress cares about. It's the combination of different interests and pressures in Congress that generates the list of things USAID is going to fund.You could say doing it that way is necessary to build buy-in from a bunch of different political interests for the work of foreign aid. On the other hand, maybe the emergent list from that process is not the things that are most important to fund. And clearly, that congressional buy-in wasn't enough to protect USAID from DOGE or from other political pressures.How should people who care about foreign aid reason about building a version of USAID that's more effective and less vulnerable at the same time?Fair question. Look, I have thoughts, but by no means do I think of myself as the most knowledgeable person to say, here's the answer in the way forward. One reality is, even if Congress did object, they didn't have a mechanism in place to actually object. They can control the power of the purse the next round, but we're probably going to be facing a constitutional crisis over the Impoundment Act, to see if the executive branch can impound money that Congress spent. We'll see how this plays out. Aside from taking that to court, all Congress could do was complain.I would like what comes back to have two things done that will help, but they don't make foreign aid immune. One is to be more evidence-based, because then attacks on being ineffective are less strong. But the reality is, some of the attacks on its “effectiveness,” and the examples used, had nothing to do with poorly-chosen interventions. There was a slipperiness of language, calling something that they don't like “fraud” and “waste” because they didn't like its purpose. That is very different than saying, “We actually agreed on the purpose of something, but then you implemented it in such a bad way that there was fraud and waste.” There were really no examples given of that second part. So I don't know that being more evidence-based will actually protect it, given that that wasn't the way it was really genuinely taken down.The second is some boundaries. There is a core set of activities that have bipartisan support. How do we structure a foreign aid that is just focused on that? We need to find a way to put the things that are more controversial — whether it's the left or right that wants it — in a separate bucket. Let the team that wins the election turn that off and on as they wish, without adulterating the core part that has bipartisan support. That's the key question: can we set up a process that partitions those, so that they don't have that vulnerability? [I wrote about this problem earlier this year.]My counter-example is PEPFAR, which had a broad base of bipartisan support. PEPFAR consistently got long-term reauthorizations from Congress, I think precisely because of the dynamic you're talking about: It was a focused, specific intervention that folks all over the political spectrum could get behind and save lives. But in government programs, if something has a big base of support, you have an incentive to stuff your pet partisan issues in there, for the same reason that “must-pass” bills get stuffed with everybody's little thing. [In 2024, before DOGE, PEPFAR's original Republican co-sponsor came out against a long-term reauthorization, on the grounds that the Biden administration was using the program to promote abortion. Congress reauthorized PEPFAR for only one year, and that reauthorization lapsed in 2025.]You want to carve out the things that are truly bipartisan. But does that idea have a timer attached? What if, on a long enough timeline, everything becomes politicized?There are economic theorems about the nature of a repeated game. You can get many different equilibria in the long run. I'd like to think there's a world in which that is the answer. But we have seen an erosion of other things, like the filibuster regarding judges. Each team makes a little move in some direction, and then you change the equilibrium. We always have that risk. The goal is, how can you establish something where that doesn't happen?It might be that what's happened is helpful, in an unintended way, to build equilibrium in the future that keeps things focused on the bipartisan aspect. Whether it's the left or the right that wants to do something that they know the other side will object to, they hold back and say, "Maybe we shouldn't do that. Because when we do, the whole thing gets blown up."Let's imagine you're back at USAID a couple of years from now, with a broader latitude to organize our foreign aid apparatus around impact and effectiveness. What other things might we want to do — beyond measuring programs and keeping trade-offs in mind — if we really wanted to focus on effectiveness? Would we do fewer interventions and do them at larger scale?I think we would do fewer things simpler and bigger, but I also think we need to recognize that even at our biggest, we were tiny compared to the budget of the local government. If we can do more to use our money to help them be more effective with their money, that's the biggest win to go for. That starts looking a lot like things Mark Green was putting in place [as administrator of USAID] under Trump I, under the Journey to Self-Reliance [a reorganization of USAID to help countries address development challenges themselves].Sometimes that's done in the context of, "Let's do that for five or ten years, and then we can stop giving aid to that country." That was the way the Millennium Challenge Corporation talked about their country selection initially. Eventually, they stopped doing that, because they realized that that was never happening. I think that's okay. As much as we might help make some changes, even if we succeed in helping the poorest country in the world use their resources better, they're still going to be poor. We're still going to be rich. There's still maybe going to be the poorest, because if we do that in the 10 poorest countries and they all move up, maybe the 11th becomes the poorest, and then we can work there. I don't think getting off of aid is necessarily the objective.But if that was clearly the right answer, that's a huge win if we've done that by helping to prove the institutions and governance of that country so that it is rolling out better policies, helping its people better, and collecting their own tax revenue. If we can have an eye on that, then that's a huge win for foreign aid in general.How are we supposed to be measuring the impact of soft power? I think that's a term that's not now much in vogue in DC.There's no one answer to how to measure soft power. It's described as the influence that we gain in the world in terms of geopolitics, everything from treaties and the United Nations to access to markets; trade policy, labor policy. The basic idea of soft power manifests itself in all those different ways.It's a more extreme version of the challenge of measuring the impact of cash transfers. You want to measure the impact of a pill that is intended to deal with disease: you measure the disease, and you have a direct measure. You want to measure the impact of cash: you have to measure a lot of different things, because you don't know how people are going to use the cash. Soft power is even further down the spectrum: you don't know exactly how aid is helping build our partnership with a country's people and leaders. How is that going to manifest itself in the future? That becomes that much harder to do.Having said that, there's academic studies that document everything from attitudes about America to votes at the United Nations that follow aid, and things of that nature. But it's not like there's one core set: that's part of what makes it a challenge.I will put my cards on the table here: I have been skeptical of the idea that USAID is a really valuable tool for American soft power, for maintaining American hegemony, etc. It seems much easier to defend USAID by simply saying that it does excellent humanitarian work, and that's valuable. The national security argument for USAID seems harder to substantiate.I think we agree on this. You have such a wide set of things to look at, it's not hard to imagine a bias from a researcher might lead to selection of outcomes, and of the context. It's not a well-defined enough concept to be able to say, "It worked 20% of the time, and it did not in these, and the net average…" Average over what? Even though there's good case studies that show various paths where it has mattered, there's case studies that show it doesn't.I also get nervous about an entire system that's built around [attempts to measure soft power]. It turns foreign aid into too much of a transactional process, instead of a relationship that is built on the Golden Rule, “There's people in this country that we can actually help.” Sure, there's this