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Health & Medicine Episodes

Public health, biotech, research, medicine, and more
April 7, 2025

History's "Viral" Lessons We Keep Ignoring

We've spent the last few years learning up close how a crisis like a global pandemic reveals and deepens all of our faults, inequalities, biases, and outright failures of empathy. But here's the kicker: it's not the first tim...
March 24, 2025

Don't Move The Goalposts

One of the ways this Trump administration is different from the last is, relatively at least, how much more unconstitutional, how much more organized and comprehensive the attacks on our institutions, particularly the scaffol...
March 3, 2025

No Country for Poor Men (or Women)

What can we do about land power? It's the most important question and my guest today is Mike Albertus . Mike is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago . He's the author of the new book, Land Power . Who...
Jan. 27, 2025

We Need To Talk About Bird Flu

We (Quinn) has been avoiding this question for quite a while. I even wrote a few thousand words about it a couple months ago and didn't publish it because it was a bit of a downer. But that's kind of malpractice in a way beca...
Nov. 11, 2024

Bridging Misinformation Gaps with Local Journalism

What's the missing link in local journalism? That's today's big question, and my guest is Lyndsey Gilpin . Lyndsey is the Senior Manager of Community Engagement at Grist. Lyndsey was the founder and executive editor at Southe...
Oct. 28, 2024

Thinking In Systems To Save An Indivisible World

Is multisolving the future? Is it today? Should we do more? That's all today's big question and my guest is Dr. Elizabeth Sawin . Dr. Sawin is the Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute , which is convenient for o...
Oct. 7, 2024

Best of: Fresh Banana Leaves

There’s no word for “conservation” in many Indigenous languages. Some come close, but mean something more like “taking care of” or “looking after.” And that’s probably because the very idea of conservation, to “prevention the...
June 10, 2024

Bring A Folding Chair

How do we tackle huge systemic intersectional environmental justice issues at the local level? That's today's big question, and my guest is Jacqui Patterson . Jacqui is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legac...
May 20, 2024

Chronic Illness: Not Actually Female Hysteria!

How do we take a huge chronic disease burden like Lyme disease or long COVID or even long flu and make it so personal that we simply can't ignore it anymore? That's today's big question and my guest is Dr. Mikki Tal , an immu...
April 29, 2024

Keeping Long COVID In The News

Who is still covering Long COVID, and how much is the audience actually growing? That's today's big question, and my guests are Betsy Ladygetz and Miles Griffis , editors and co-founders of The Sick Times , a journalist-found...
April 8, 2024

The Social Infrastructure of Water

What have we learned from millennia of water insecurity, of climate changes and disasters, of building along freshwater ways and the ocean, that we can apply today? That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Amber Wutic...
March 18, 2024

The Best Depression Treatment For You

You know you're stressed. You know you're anxious. Do you have depression? And do you need to know the latest in the biology of how the brain works and depression works or doesn't work and whether the gut is involved in getti...
Feb. 19, 2024

Saving Democracy From The Bottom Up

What are reverse coattails, and how might they slow climate change, prevent the next pandemic, and keep Nazis off of school boards? That's today's big question, and my returning guest is Amanda Litman . Amanda is one of my fa...
Jan. 8, 2024

Best of: Why We Can't Focus

How do we get our attention back? That's today's big question. I think about it every day, and my guest is Johann Hari . Johann and I recorded this conversation in 2022 , and with the Internet in general and social networks o...
Jan. 1, 2024

Best of: Internal Activism

How's your mental health around climate change? That is today's big question, and my guest is Britt Wray. Britt and I recorded this conversation in 2022. It is an all-time favorite of mine and of our listeners. Britt is the a...