The X-Press Pearl shipping disaster takes us on a voyage through shipping-related science.
First, we learn about how pollution from the X-Press Pearl explosion impacted the foundation of the marine food web – plankton. We also hear about an innovative system that can help slash the shipping industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.
And we take a short trip in a time-machine back to the Stone Age, where biological anthropologist Professor Yousuke Kaifu from the University of Tokyo explains what it takes to recreate a Palaeolithic voyage from Taiwan to the Ryukyu Archipelago.
We also look at how artificial intelligence could help Canadian caribou cross sea ice, the science of lightning and thunder, and the tricky disputes around shipwrecks and treasure.
All that, plus many more Unexpected Elements.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Meral Jamal and Godfred Boafo
Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, Minnie Harrop and Imaan Moin
Welcome back to The Mining Pod! Today, Colin and Matt are joined by Ethan Vera, the COO of Luxor Technology, to talk about Hut 8's 205 MW Vega facility and its 310 MW deal to deliver electricity to Ontario. Plus, American Bitcoin's $220 million fundraise, an ASIC market update, Tether's surprise mining expansion into Brazil, and how just four public companies now control nearly a quarter of Bitcoin's total hash rate.
• Hut 8 secured 310MW deal with Ontario to supply electricity via natural gas plant
• Four miners control 200+ exahashes (~20% network)
• ASIC prices are decoupling from hashprice movements
• Tether goes in on mining venture in Brazil
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
02:00 Difficulty Report by Luxor
05:32 Hut 8 energizes Vega
06:22 Hut 8 310 MW electricity deal in Ontario
13:57 American Bitcoin raises $220M
18:22 ASIC market update with Ethan
26:33 Antminer S23 market
31:07 China ban reverse rumors
32:09 Tether in Brazil
38:20 50 EH/s club
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Published twice weekly, "The Mining Pod" interviews the best builders and operators in the Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining landscape. Subscribe to get notifications when we publish interviews on Tuesday and a news show on Friday!
As the crisis of democratic capitalism sweeps the globe, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't (Oxford University Press, 2025) makes the controversial argument that what democracies require most are stronger political parties that serve as intermediaries between citizens and governments.
Once a centralizing force of the democratic process, political parties have eroded over the past fifty years. Parties now rank among the most unpopular institutions in society--less trusted than business, the police, and the media. Identification with parties has plummeted, and even those who are loyal to a party report feeling that parties care more about special interests than about regular citizens. What does a "good" political party look like? Why do we urgently need them? And how do we get them?
The Great Retreat explores the development of political parties as democracy expanded across the West in the nineteenth century. It focuses in particular on mass parties, and the ways they served as intermediaries that fostered ties between citizens and governments. While parties have become professionalized and nationalized, they have lost the robust organizational density that made them effective representatives. After the Cold War, a neoliberal economic consensus, changes to campaign finance, and shifting party priorities weakened the party systems of Western democracies. As Didi Kuo argues, this erosion of political parties has contributed to the recent crisis of democratic capitalism, as weak parties have ceded governance to the private sector.
For democracy to adapt to a new era of global capitalism, Kuo makes the case that we need strong intermediaries like mass parties--socially embedded institutions with deep connections to communities and citizens. Parties are essential to long-term democratic stability and economic growth, while the breakdown of party systems, on the other hand, has historically led to democratic collapse. As trust in political parties has plummeted, The Great Retreat provides a powerful defense of political parties--for without parties, democratic representation is impossible.
Didi Kuo is Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
House Republicans deliver on Trump's Independence Day deadline, passing the Senate's version of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which will cut taxes for the rich, gut Medicaid for the poor, and explode the deficit beyond all recognition. Jen Psaki, host of The Briefing with Jen Psaki on MSNBC, joins Dan to discuss how Mike Johnson and Trump won over the bill's GOP holdouts, what happens now that it's passed, and how it changes the story of the 2026 midterm elections. Jen and Dan discuss Trump's threat to deport Zohran Mamdani and Paramount's $16 million settlement with Trump. Then, Congressman Ro Khanna stops by to talk about what's next for Democrats now that the most unpopular bill in history is set to become law.
In 2008, Lin-Manuel Miranda badly needed a vacation. He’d just won the Tony for his musical “In The Heights,” he’d been going nonstop. So he took a break, bringing a book with him for poolside lounging: the 800-page biography of America’s first treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton. But what started as a light beach read soon became an obsession. Lin HAD to bring this man’s incredible life to the stage. Thus began an epic journey: from the White House, to Lincoln Center, to (eventually) Broadway. “Hamilton” became a massive success, scoring a record 16 Tony noms, the Pulitzer Prize, and $1B+ in revenue. But along the way, Lin and his team had to reckon with a problem: when your show about democracy becomes too exclusive, how do you bring it back to the people? Find out how Ham4Ham broke the B’way mold, how a streaming deal with Disney+ set the stage for Taylor Swift, and why “Hamilton” is the best idea yet.
Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet for the untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — and the bold risk takers who made them go viral.
This episode was first published as a bonus episode for our Planet Money+ listeners. Today, we're making it available for everyone!
U.S. aid helped Eswatini and Lesotho, two small countries in southern Africa, in their efforts to treat and curb the spread of HIV. Will President Trump's "America First" foreign policy threaten years of progress there against the virus?
In this bonus episode, we're featuring an extended conversation between Darian Woods and Jon Cohen, senior correspondent with Science magazine. They talk about Jon's reporting trip to Eswatini and Lesotho in May and the early impacts he saw of the Trump administration's foreign aid cuts. We also hear about the critical role of PEPFAR (the U.S. President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) in the global response to HIV/AIDS and some other things we couldn't fit into the original episode.
You can read Jon's recent article in Science magazine here.
To hear more bonus episodes like this, and get Planet Money and The Indicator without sponsor messages, support the show by signing up for Planet Money+.
This summer, we're also giving Planet Money+ supporters early access to new episodes. Another reason to join! Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Happy Independence Day, Short Wavers! Do you have plans outdoors this weekend and want to figure out just how swampy it's gonna feel? For that kind of mental preparation, we're revisiting an episode in which some meteorologists are telling us to pay more attention to dew point temperature, not relative humidity.
Interested in more weather episodes? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
An illegal voting case in Alaska highlights lingering confusion over the rights extended to the citizens of American Samoa, a U.S. territory. Eleven Samoans from Whittier, Alaska are charged with felonies for alleged voter fraud by participating in their local election. All have U.S. passports, were born on U.S. soil, and can even participate in the presidential primary process. The territory has been under heavy colonial pressure for centuries and has been under U.S. oversight for more than 125 years. But Congress never granted its citizens the right to vote in national elections.
In another case, tribes in North Dakota were dealt a serious blow in their ongoing fight against redistricting that reduces their collective power in state elections.
This is an encore presentation so we won’t be taking calls
This week on The Progress Report, Zachary and Emma bring more uplifting headlines you won’t find in your usual news feed. America’s prison population is dropping fast, thanks to a dramatic decrease in youth incarceration. The first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S. marks a giant leap for medical innovation, eliminating the need for open-chest surgery and speeding up recovery for patients. Nepal is quietly staging an electric vehicle revolution, with 70% of new cars now electric and nearly universal access to the power grid.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
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