hope that it'll help further our national interests. But if they're suffering from drought and famine, and we can provide support and save some lives, or we can do longer term developments and save tomorrow's lives, we ought to do that. That is a good thing for our country to do.Yet the conversation does often come back to this question of soft power. The problem with transactional is you get exactly what you contract on: nothing more, nothing less. There's too many unknowns here, when we're dealing with country-level interactions, and engagements between countries. It needs to be about relationships, and that means supporting even if there isn't a contract that itemizes the exact quid pro quo we are getting for something.I want to talk about what you observed in the administration change and the DOGE-ing of USAID. I think plenty of observers looked at this in the beginning and thought, “It's high time that a lot of these institutions were cleaned up and that someone took a hard look at how we spend money there.”There was not really any looking at any of the impact of anything. That was never in the cards. There was a 90-day review that was supposed to be done, but there were no questions asked, there was no data being collected. There was nothing whatsoever being looked at that had anything to do with, “Was this award actually accomplishing what it set out to accomplish?” There was no process in which they made those kinds of evaluations on what's actually working.You can see this very clearly when you think about what their bean counter was at DOGE: the spending that they cut. It's like me saying, "I'm going to do something beneficial for my household by stopping all expenditures on food." But we were getting something for that. Maybe we could have bought more cheaply, switched grocery stores, made a change there that got us the same food for less money. That would be a positive change. But you can't cut all your food expenditures, call that a saving, and then not have anything to eat. That's just bad math, bad economics.But that's exactly what they were doing. Throughout the entire government, that bean counter never once said, “benefits foregone.” It was always just “lowered spending.” Some of that probably did actually have a net loss, maybe it was $100 million spent on something that only created $10 million of benefits to Americans. That's a $90 million gain. But it was recorded as $100 million. And the point is, they never once looked at what benefits were being generated from the spending. What was being asked, within USAID, had nothing to do with what was actually being accomplished by any of the money that was being spent. It was never even asked.How do you think about risky bets in a place like USAID? It would be nice for USAID to take lots of high-risk, high-reward bets, and to be willing to spend money that will be “wasted” in the pursuit of high-impact interventions. But that approach is hard for government programs, politically, because the misses are much more salient than the successes.This is a very real issue. I saw this the very first time I did any sort of briefing with Congress when I was Chief Economist. The question came at me, "Why doesn't USAID show us more failures?" I remember thinking to myself, "Are you willing to promise that when they show the failure, you won't punish them for the failure — that you'll reward them for documenting and learning from the failure and not doing it again?" That's a very difficult nut to crack.There's an important distinction to make. You can have a portfolio of evidence generation, some things work and some don't, that can collectively contribute towards knowledge and scaling of effective programs. USAID actually had something like this called Development Innovation Ventures (DIV), and was in an earmark from Congress. It was so good that they raised money from the effective altruist community to further augment their pot of money. This was strong because a lot of it was not evaluating USAID interventions. It was just funding a portfolio of evidence generation about what works, implemented by other parties. The failures aren't as devastating, because you're showing a failure of some other party: it wasn't USAID money paying for an intervention. That was a strong model for how USAID can take on some risks and do some evidence generation that is immune to the issue you just described.If you're going to do evaluations of USAID money, the issue is very real. My overly simplistic view is that a lot of what USAID does should not be getting a highly rigorous impact evaluation. USAID should be rolling out, simple and at scale, things that have already been shown elsewhere. Let the innovation take place pre-USAID, funded elsewhere, maybe by DIV. Let smaller and more nimble nonprofits be the innovators and the documenters of what works. Then, USAID can adopt the things that are more effective and be more immune to this issue.So yeah, there is a world that is not first-best where USAID does the things that have strong evidence already. When it comes to actual innovation, where we do need to take risks that things won't work, let that be done in a way that may be supported by USAID, but partitioned away.I'm looking at a chart of USAID program funding in Fiscal Year 2022: the three big buckets are humanitarian, health, and governance, all on the order of $10–12 billion. Way down at the bottom, there's $500 million for “economic growth.” What's in that bucket that USAID funds, and should that piece of the pie chart be larger?I do think that should be larger, but it depends on how you define it. I don't say that just because I'm an economist. It goes back to the comment earlier about things that we can do to help improve local governance, and how they're using their resources. The kinds of things that might be funded would be efforts to work with local government to improve their ability to collect taxes. Or to set up efficient regulations for the banking industry, so it can grow and provide access to credit and savings. These are things that can help move the needle on macroeconomic outcomes. With that, you have more resources. That helps health and education, you have these downstream impacts. As you pointed out, the earmark on that was tiny. It did not have quite the same heartstring tug. But the logical link is huge and strong: if you strengthen the local government's financial stability, the benefits very much accrue to the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Social Protection, etc.Fighting your way out of poverty through growth is unambiguously good. You can look at many countries around the world that have grown economically, and through that, reduced poverty. But it's one thing to say that growth will alleviate poverty. It's another to say, "Here's aid money that will trigger growth." If we knew how to do that, we would've done it long ago, in a snap.Last question. Let's say it's a clean slate at USAID in a couple years, and you have wide latitude to do things your way. I want the Dean Karlan vision for the future of USAID.It needs to have, at the high level, a recognition that the Golden Rule is an important principle that guides our thinking on foreign aid and that we want to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Being generous as a people is something that we pride ourselves in, our nation represents us as people, so we shouldn't be in any way shy to use foreign aid to further that aspiration of being a generous nation.The actual way of delivering aid, I would say, three things. Simpler. Let's focus on the evidence of what works, but recognize the boundaries of that evidence and how to contextualize it. There is a strong need to understand what it means to be simpler, and how to identify what that means in specific countries and contexts.The second is about leveraging local government, and working more to recognize that, as big as we may be, we're still going to be tiny relative to local government. If we can do more to improve how local government is using its resources, we've won.The third is about finding common ground. There's a lot. That's one of the reasons why I've started working on a consortium with Republicans and Democrats. The things I care about are generally non-partisan. The goal is to take the aspirations that foreign aid has — about improving health, education, economic outcomes, food security, agricultural productivity, jobs, trade, whatever the case is — and how do we use the evidence that's out there to move the needle as much as we can towards those goals? A lot of topics have common ground. How do we set up a foreign aid system that stays true to the common ground? I'd like to think it's not that hard. That's what I think would be great to see happen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub

