Episodes
Feb. 22, 2023
🌎 What Do You Need?
This week: The future of search and chatbots looks a lot like our ancient past. Why do we keep making the same tools over and over again? What We Can Do: ⚡️ Addiction is brutal. Help yourself or a loved one or someone you’ve ...
Feb. 20, 2023
Clean Air Is An Inside Job
Imagine you’re in a sci-fi movie. The one where everything’s on the line . And while dinosaurs or aliens or a virus takes over down on the ground, you’re the scientist unexpectedly riding in the helicopter with the actual pre...
Feb. 15, 2023
🌎 How to Survive
This week: There are a default group of problems that exist in our society because of the basic needs required to be a human. They are: Air Water Food Sleep These, our most primal needs, are more or less biologically inarguab...
Feb. 13, 2023
🌎 "Why Do We Exist?"
This week: For the next few weeks, I’m rewriting and sharing a selection of essays I wrote in 2020 and 2021, so about two hundred years ago. I think they’re more relevant than ever — I can’t wait to hear what you think. This ...
Jan. 30, 2023
Best of: How To Innovate
How does innovation actually work? That's today's big question, and my guest is Christopher Mims . Chris is a journalist for the Wall Street Journal , and I had him on the show in 2021 to understand how he asks big questions....
Jan. 27, 2023
🌎 Insurance, for you and me
This week: Everyone needs insurance. But what kind? And what does it mean to have it, or not? Well, there’s actual insurance, which is a policy where you and an insurer contract with one another in case things go south with (...
Jan. 24, 2023
Best of: How Do We Rebuild Capitalism in a World on Fire?
How do we reimagine capitalism in a world on fire? That's today's big question, and my guest is Rebecca Henderson , Harvard professor behind the wildly popular class "Reimagining Capitalism". I had Rebecca on the show in 2020...
Jan. 23, 2023
🌎 You Say You Want A Revolution
This week: What does it mean when people say “revolution”? For these purposes, which are pretty narrow and entirely of my own invention, I don’t mean some single moment in time, unless it was a bellwether for something bigger...
Jan. 17, 2023
Best of: How To Be A Better Ancestor
How can I be a better ancestor? This question has haunted and inspired me since way back in 2019 when I first read the Optimist's Telescope . A beautiful, helpful, inspiring book by Bina Venkataraman. Then I had Bina on the s...
Jan. 13, 2023
🌎 What it all means
Across the front of our website, in big bold letters, is our calling card: “Science for people who give a shit.” You may have seen it and immediately thought “That’s me!” or “You sir, are a child.” Either reaction is well and...
Dec. 19, 2022
Can Your Poop Predict The Next Pandemic?
We’re taking giving a shit quite literally this week! Our guest is Newsha Ghaeli , the president and co-founder at Biobot Analytics . If you read our newsletter, you’ll have heard me go on and on about Biobot , whose mission ...
Nov. 28, 2022
Why You Should Care About Soil Health
What’s one big change we can make that can make our food healthier, make farming more lucrative, draw down carbon in the atmosphere, and reduce climate emigration? That’s today’s big question, and my guest is Sasankh Munukutl...
Nov. 21, 2022
The Future of Aluminum Recycling
Aluminum. It’s everywhere! And we’re going to need a hell of a lot more of it in the future. Aluminum is a primary ingredient in solar, wind, hydro, concentrated solar, bioenergy, the grid, batteries, hydrogen, and more. And ...
Nov. 18, 2022
Newsletter #299: How to save 1.3 million lives
This week: Global climate news roundup beyond COP27 The human cost of vaccine inequity Water runs dry Chatbots aren't your friends Caveats to exciting AI developments Here's What You Can Do: More Democratic Senators means a g...
Nov. 14, 2022
Breaking Bread with the Korean Vegan
There’s nothing quite like breaking bread with family and friends, old or new. By mid-2020, we’d have all taken the opportunity to break bread with just about anyone. Why are recipes, and the stories behind them, some of the ...
Nov. 7, 2022
Why is Environmental Justice Journalism Important?
It’s always worth revisiting the inarguable fact that our country was designed to be inequitable . And while much progress has been made over time, the powers that be continued to imagine and design new ways of marginalizing,...
Nov. 4, 2022
#298: What they're *not* teaching kids today
This week: Climate change in the curriculum Increasingly divergent subvariants Cell-cultured meat RSV vaccines are coming Generative AI (...didn't write this, but it might one day) Here's What You Can Do: Teachers can't teach...
Oct. 31, 2022
Introducing Climavores: "Our first Climavores guest is a big one: Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack"
Climate change is a touchy topic in farm country. But one third of greenhouse gas emissions come from food and agriculture , so it’s crucial that the industry becomes part of the climate change solution. For years almost all ...
Oct. 28, 2022
Newsletter #297: Your neighborhood's about to get much cleaner
This week: $1 billion for electric school buses A potential "tripledemic" sandwich (not as delicious as it sounds!) One person's (treated) wastewater is another person's drinking water Most pregnancy-related deaths in America...
Oct. 24, 2022
You get an XPRIZE, and YOU get an XPRIZE!
Throughout history, kings, queens, governments, churches, and donors have funded contests and awarded prizes for solving the most difficult problems of the day. Today, as we stand on the precipice of huge problems and opportu...
Oct. 21, 2022
Newsletter #296: Fake meat, fake profits?
This week: Plant-based meat stocks Another COVID winter is coming A long-term plan for the baby formula shortage The uncertain future of telehealth Willfully shunning data privacy Here's What You Can Do: Help elect progressiv...
Oct. 17, 2022
Automated Synthetic Biology (I'm sure it's fine)
Let's talk robots. But first: There’s a very particular bottleneck where groundbreaking science is more applicable than ever but inaccessible to many. The tools are unaffordable to the schools and groups who could use them to...
Oct. 10, 2022
Fight Fire With...Vortex Cannons?
How lucky are we? How lucky are we that we live in a time of such great opportunity – when, yes, we’re teetering on the edge of a global climate calamity, still reeling from a pandemic, knowing that our problems and challenge...
Oct. 7, 2022
Newsletter #295: Insurance, for when climate change comes at you fast
This week: What climate change means for insurance Pregnancy and the COVID vaccine Food insecurity in America What wildfire smoke means for air quality Internet blackout in Iran What we can do Understand your flood risk with ...