Graybeard conference alert! Eran and Ryan both started their technology journeys on the venerable Commodore 64.
During his academic days, Eran helped to map all the BGP (background gateway protocol) gateways in the world. This got a fair bit of press recently during the six hour Facebook outage.
Nexar provides smart dashcams and an app that help cars understand the roads around them.
Along certain coastlines near the equator, you can find a tree with superpowers. Mangroves provide a safe haven for a whole ecosystem of animals. They also fight climate change by storing tons of carbon, thanks to a spectacular above-ground network of tangled roots. Ecologist Alex Moore talks to guest host Maria Godoy about how mighty this tree is, and why it is under threat.
After the protests last year, we heard the phrase "racial reckoning" a lot, as some groups of people struggled to catch up with what's just been reality for many others. This week we've got two books that might help you reckon with that reckoning, in two different ways: Traci Todd and illustrator Christian Robinson's bright and powerful picture book biography Nina: A Story of Nina Simone and poet Claudia Rankine's Just Us: An American Conversation, in which she puts together poetry, essays and images to bring readers into an uncomfortable but necessary conversation about race.
OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:50) – World War II
(18:54) – Yeonmi Park, starvation, and mental health
(33:10) – Kelsi’s 9/11 experience
(36:39) – Becoming a soldier
(43:07) – Artillery: The Hand of God
(52:49) – Weapons training
(1:10:35) – Pre-Deployment
(1:26:42) – Arrival to Afghanistan
(1:48:55) – Tragic war story
(2:13:59) – Feelings after tragedy
(2:17:41) – The Taliban
(2:23:17) – Retrospective: 20 years in Afghanistan
(2:39:57) – How war changes people
(2:45:18) – PTSD
(3:14:13) – Ayahuasca and mental recovery
(3:46:09) – Love
(4:04:12) – Advice for young people
(4:07:33) – Death
(4:13:22) – World War II
Nick asks his fellow Conspiracy Realists for help explaining mysterious handprints. Becky asks why more people aren't talking about the death of Winston Smith. Ben continues his obsession with your ghost stories, and, in a rare personal moment, shares the story of a bizarre encounter somewhere in the rural Gulf Coast. All this and more in this week's Listener Mail.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki joins Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer to chat about all of the challenges in front of the Biden administration. Then Jon and Dan examine the debate over popularism and the direction of the Democratic Party and a new investigative report about AT&T’s role in propping up the right-wing propaganda network OAN.
Chicago civil rights activist and cultural icon Timuel Black died Tuesday at age 102. He was a historian, teacher, storyteller and music-lover who dedicated his life to ending segregation, voter disenfranchisement and discrimination. Reset pays tribute to the legend and speaks with several people who knew and worked with him.
Patricia Maginnis, who was 93 when she died on August 30, may have been the first person to publicly call for abortion to be completely decriminalized in America. Despite her insistence on direct action on abortion-rights at a time when many were uncomfortable even saying the word "abortion," Maginnis is not a bold letter name of the movement. That may be because she didn't seek the limelight and she cared more for action then self-presentation.
Guests include Lili Loofborow, who profiled Maginnis for Slate; Professor Leslie J. Regan, who wrote the book When Abortion Was a Crime; and the artist Andrea Bowers whose video piece, Letters to An Army of Three recreated the messages people would send Maginnis when they were desperate to access abortion services.
Special thanks to the Schlesinger Library, where the 1975 oral history of Pat Maginnis is housed.
Since its introduction four decades ago, Spartina alterniflora, a salt-water cordgrass from the USA, has been spreading along China’s coasts. Today, it covers nearly half of the country’s salt marshes. As the UN Biodiversity Conference COP 15 kicks off in China, we look at how this invasive plant species threatens native species in protected coastal wetlands. Featuring Yuan Lin, East China Normal University, and Qiang He, Fudan University.
In January 2020, Barney Graham and Jason McLellan teamed up to engineer a coronavirus spike protein that now powers the COVID-19 vaccines for Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax. They discuss their work, a next-generation vaccine using chicken eggs, and the future of pandemic preparedness.
Also, a recent Nature survey reveals the extent of abuse against scientists who speak about COVID-19 publicly. Deepti Gurdasani, Queen Mary University of London, shares her experiences of trolling and online abuse and discusses the implications for academia and scientific discourse going forward.
And Tom Scott explains how his team uses novel robots and sensors to go into and create 3D digital radiation maps of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and surrounding areas.