Go listen to Michael's album, Briefly Alive. here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6CNUPGwU0xVC3azQrMo80r?si=qjYP_UZjTOKOgtDEPU028A Nucleate Dojo: https://dojo.nucleate.xyz/ Michael on Twitter: https://x.com/michaeltrinh18?s=21 Timestamps: (3:39) – Genetic engineering as a film genre (5:59) – He Jiankui and gene editing (19:19) – Michael's origin story (35:09) – The Canadian dream (42:39) – 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics (47:49) – If you could do a PhD on anything, what would it be (50:49) – Your body stores memories (52:11) – Gut microbiome (56:56) – Reductionism in scientific research (1:00:28) – Nobel laureates and creative hobbies (1:04:24) – Michael and music

Burnie and Ashley discussing safe evacuation practices, UK's Online Safety Act, VPN's banning media, the Brocha, the Nappuccino, and Ashley's bid for a Nobel Prize. Support our podcast at: https://www.patreon.com/morningsomewhereFor the link dump visit: http://www.morningsomewhere.comFor merch, check out: http://store.morningsomewhere.com

A troubling statement makes us want to think of exceptions to it that would prove that statement to be wrong.“Outliers are interesting, but they rarely matter,” is a troubling statement, and you may already be thinking of exceptions to it. But it remains true nonetheless.This second statement is also true. “If there were no outliers, there would be no new inventions, no innovations, no progress. We would be trapped forever in the status quo.”These seemingly contradictory statements can both be true because there are two kinds of outliers.Leonardo da Vinci made marvelous art and filled fabulous sketchbooks with his insightful ideas, but he didn't really change anything. He was just an interesting outlier whose mind was ahead of his time.Rare is the outlier who throws a pebble into the ocean of time and shifts the world off its axis. Electricity is harnessed. Computers are invented. Someone connects them and now everyone knows everything all the time.“What distinguishes the past from the present is not biology, nor psychology, but rather technology. If the world has changed, it is because we have changed the world.”– Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson in their new book, AbundanceTechnology changes the world, but persuasion changes hearts and minds.I am an ad writer.When I was in my 20s, I was told,“People never change their mind. If you give a person the same information they were given in the past, they will make the same decision they made in the past. When a person appears to have ‘changed their mind,' what they have really done is made a new decision based on new information.*”Ten years later I realized that those people were trying to use logic to create “persuasion technology.” Their mistake was assuming that people make their decisions logically. But people do not trust new information when it disagrees with their belief system.New information may allow you to win the argument, but it rarely wins the heart.And a person convinced against their will, remains unconvinced, still.Wash away the opinions, bravado, and fluff, and you will find that most people are NOT seeking new information. They are seeking identity reinforcement.Bertrand Russell was a mathematician and a logician. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature eight years before I was born.He said,“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence.”When your goal is persuasion, don't begin with new information. Begin by agreeing with what they already believe. Meet them where they are. Only then can you hope to lead them to where you want them to go.Abraham Lincoln knew that persuasion is easier when you begin at a point of mutual agreement.“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the greatest high-road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the...

