Month: August 2020

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Everything Everywhere Daily - The First Pandemic

Pandemics can be world-changing events. The aftermath of a pandemic can shape societies and topple empires. Whether it's the flu, smallpox, cholera, or the bubonic plague, these pandemics have killed more people than all the wars in human history. However, pandemics weren’t always a part of humanity. There was a first pandemic that caught civilization by surprise, and the legacy of that pandemic can still be felt in our world today.

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CoinDesk Podcast Network - BREAKDOWN: The Case for $500,000 Bitcoin

The Winklevoss brothers make an argument that, in the long run, bitcoin is the only good safe haven. 

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

This week’s episode of Long Reads Sunday is a reading of the latest essay from Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.

The essay looks systematically at the problems of the slate of current store-of-value assets, including the U.S. dollar, oil and gold. 

The brothers argue why those assets have, or are starting to have, value in their safe haven function, while bitcoin is on the rise.

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Unexpected Elements - Covid-19 Therapy Controversy

This week Science in Action examines the evidence around the Trump Administration’s emergency use authorisation of convalescent plasma therapy for the treatment of Covid-19. Donald Trump described its US-wide roll-out as ‘historic’ but the majority of scientists and doctors disagree, questioning the scientific basis for the government’s decision. Roland Pease talks to Mayo Clinic’s Michael Joyner, the leader of the convalescent plasma therapy study on which the action was based. The Mayo Clinic trial involved a large number of patients but none of them were compared to Covid-19 patients who were not treated with convalescent plasma. Trials that incorporate that comparison are the only way to properly assess the therapy’s effectiveness. Roland talks to Martin Landray of the University of Oxford who is testing convalescent plasma therapy in the UK’s Recovery randomised control trial, and to medical ethicist Alison Bateman-House of the New York University Grossman School of Medicine.

We also talk to nanotechnologist Marc Miskin about the million-strong army of microscopic robots he’s creating in his lab at the University of Pennsylvania.

The idea of creating underwater habitats has captured the imagination of writers, thinkers and scientists for decades. However, despite numerous grand visions, these dreams of aquatic metropolises have not yet come to fruition. Crowdscience listener and scuba enthusiast Jack wonders whether - given improved technology and the growing environmental pressures facing humans on land - it is time to reconsider the ocean as an alternative permanent living space for humans. Marnie Chesterton dons her flippers for Crowdscience in search of the oceanographers and architects who have dedicated their lives to designing vessels, labs and underwater habitats. She explores whether oceanic cities remain a sci-fi dream or a realistic solution to some of our modern challenges. Can the oceans’ largely unexplored resources be harnessed to support living underwater?

(Main image: New York lab tests serum from recovered covid-19 patients for possible therapy. Credit: Misha Friedman / Getty Images)

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Everything Everywhere Daily - Eponymous Laws

Everyone is probably familiar with Murphy’s Law which says that “Anything which can go wrong will go wrong.” However, there are many such laws, known as eponymous laws, which are sayings, adages, or truisms, which have been attributed to people over the years. These are not hard and fast mathematical or physical laws, but rather are general truths which can help you see and understand the world better...and they are usually named after someone.

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Byzantium And The Crusades - The Kingdom of Jerusalem Episode 5 “The Return of Byzantium”

This podcast series tells how the Crusades were inextricably linked with the Byzantine Empire. In this episode, we hear how Byzantium, in the 1130s and 1140s, tried to re-establish its control over Antioch, the second city of the Empire, lost to the Turks in 1084, and captured by the First Crusade in 1098. Antioch was now a Crusader state - the Principality of Antioch - and the Crusaders would not yield to Byzantine demands to return it to the Empire as had been originally promised by the First Crusaders. Another step would be taken on the path towards war between Byzantium and the Crusaders.

Please take a look at my website nickholmesauthor.com where you can download a free copy of The Byzantine World War, my book that describes the origins of the First Crusade.

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CoinDesk Podcast Network - BREAKDOWN: The End of an Era? Why Bitcoin and MMT Won the Week

Fed Chair Jerome Powell tried to make it seem like the end of an era, but didn’t inspire confidence in the central bank’s ability to lead in the era that comes next.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

On The Breakdown’s Weekly Recap, NLW looks at the shifting sands of the global economy. He says Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole this week was an argument that an era that began in the 1970s is now closing. 

At the same time, he argues Powell did very little to provide a vision for what comes next. Instead, it is the alternative economic philosophies – Modern Monetary Theory on the one side, Bitcoin on the other – that are attracting people for a different vision of the future.

This week on The Breakdown:

Monday | How Much Should We Fear Post-Crisis Debt or Inflation? Feat. Adam Tooze 

Tuesday | An Unintended Consequence of Low Interest Rates? The Big Get Bigger 

Wednesday | The Battle to Get Dictator’s Seized Millions to 62,000 Venezuelan Health Heroes 

Thursday | Everything You Need to Know About Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole Speech 

Friday | The Anxiety Index: 4 Fear Factors Shaping the Economy 


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Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Dozens of Baby Bush v Gores

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Professor Samuel Bagenstos of the University of Michigan School of Law, to discuss the status of voting rights litigation as we count down to November’s election. Then Dahlia is joined by Slate’s own Mark Joseph Stern to talk about the alarming developments in Kenosha, Wisconsin. 

In this week’s Slate Plus segment, Mark sticks around to explain the Supreme Court’s shadow docket, and why it matters. 

Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.

Podcast production by Sara Burningham.

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The NewsWorthy - Special Edition: ‘Black & Blue’ – Police Sgt. & Social Advocate

After another week of protests stemming from a white police officer shooting a black man, today’s "Special Edition Saturday" shares the perspective of someone who knows what it’s like to be both a police sergeant who patrols the streets and a mother who worries for her four black sons.

Retired Sgt. Cheryl Dorsey is an acclaimed author of the autobiography, Black and Blue, and a 20-year veteran of the LAPD.

Today, she shares her experience from within the third largest local law enforcement agency in the country, and she gives her thoughts on  recent calls to defund police.

We know there’s a lot of debate about some of these issues, and this is only one person’s experience and opinion. We hope her perspective, as both a police expert and social justice advocate, will add to that ongoing conversation.

Be sure to tune-in again each weekday (M-F) for our regular episodes to get quick, unbiased news roundups in 10 minutes!