Why do we laugh? This is the question the evolutionary ecologist Jonathan Silvertown sets out to answer in his latest book, The Comedy of Error. He looks back at laughter’s evolutionary origins, and to the similarities and differences in humour across cultures.
The sell-out comic Sindhu Vee swapped a career in investment banking for one in comedy. She is an expert at exploiting cultural differences in her jokes, having been born in India, lived and studied in the Philippines and the US, before settling in the UK.
John Mullan holds up Charles Dickens as a master novelist who could switch with ease from tragedy to comedy in a sentence. In The Artful Dickens he explores the tricks and ploys the writer used and how his humour has stood the test of time.
Producer: Katy Hickman
Photograph by Matt Crockett
Consumers may love their products and services but, among politicians and activists, the big-technology companies are fast developing a reputation as the Robber Barons of the 21st century.
Google recently joined Apple, Amazon and Microsoft as a so-called “tera-cap” – companies valued at more than a trillion dollars. Add Facebook and the five tech giants alone account for a quarter of the S&P500. How have they managed this in such a short timeframe? Their critics claim that Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella and Tim Cook are just digital versions of Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller – monopolists who control entry nto their markets.
Not so simple, claims Nicolas Petit in Big Tech and the Digital Economy: The Moligopoly Scenario (Oxford University Press, 2020). Concerns about privacy or the dissemination of “fake news” are valid but “looking at these predicaments through monopoly lenses is like using Facebook to get your news. It seems to do the job. But it might well be fake”.
“The picture of big tech firms as monopolists is intuitively attractive but analytically wrong,” he writes. “A better picture is one of big tech firms as moligopolists, that is firms that coexist as monopolists and oligopolists”.
Nicolas Petit is the Joint Chair in Competition Law at the European University Institute and the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies in Florence.
Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors.
The FDA has issued emergency use authorizations for two monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19 – one produced by Eli Lilly and another by Regeneron. As science correspondent Richard Harris explains, emergency use authorization doesn't assure that these new drugs are effective, but that their potential benefits are likely to outweigh the risks. So today, we get to the bottom of how this type of treatment works and if they'll really make a difference.
Email the show your questions, coronavirus or otherwise, at shortwave@npr.org.
This toolkit tackles one of the most pressing topics in the world: how you will get your COVID-19 vaccine and when. Get answers about the science from Dr. David Agus, and the logistics from CVS Health's Tom Moriarty. Andy asks them your questions about when you can get it, which one you'll get, and more. Plus, a fun little bit of vaccine history from David.
Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt.
Follow David Agus @DavidAgus on Twitter and on Instagram @davidbagus.
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Livinguard masks have the potential to deactivate COVID-19 based on the testing they have conducted from leading universities such as the University of Arizona and the Free University in Berlin, Germany. Go to shop.livinguard.com and use the code BUBBLE10 for 10% off.
Pre-order Andy’s book, Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response, here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250770165
Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.
Biden has reportedly selected California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led the defense of the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court last month, to lead the department of Health and Human Services. We discuss the pick.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new lockdown order takes effect today in large parts of the state, and will be in effect for at least the next three weeks but possibly longer.
The UK will begin its initial batch of COVID-19 vaccinations this week, using the drug from Pfizer. Russia began vaccinating thousands in Moscow with their Sputnik V vaccine this past weekend, and there’s reporting that China is gearing up for a rollout of vaccines, too.
And in headlines: judge orders DACA restored, hundreds of thousands of farmers strike in India, and Trump doesn’t nail the messaging in Georgia.
Allen Muench was fighting for his life when he checked into the hospital in November with COVID-19. After just 36 hours under the care of his doctors and nurses, Muench says he “felt like a new person.”
Muench, a longtime Daily Signal subscriber from St. Louis, joins the show to share his personal experience with the novel coronavirus and how Americans should prepare in case they become infected. He also explains why he’s thankful for President Donald Trump's leadership during the pandemic.
Also on today’s show, we read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a pro-life organization called Let Them Live, which provides women with the practical resources they need to choose life.
NPR host Sam Sanders and his team at It's Been A Minuteput that question to their listeners and heard from people all over the world with ages ranging from 0 to 99.