✦ 61 years ago, racial minorities had no legally protected right to vote. A new documentary film “Harmony of Freedom” reminds us of this unsettling fact while celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, through the power of music. WABE has partnered with Georgia State student conductor and filmmaker Jackson Allred to air “Harmony of Freedom” on August 4th. The film showcases orchestras from all over the state of Georgia performing composer Margaret Bonds’ “Montgomery Variations.” City Lights Collective co-host Kim Drobes recently sat down with Jackson Allred to learn more. ✦ Atlanta Pride, Georgia's oldest nonprofit organization serving our city’s local LGBTQ+ community, turns 55 this year. To celebrate, they’ve partnered with Out on Film and are showcasing queer resistance in the South - through a film screening and community summit. WABE arts reporter Summer Evans shares more. ✦ For nearly three decades, Dad's Garage has been become synonymous with improv comedy in Atlanta. And as their fans have put down roots and grown families here in Atlanta, so to has Dad's expanded their offerings to appeal to the next generation of comedy lovers. Performing Saturday matinee shows, Wowie Zowie is a playful and engaging experience for audiences of all ages. Kids get to let loose and see their creative ideas come to life on stage, while parents can enjoy an afternoon out of the house without suffering the oppressive summer heat. City Lights Engineer Matt McWilliams recently caught up with Dad's Garage ensemble player Avery Sharpe-Steele after a sold-out Wowie Zowie show. ✦ . You may be familiar with Toni Morrison, the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author of novels “Beloved,” “The Bluest Eye,” and more. But did you know that Morrison was also one of the first Black editors for a major publishing company? A new book, “Toni at Random,” examines Morrison’s years as an editor at Random House and the book’s author, Dana Williams, will celebrate her new release tomorrow, with a discussion at Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue Research Library. City Lights Collective member Alison Law recently caught up with Willams to talk about “Toni at Random” ahead of tomorrow’s event. ✦ City Lights Collective members Jasmine Hentschel and EC Flamming, the creatives behind Atlanta’s visual art print magazine, “GULCH”, want you to get out and engage with the city’s art scene. Each week they spotlight five standout happenings, and today their mix includes: prints galore at the Black Art in America Print Fair, love and care in a group show at the historical Haugabrooks Gallery on Auburn Avenue, and thoughtful textile explorations at Gallery Chimera.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tue (Matt) Le-Quang is a Data Reporter at VnExpress.net. He spent time with us today analysing and mapping the upgrade of Vietnam's administrative boundaries. Quoting from his publication VnExpress (Google Translate): "After the reorganization of 34 provinces and cities, the number of commune-level administrative units in Vietnam decreased by 67%, from 10,035 to 3,321 units. Of which, Hanoi merged the most units with a reduction rate of more than 77%."Tue has made a web app about this here. There has been a bit of debate over it the past half decade, such as this 2020 piece from VnExpress. Most recent English coverage I can find is this. The country used to have 63 provinces, now there will be 28 with 6 extra cities as their own areas, for a total of 34. A pertinent quote from that article speaks of large savings for the taxpayer: "This restructuring is projected to reduce the workforce by approximately 250,000 people, including 130,000 officials, civil servants, and public employees, as well as 120,000 part-time workers at the commune level. The reform is expected to save more than VND190 trillion (US$7.3 billion) in the 2026–2030 period."This brings up the work of Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor.Work for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics along with Simon Johnson. These books are riveting. They describe, as the title of the first says, how destruction of, or failure to maintain, institutions causes a nation to fail. The second book, The Narrow Corridor, is intended - in Daron's words from the second video above - "…to provide a framework that is applicable across ages and across countries for thinking about what supports prosperity, what supports democracy and what supports liberty. The key idea ... is what supports robust participation from the people and we need the state to play a pro liberty, pro prosperity role. In particular to create inclusive markets which have the right legal system, provide equality of opportunity, the right regulations against the powerful actors."It is so inspiring to see their work quoted by a citizen of, and reporter from, Vietnam in the midst of state action to navigate the country into The Narrow Corridor. Thank you to Tue for giving us the privilege of this report and for all the diligence providing insight to the readers of VnExpress through geospatial apps. Clearly he is a talent, and a credit to the education system of Vietnam.

I had the honor of sitting down with Professor Donna Strickland, Nobel Prize-winning physicist the third woman in history to receive the prestigious award in physics. In our conversation, we discuss her groundbreaking work in laser physics and the journey that led her there. From her early academic interests to the moment she received the life-changing call from the Royal Swedish Academy at 5AM (?!), Donna shares insights into her discovery of chirped pulse amplification (CPA), a revolutionary technique that changed the field of high-intensity lasers. We discuss the science behind CPA and the moment she accidentally broke the fibre optic cable required for her PhD research. Donna reflects on the role of perseverance, collaboration, and the underestimated metric of "luck” in scientific discovery.

 In this compelling episode, we sit down with literary scholar and author Dana A. Williams to explore her new book, Toni at Random. Best known as a Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Toni Morrison also spent over a decade as a formidable editor at Random House—amplifying Black voices, shaping cultural memory, and changing the face of American publishing. Williams reveals how Morrison championed iconic figures like Angela Davis, Muhammad Ali, and Toni Cade Bambara, and how her behind-the-scenes work helped lay the foundation for a more inclusive literary canon.  Tweet us at @podcastcolors. Check out our partner program on international affairs, Global with JJ Green on Substack. Please subscribe. Email us at colors@the colorspodcast.com.

The rapidly evolving field of protein design is revealing solutions to some of the world's greatest problems, whether it's blocking a virus, breaking down a pollutant or creating brand-new materials. In conversation with TED's Whitney Pennington Rodgers, biochemist David Baker explores his team's Nobel Prize-winning work using AI to design new proteins with functions never before seen in nature — achieving breakthroughs that have fundamentally changed the future of science. (This conversation was part of an exclusive TED Membership event. TED Membership is the best way to support and engage with the big ideas you love from TED. To learn more, visit ted.com/membership.)For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-vienna Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matters Microbial #101: Electrifying News about Cable Bacteria July 25, 2025 Today, Dr. Nicole Geerlings from the University of Vienna in Austria joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss some of the wonderful work she and colleagues have carried out studying the wild, weird, and wonderful world of cable bacteria, which can conduct electricity over microbially enormous distances!  Definitely time for #OMG and #WTM! Host: Mark O. Martin Guest: Nicole Geerlings Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify Become a patron of Matters Microbial! Links for this episode This just became available:  a wonderful short introduction to day's topic, the cable bacteria, from Asimov Press.  It is an absolute must read for everyone interested. Here is a link to the Summer Science Program, a wonderful outreach program for high school juniors. An essay about Nobel Prize winning Albert Szent-Györgyi, who stated that life was a matter of electrons finding a place to rest.  Here is a short video introduction to his work. A video introduction to microbial metabolism. A video introduction to electron transport.  Remember that bacteria and archaea are VERY skilled at using different electron donors and acceptors than eukaryotic life. The really fun concept of the “Jagendorf Jump,” showing electron transport vs. pH in chloroplasts. An overview of the microbial fuel cell concept.  Here is a nice overview I highly recommend. A commercial source for you to build your own microbial fuel cell. A DIY approach to building a MFC.  An ESSENTIAL overview to the idea of electrons in microbial sediments. A review article about cable bacteria.  Here is another fine review. This is a third great introduction to cable bacteria. And here is a video overview.   An article by Dr. Geerlings and colleagues describing cable bacteria for new #Micronauts.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. An review of stable isotope probing in microbiology. Here is a video seminar using SIP in microbiology. An overview of Nano-SIMS and how it is used in microbiology.  Here is another review.   A deeply wonderful article by Dr. Geerlings and colleagues suggesting that inactive cells with the “microbial cable” are still conducting electrons! Dr. Geerlings postdoctoral scholar website. Links and References on Cable Bacteria from Dr. Geerlings: 1. Here is a website from the group of Prof. Dr. Filip Meysman from the University of Antwerp, which includes a great video on the electron conductivity of cable bacteria. 2. The first paper describing redox half-reactions separated by long-distance electron transport. Nielsen, L. P., Risgaard-Petersen, N., Fossing, H., Christensen, P. B., and Sayama, M. (2010). Electric currents couple spatially separated biogeochemical processes in marine sediment. Nature 463, 1071–1074. doi: 10.1038/nature08790 3. The paper describing the discovery of cable bacteria. Look into the supplemental material for the excellent experimental set-up to prove that the cable bacteria are the ones doing the long-distance electron transport. Pfeffer, C., Larsen, S., Song, J., Dong, M., Besenbacher, F., Meyer, R. L., et al. (2012). Filamentous bacteria transport electrons over centimetre distances. Nature 491, 218–221. Doi: 10.1038/nature11586 4. A paper that dives into the conductivity of the cable bacteria network and shows that these fibres can conduct electrons just as well as a copper wire. Meysman, F. J. R., Cornelissen, R., Trashin, S., Bonné, R., Martinez, S. H., van der Veen, J., et al. 2019. A highly conductive fibre network enables centimetre-scale electron transport in multicellular cable bacteria. Nat. Commun. 10:1–8. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12115-7 5. This paper describes how cable bacteria activity generates a layer of iron oxyhydroxides on the top of the sediment layer and how this delays the release of sulfide into the water column for several weeks in a seasonally hypoxic basin in the Netherlands. Seitaj, D., R. Schauer, F. Sulu-Gambari, et al. 2015. “Cable Bacteria Generate a Firewall Against Euxinia in Seasonally Hypoxic Basins.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112: 13278–13283. 6. This paper describes how the catabolic division of labor is coupled to an anabolic division of labor where cells reducing oxygen cannot grow and therefore provide a “community service” for the rest of the filament. Nicole M. J. Geerlings, Cheryl Karman, Stanislav Trashin, Karel S. As, Michiel V. M. Kienhuis, Silvia Hidalgo-Martinez, Diana Vasquez-Cardenas, Henricus T.S. Boschker, Karolien de Wael, Jack J. Middelburg, Lubos Polerecky, and Filip J.R. Meysman. Division of labor and growth during electrical cooperation in multicellular cable bacteria. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117, 5478–5485. Doi: 10.1073/pnas.1916244117   Intro music is by Reber Clark Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com

