The World Health Organisation unveiled preliminary findings, suggesting the coronavirus probably jumped to humans via an intermediary animal and all but ruling out a laboratory leak. We examine the many remaining questions. Nefarious regimes find it ever easier to reach across borders, subjecting dissidents to repression and surveillance abroad. And why it’s so hard to buy a car in Algeria.
Fresh after a 5-second Super Bowl ad, Reddit doubles its valuation to $6B. DoorDash just acquired a sushi and salad-making robot because it hates humans. And we’re about to get another stimulus, but it all comes down to 1 conversation between the Hawks and the Doves.$DASH Got a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkSend us your Black History Month SnackFact here:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Hu00HOlQ-qb6S7Jx4CgnGOfzrA67_j_SLFqxvFKinEQ/editWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
As soon as the Democrats won a slim 50-50 majority in the senate, the jokes about President Joe Manchin started flying. The Senate's self described “conservative Democrat” from West Virginia is in a key position to influence legislation during the Biden administration. How will he wield that power?
Guests: Jim Newell, senior politics reporter for Slate
Ken Ward Jr., co-founder of Mountain State Spotlight and distinguished reporting fellow for Pro-Publica
Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now.
Fresh after a 5-second Super Bowl ad, Reddit doubles its valuation to $6B. DoorDash just acquired a sushi and salad-making robot because it hates humans. And we’re about to get another stimulus, but it all comes down to 1 conversation between the Hawks and the Doves.
$DASH
Got a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYork
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As soon as the Democrats won a slim 50-50 majority in the senate, the jokes about President Joe Manchin started flying. The Senate's self described “conservative Democrat” from West Virginia is in a key position to influence legislation during the Biden administration. How will he wield that power?
Guests: Jim Newell, senior politics reporter for Slate
Ken Ward Jr., co-founder of Mountain State Spotlight and distinguished reporting fellow for Pro-Publica
Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now.
Are exports to the EU from the UK down 68% since Brexit? This apocalyptic statistic is being widely reported, but does it really tell us what?s happening at Dover and Folkstone?
Ministers are tweeting reassuring numbers about flammable cladding on high rise buildings. We?re not so sure.
Is it really true that one in five people are disabled?
Plus, if you assembled all the coronavirus particles in the world into a pile - how big would it be?
Global Witness documented that 212 environmental and land activists were murdered in 2019. Over half of those documented murders took place in Colombia and the Philippines, countries where intensive mining and agribusiness has transformed the environment. NPR Short Wave reporter Emily Kwong speaks with three activists about the intersection between natural resource extraction and violence, and what keeps them going in their work.
A scientist assesses the potential of stem cell therapies for treating such brain disorders as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.
Stem cell therapies are the subject of enormous hype, endowed by the media with almost magical qualities and imagined by the public to bring about miracle cures. Stem cells have the potential to generate new cells of different types, and have been shown to do so in certain cases. Could stem cell transplants repair the damaged brain? In his book The Future of Brain Repair: A Realist's Guide to Stem Cell Therapy (MIT Press, 2020), neurobiologist Jack Price assesses the potential of stem cell therapies to treat such brain disorders as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal cord injuries.
Certainly brain disorders are in need of effective treatments. These disorders don’t just kill, they disable, and conventional drug therapies have not had much success in treating them. Price explains that repairing the human brain is difficult, largely because of its structural, functional, and developmental complexity. He examines the self-repairing capacity of blood and gut cells—and the lack of such capacity in the brain; describes the limitations of early brain stem cell therapies for neurodegenerative disorders; and discusses current clinical trials that may lead to the first licensed stem cell therapies for stroke, Parkinson’s and macular degeneration. And he describes the real promise of pluripotential stem cells, which can make all the cell types that constitute the body.
New technologies, Price reports, challenge the very notion of cell transplantation, instead seeking to convince the brain itself to manufacture the new cells it needs. Could this be the true future of brain repair?
You can find more about Jack’s work here and here.
Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at galina.limorenko@epfl.ch.
Dr. Bob talks about the importance of leadership, whether it's during a pandemic or a flight that's lost all engine power, with Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. The parallels between the two might not seem obvious, but Sully points out that the basic elements of good leadership can be applied in any situation. He also talks about how he and the crew landed Flight 1549 safely in the Hudson River, what lessons he took from that famous flight, and what caused him to speak out against what he calls a "vacuum of leadership" during the pandemic. Plus, what it's like to have Tom Hanks play you in a movie.
Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter @Bob_Wachter and check out In the Bubble’s new Twitter account @inthebubblepod.
Follow Sully Sullenberger on Twitter @Captsully.
Keep up with Andy in D.C. on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt.
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