This week Short Wave is celebrating our sense of taste with an entire week of themed episodes, covering everything from sugar and spice to what's beyond our classic ideas of taste. It's a series we're calling, "Taste Buddies."
In today's encore episode with Atlantic science writer Katherine Wu, we take a tour through the mysteries of sourness — complete with a fun taste test. Along the way, Katie serves up some hypotheses for the evolution of sour taste because, as Katie explains in her article, "The Paradox of Sour," researchers still have a lot to learn about this weird taste.
Baffled by another seemingly mundane aspect of our existence? Email the show at shortwave@npr.org and who knows — it might turn into a whole series!
Today's book evaluates the price of assimilation when representation, identity and belonging are erased. In Why Didn't You Tell Me?, author Carmen Rita Wong recounts how she discovered her origin story was all but true. She talks with Ailsa Chang about navigating her life after that discovery – and the impact of colonialism.
Now it’s time to get into the real analysis of fintech as laid out by Saule Omarova’s work. We walk through the dominant regulatory approach to financial markets that came from the New Deal; how the 1980s is the true origin of the fintech revolution; how the secondary financial markets have taken over the whole system; how new technologies focused on making micro-level transactions faster, easier, cheaper have led to making macro-level systems more unstable, unrestrained, and untethered from reality.
The paper we discuss:
••• New Tech v. New Deal: Fintech as a Systemic Phenomenon | Saule T. Omarova https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2800&context=facpub
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The Federal Reserve could hike short-term interest rates to 4%, and that still might not be enough to cool inflation. Rich Lyons is the first Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer for the University of California, Berkeley. Before that, he spent a decade as the dean of Berkley’s Haas School of Business. He joined Motley Fool Contributor Rachel Warren to discuss: - How the Federal Reserve could hit a “hard break” with higher interest rates - A venture capital view about the future of crypto - How universities are creating a generational tailwind for the economy
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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features Nathaniel Whittemore aka NLW, with editing by Michele Musso and research by Scott Hill. Jared Schwartz is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsors is “The Now” by Aaron Sprinkle. Image credit: Vladimir Kazakov/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk. Join the discussion at discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8.
Located near the city of Masvingo in Central Zimbabwe are the ruins of one of the greatest civilizations of the Middle Ages.
When European explorers first discovered the ruins, they simply couldn’t believe that it was built by native Africans.
Subsequent archeological investigations showed not just that they were wrong, but that the civilization which was there had contact with some of the furthest reaches of the known world.
Learn more about Great Zimbabwe, one of Africa’s greatest empires, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Emily Bazelon talks with author Vanessa Hua about her new historical fiction book, Forbidden City. The novel tells the story of sixteen-year-old revolutionary Mei who becomes a dancer in Chairman Mao’s inner circle. Emily and Vanessa talk about Vanessa’s inspiration for the novel, the complicated dynamics between Mei and Chairman Mao, and whether we’ll hear more from Mei.
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