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Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor-director-producer Ellen Geer who is the Producing Artistic Director of one of Dennis's favorite spots in Los Angeles, The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topange Canyon. Dennis has been going to see plays at the outdoor amphitheater since the early 90's and has seen Ellen perform in scores of shows there as well as seeing just as many that she directed and produced. This season, she co-directed the play Strife by Nobel Prize-winning writer John Galsworthy. The show, about a labor strike in rural Pennsylvania, was written in the early 1900's but feels like it could have been written in 2025. The wealthy board of directors feel like the today's financially insatiable oligarchs and the workers are dealing with the same type of injustices that workers face today. Ellen talks about why she chose Strife for this "Season of Resilience," her own history as an activist and the pleasure of co-directing with her daughter Willow Geer. She also discusses the rich history of her family and the property, which was acquired by her parents in the 1950's when her father, the actor Will Geer, was blacklisted during the McCarthy Era and the entire family was ostracized from Hollywood and their Santa Monica community. In the 1950's-60's, the Botanicum property became a safe place for blacklisted artists to seek refuge and practice their craft. In the 1970's, after Will Geer found fame as Grandpa Walton on The Waltons, the place officially opened to the public as The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. Ellen talks about her favorite spot on the property, her encounters with animals like bears, deer, mountain lions and rattlesnakes and the challenges of doing theater in such a unique outdoor place. Other topics include: why her father loved plants, losing all her friends as a child because of the blacklist, Jimmy Stewart being sweet to her on The Jimmy Stewart Show, how the current resistance movement could use some good folk songs, and that time her father taught her that reading Shakespeare could be just as enlightening as going to therapy. www.theatricum.com

In this conversation, Chris Burres discusses the unique benefits of ESS 60, a Nobel Prize-winning molecule known for its potential in extending life and improving health. He explains the science behind its effectiveness, particularly in relation to oxidative stress and mitochondrial health. The discussion also covers practical advice on dosing, timing, and the benefits of different oil carriers for ESS 60. Chris shares anecdotal evidence regarding its effects on sleep, dreams, and overall wellness, while also addressing the importance of being proactive about health and longevity. The conversation concludes with insights into the future of longevity research and common myths surrounding it.Chapters00:00 Introduction to ESS 60 and Longevity02:31 Understanding the Unique Benefits of ESS 6006:42 Comparing Olive Oil and MCT Oil for Health Benefits11:27 Dosing Strategies and Saturation Points16:11 Timing and Circadian Rhythms in Supplementation26:20 Anecdotal Evidence and Cancer Research30:45 Exploring Longevity Practices and Habits31:37 Relaunching the Longevity Summit32:37 The Journey of Interviewing Experts34:27 The Search for Longevity Solutions35:24 Understanding Stem Cells and Longevity39:31 The Future of Longevity Research40:48 Expert Insights on Lifespan46:04 Debunking Longevity Myths51:14 Taking Charge of Your Health

Demis Hassabis is the CEO of Google DeepMind and Nobel Prize winner for his groundbreaking work in protein structure prediction using AI. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep475-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/demis-hassabis-2-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: Demis's X: https://x.com/demishassabis DeepMind's X: https://x.com/GoogleDeepMind DeepMind's Instagram: https://instagram.com/GoogleDeepMind DeepMind's Website: https://deepmind.google/ Gemini's Website: https://gemini.google.com/ Isomorphic Labs: https://isomorphiclabs.com/ The MANIAC (book): https://amzn.to/4lOXJ81 Life Ascending (book): https://amzn.to/3AhUP7z SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Hampton: Community for high-growth founders and CEOs. Go to https://joinhampton.com/lex Fin: AI agent for customer service. Go to https://fin.ai/lex Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drink. Go to https://drinkag1.com/lex OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (00:29) - Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections (08:40) - Learnable patterns in nature (12:22) - Computation and P vs NP (21:00) - Veo 3 and understanding reality (25:24) - Video games (37:26) - AlphaEvolve (43:27) - AI research (47:51) - Simulating a biological organism (52:34) - Origin of life (58:49) - Path to AGI (1:09:35) - Scaling laws (1:12:51) - Compute (1:15:38) - Future of energy (1:19:34) - Human nature (1:24:28) - Google and the race to AGI (1:42:27) - Competition and AI talent (1:49:01) - Future of programming (1:55:27) - John von Neumann (2:04:41) - p(doom) (2:09:24) - Humanity (2:12:30) - Consciousness and quantum computation (2:18:40) - David Foster Wallace (2:25:54) - Education and research PODCAST LINKS: - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips

Are you looking to save time, make money, and start winning with less risk? Then head to https://www.ovtlyr.com.Think you've cracked the code to trading? Think again. This video dives deep into the dangerous illusion of the “perfect” system—and why chasing 100% win rates is a trap that can cost you everything. If you're tired of hype and ready to develop real skill, discipline, and data-backed strategies, this one's for you.Inside this powerful lesson from OVTLYR University, we break down what actually works in trading. You'll learn why perfection isn't the goal—and why the smartest traders focus on expectancy, risk management, and consistent execution. Forget about “buying the dip” or chasing every hot ticker. This is about building a process that thrives even when the market throws curveballs.We'll cover real insights from pro traders who've worked with Navy SEALs and Olympic athletes. You'll hear how the same precision used by elite shooters applies directly to trading—where the outcome is unpredictable, but the process can be perfected. This mindset shift alone could be the most valuable thing you take away today.We also pull back the curtain on some serious research. Over 80 trades have been analyzed, and we reveal how incorporating a previously overlooked dataset into OVTLYR has 2.5x'ed our expectancy. It's not about finding magic indicators—it's about testing, refining, and expanding your statistical edge. You'll see how market breadth indicators and sector trend data, when used properly, can tilt the odds in your favor… but never guarantee a win.There's a reason top traders survive and thrive: they bake losses into their plan. In this session, we emphasize how to survive drawdowns, emotionally and financially. You'll learn how overconfidence leads to blown accounts—even for Nobel Prize winners. And you'll see how to use Monte Carlo simulations, outcome math, and simple coin-flip analogies to understand probability and outcome distribution like a true pro.This isn't some motivational fluff. It's practical, real-world trading psychology mixed with analytical firepower. Whether you're sitting on a losing streak or thinking you've found the holy grail, this video brings you back to center. You'll see why “cash is a trade,” how to recalibrate when things go sideways, and how rehearsing your execution—like elite athletes do—can eliminate panic and FOMO.For traders who want to win sustainably and not just chase dopamine hits, this is your blueprint.

Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for proving we're not as rational as we think. In this timeless conversation we discuss how to think clearly in a world full of noise, the invisible forces that cloud our judgement, and why more information doesn't equal better thinking. Kahneman also reveals the mental model he discovered at 22 that still guides elite teams today.  Approximate timestamps:  (00:36) – Episode Introduction   (05:37) – Daniel Kahneman on Childhood and Early Psychology   (12:44) – Influences and Career Path   (15:32) – Working with Amos Tversky   (17:20) – Happiness vs. Life Satisfaction   (21:04) – Changing Behavior: Myths and Realities   (24:38) – Psychological Forces Behind Behavior   (28:02) – Understanding Motivation and Situational Forces   (30:45) – Situational Awareness and Clear Thinking   (34:11) – Intuition, Judgment, and Algorithms   (39:33) – Improving Decision-Making with Structured Processes   (43:26) – Organizational Thinking and Dissent   (46:00) – Judgment Quality and Biases   (50:12) – Teaching Negotiation Through Understanding   (52:14) – Procedures That Elevate Group Thinking   (55:30) – Recording and Reviewing Decisions   (57:58) – The Concept of Noise in Decision-Making   (01:01:14) – Reducing Noise and Improving Accuracy   (01:04:09) – Replication Crisis and Changing Beliefs   (01:08:21) – Why Psychologists Overestimate Their Hypotheses   (01:12:20) – Closing Thoughts and Gratitude Thanks to MINT MOBILE for sponsoring this episode: Get this new customer offer and your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at MINTMOBILE.com/KNOWLEDGEPROJECT. Newsletter - The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it's completely free. Learn more and sign up at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠fs.blog/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of the episode, join our membership: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠fs.blog/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get your own private feed. Watch on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@tkppodcast Photograph: Richard Saker/The Guardian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if one molecule could help you live longer, think clearer, and recover faster — and it's backed by a Nobel Prize?   In this episode of the Thrive State Podcast, Dr. Kien Vuu (Doctor V) sits down with Chris Burres, research scientist and founder of MyVitalC, to unpack the science behind Carbon 60 (C60) — a molecule so powerful it increased the lifespan of test rats by 90% in a peer-reviewed study.   Chris breaks down the connection between oxidative stress, aging, and how ESS60 (a purified version of C60) could be the key to unlocking greater human performance, mental clarity, and cellular longevity.  

Please enjoy this re-release of a past episode of For the Ages. New episodes will return Fall 2025. Bestselling author Walter Isaacson, in conversation with David M. Rubenstein, discusses the life and work of the Nobel Prize-winning Jennifer Doudna who, with her collaborators, created a DNA-editing tool with the power to revolutionize human health. Recorded on  February 19, 2021 

Nobel Prize-winning Italian author Grazia Deledda's "The Open Door"

* Even Moore: Peter W. Moore ThD is a Christian master metallurgist listed as "inventor" in patents held by U.S. Steel. Pete began speaking to Churches on Science and Evolution in 1970. His more recent work has been to help fund organizations that do scientific creation research and those who present that evidence to the public. * Aether or: ...relative nonsense. Hear a brief history, and then, not only criticisms of, but an alternate theory to Einstein's rather ridiculous postulates regarding time and space. Hear how Einstein not only dethroned Newtonian physics, but how his relativistic thinking has infected the minds of otherwise relatively smart creationists! * E-PLat - (The Simhony/EPOLA): RSR is suggesting a name for the E-PLat!! Hear how Menahem Simhony is the father of a scientifically satisfactory description of what "space" is likely made of. Originally called the EPOLA, for the "Electron/Positron Lattice," we're suggesting E-PLat to avoid confusion with a certain virus! You'll have to listen to all 4 parts of the interview to form your opinion on whether or not the EPOLA/E-PLat makes more sense to you than Einstein's "purely mathematical" description of a relativistic universe. * Deriving $10,000.00: ... and quite possibly a Nobel Prize! RSR and Dr. Moore are offering a prize of $10,000.00 to the first person to submit an acceptable technical derivation of the Gravitational Constant "G" based on the Natural Physics and Structure of the Simhony/EPOLA Model of the Space Vacuum. (Pre-register this prize right here)

If you care about longevity, brain optimization, sexual performance, or metabolism, this molecule changes everything. Host Dave Asprey sits down with nitric oxide pioneer Dr. Nathan Bryan to reveal why this overlooked molecule controls your blood flow, mitochondrial energy, neuroplasticity, insulin response, and even your libido. You'll learn how nitric oxide acts as a master switch for human performance and why the medical system has ignored it for decades. Watch this episode on YouTube for the full video experience: https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAspreyBPR Dr. Nathan Bryan is a world-renowned expert in nitric oxide biochemistry with over 20 years of clinical research, multiple patents, and collaborations with Nobel Prize-winning scientists. His groundbreaking work forms the foundation for modern functional medicine protocols targeting blood flow, metabolism, cognitive enhancement, and mitochondrial upgrades. You'll learn: • How nitric oxide drives mitochondria, metabolism, and human performance • Why most nitric oxide supplements fail and how to spot real ones • The critical role nitric oxide plays in brain optimization, libido, and insulin signaling • How poor oral health, statins, and PPIs can kill nitric oxide production • What nitric oxide has to do with sleep optimization, aging, and disease prevention • How to stack nitric oxide with fasting, ketosis, nootropics, red light, and supplements • Why “Smarter Not Harder” starts with nitric oxide fueled upgrades This episode is essential listening for anyone into biohacking, cold therapy, functional medicine, or RFK-style medical freedom. You'll walk away with practical tools to boost nitric oxide naturally, prevent dysfunction, and optimize your biology whether you're on a carnivore diet or just looking for an edge. Dave Asprey is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Bulletproof Coffee, and the father of biohacking. With over 1,000 interviews and 1 million monthly listeners, The Human Upgrade is the top podcast for people who want to take control of their biology, extend their longevity, and optimize every system in the body and mind. Each episode features cutting-edge insights in health, performance, neuroscience, supplements, nutrition, hacking, emotional intelligence, and conscious living. Episodes are released every Tuesday and Thursday, where Dave asks the questions no one else dares, and brings you real tools to become more resilient, aware, and high performing. Get Nitric Oxide products for 10% off with code ‘Dave': https://bit.ly/Nitric-Oxide-Product SPONSORS: Leela Quantum Tech | Head to https://leelaq.com/DAVE for 10% off. Timeline | Head to https://www.timeline.com/dave to get 10% off your first order. Resources: • Nathan's Website: https://www.n1o1.com • Nathan's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtftGy8e0r9DO8ActcyGi4w • Dave Asprey's Website: https://daveasprey.com • Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/DAVE15 • Dave Asprey's BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com • Dave Asprey's New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated • Upgrade Collective: https://www.ourupgradecollective.com • Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com • 40 Years of Zen: https://40yearsofzen.com Timestamps: • 00:00 Trailer • 01:03 Intro • 01:15 Why Medicine Ignores Nitric Oxide • 01:59 What Nitric Oxide Does in the Body • 04:46 How the Body Makes Nitric Oxide • 07:12 Diet's Impact on NO Levels • 13:28 Why Most NO Supplements Fail • 19:32 Personalized Biohacking with NO • 22:33 How Medicine Misses the Mark • 30:40 Oral Health and Nitric Oxide • 31:30 Mouthwash Kills Your Microbiome • 32:28 The Problem with Fluoride • 33:25 Better Toothpaste for NO • 33:49 NO's Role in Energy and Healing • 34:17 Blood Pressure and NO • 35:29 NO and Sexual Performance • 37:09 NO and COVID Recovery • 40:50 Brain Fog and NO Deficiency • 49:01 Carnivore, Sugar, and NO • 50:11 Why You Still Need NO Supplements • 54:19 Final Takeaways See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Steve Hofstetter joins us in the Acement for a great conversation. Steve has over 200m views on YouTube, he's been nominated for a Nobel Prize, had a Number 1 Comedy Album on Apple, and his book "Ginger Kid" was a Top 5 pick on Amazon. Just to name a couple things. Best part is, even an accomplished comedian like Steve has a Funny Bad Gig Story. Check out Steve at https://www.stevehofstetter.com/Check out Ace at https://www.aceaceto.lol/ and Scott at https://scotthigginscomedy.com/

This book will introduce you to yourself in a new way. It will transform how you thnk about yourself and help you recognize your own self-limitimg beliefs about who you are and can be. It is the author's story but it is also all of our story. The book moves through time from right after World War II, when the author was born, through the fifties, sixties and seventies as she grows up, eventually becoming a Jungian psychologist in the eighties. You have a front-row seat as you travel through the decades right up to the present witnessing Susan's sometimes harrowwing but always wondrous experiences with the invisible world.  Astral travel, angel visits, travel to the life between life realm, encounters with ghosts, conversations with the dead, including Jung, out of body experiences, possession by a dark being, dream realities, and visits to other dimensions, are some of the things she will share with you in A Jungain Understanding of Transcendent Experiences. By 2024 Susan realizes that the nature of reality is One Consciousness supporting all of us, or as Nobel Prize winning quantum phyisicist, Erwin Schrodinger, put it: "The number of minds in the universe is One."  We all have access to this Mind. This realization offers us freedom to move beyond hopelessness and negative thinking, to harness the power of this Mind to think the thoughts which create the experiences we desire. What we think, we create.This book is part of a series of books by different authors sharing their perspectives on the paranormal. Gavin Davies conceived the idea and invited the rest of us. The title all the books begins with Paranormal Perspectives: -- and then the author's subttitle. That should make it possible to find all of them on Amazon. I hope you enjoy the whole series. The first bunch will be released October 30, 2024. I enjoyed writing this more than any other book I've written.https://www.susanplunket.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/earth-ancients--2790919/support.

In this episode of Words & Numbers, James and Ant announce their new partnership with CiVL and reflect on the state of modern life. Using Jurassic World and a Nobel Prize winner's comments as a springboard, they unpack the economics of innovation, incentives, and monopolies. They take on popular claims that life has gotten worse—breaking down the real costs of housing, cars, and higher education over time—and challenge the doom-and-gloom narrative with hard data and perspective. The debut of the new “So What?” segment offers concrete takeaways: count your blessings, question the media's distortions, and don't believe everything “everybody knows.” Words and Numbers is a CiVL Original Podcast. Join CiVL for member-exclusive access to our show, bonus content, and live Q&As. https://civl.com/ Get 50% off your annual subscription with code: WORDSANDNUMBERS Get Your Copy of Cooperation and Coercion Now! http://www.cooperationandcoercion.com See More Ant and James! http://www.wordsandnumbers.org Show Your Support for Words & Numbers at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/wordsandnumbers Quick Hits https://www.jurassicworld.com https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2025-07-04/charles-rice-nobel-prize-winner-in-medicine-its-a-crime-that-a-drug-exists-that-could-cure-everyone-yet-not-everybody-has-access-to-it.html https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/gringo-go-home-why-mexico-is-turning-against-us-immigrants-cmq2qsv2j Foolishness of the Week https://www.yahoo.com/news/fema-removed-dozens-camp-mystic-111716138.html Words & Numbers Backstage https://youtu.be/i73H047bID8?si=zUTcXrBYDolwTVgl https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/average-home-size/#space https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SETA01 More James at Smoke & Stories https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjILow4-ZJpBV-NnmSusZJ_vCuzKUJ4Ig More Ant on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/antonydavies Let Us Know What You Think mailto:wordsandnumberspodcast@gmail.com Antony Davies on Twitter https://twitter.com/antonydavies James R. Harrigan on Twitter https://twitter.com/JamesRHarrigan #AntonyDavies #JamesRHarrigan #WordsAndNumbers #economics #government #politics #policy #libertarian #classicalliberal #podcast #educational Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're back with another quick collection of Trump and the havoc he wreaked and the mayhem he mustered in the last few days.What do Rosie O'Donnell, tariffs, Jeffrey Epstein, and the Nobel Prize have in common?It all on this new episode of LFMO on THIS WEEK IN TRUMPSHOW NOTES:YOU LOOK LIKE A WINNERI'm easy.  If you want a free $50 gift card to the amazing ABT ELECTRONICS (and a lot more) at ABT.COM...its easy. Just send me this week's phrase that pays with your regular home address to thecochranshow@gmail.comThe phrase is:"hey Steve, where's mine?"Let's Survive 2025 Together. With a cool new shirt and hat! Get yours here.Thanks to our sponsor, ABT Electronics. Get $25 off your next purchase of $150 or more by using the promo code COCHRAN2025 online or in person!Watch This Episode on our Live From My Office YouTube ChannelFollow me on Substack.With each new episode, the first three listeners thatemail me“SURVIVE 2025!” will be eligible to win a $25 ABT Giftcard as long as you include your mailing address and that phrase!Don't forget to subscribe to listen to “Live From My Office” wherever you get your podcasts, and e-mail the show with any questions, comments, or plugs for your favorite charity!

For decades, evolutionary biologists considered non-coding regions of DNA as evolutionary junk, a paradigm that long dissuaded researchers from studying these little-understood portions of the genome. But a series of discoveries starting in 2008 has forced a major change in thinking about so-called "junk" DNA. Many examples of function have since been identified for the non-coding regions of DNA, and more are being uncovered each year. On this ID The Future, Dr. Casey Luskin reports on a pair of American biologists who were recently awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery of function in what was previously considered junk DNA. Source

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Why do we die? Do we have to? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O'Reilly explore the paradox of death, the science of aging, and the search for immortality with Nobel Prize-winning structural biologist Venki Ramakrishnan.NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free.Thanks to our Patrons Erick Schnell, Joey T, Nick Fortin, Karen Harbert, Jacob Kirkpatrick, Gunther Hammel, Frankie Blooding, Cynthia Maloy, Davlat Sirojitdinov, Abram Pousada, Adam Wyler, Greg Anderson, Soleful, Vlad lucha, Arvind Sridhar, thomas maigler, Morgan Wireman, Robey Neeley, Isaiah Fox, Volodymyr, BB, Eric Hilgendorf, Gabe B., Josh Emery, Devon Hen, Tiffany Alisa Boggs, Carmine Ciccone, Armstrong Manhães, Chris Sedunary, Chihiro, Roberto Medeiros, Sanaz Mitchell, Greg Wilson, Robert, Matthew Synco Sr., Meiby Yeras, Juraj Belanji, Katherine Yarbrough, Pedro, Sarah Lippert, Conor Doherty, Evgeny Semiletov, Ranjana Ranjana, Umar Cheema, ashwin patti, Grant Norman, Starry-eyed mama, Bob Rueter, Andrew, Peter Rhomberg, Brent Linford, and Dominic Consiglio for supporting us this week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of StarTalk Radio ad-free and a whole week early.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.