NPR's Book of the Day - In ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ a chemist is the star of… a cooking show?

Bonnie Garmus' novel Lessons in Chemistry got a lot of buzz when it was first released in 2022. Elizabeth Zott is a talented chemist but because it's the 1960s, she faces sexism in her quest to work as a scientist. So instead, she has a cooking show that is wildly popular. In this encore episode, Garmus told NPR's Scott Simon that the character of Elizabeth lived in her head for many years before she started writing this novel.

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Short Wave - Is The Milky Way On A Collision Course?

The Andromeda galaxy lies just beyond (...OK, about 2.5 million light-years beyond) our galaxy, the Milky Way. For the past hundred years or so, scientists thought these galaxies existed in a long-term dance of doom — destined to crash into one another and combine into one big galactic soup. But today on the show, Regina and computational astrophysicist Arpit Arora explain why a recent paper out in the journal Nature Astronomy suggests this cosmic game of bumper cars may never come to a head at all.

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State of the World from NPR - A Crackdown Inside Iran

With a shaky truce between Israel and Iran holding, activists say the Iranian government is hunting for people it suspects of collaborating with Israel. Iranian state media reports hundreds have been taken into custody in the last two weeks and some are fleeing into neighboring countries, including Turkey. We hear from some.

And, during the air war with Israel, one young Iranian woman turned to Chat GPT for information and comfort.

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1A - In Good Health: Vaccines, Menopause, And Cardiovascular Disease

Last week, Kennedy announced the U.S. would not renew its $1.2 billion commitment to the global vaccine agency Gavi.

The new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices also met for the first time last week since Kennedy fired and then replaced its members.

We talk about the outlook for U.S. vaccine policy both at home and abroad.

Then, we switch gears to discuss the link between menopause and an increased risk of cardiovascular illness.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women in the U.S. according to the American Heart Association. We discuss the link between heart health and menopause.

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Consider This from NPR - House Speaker may have to make a lot of promises to get bill to Trump’s desk

The massive tax and spending bill central to President Trump's agenda is one step closer to reality.

After weeks of negotiations and 49 consecutive votes that started Monday morning, the senate approved President Trump's signature domestic policy bill around lunch time Tuesday. It now goes back to the House of Representatives where Republican Speaker Mike Johnson will have to reconcile the senate changes with his members' competing priorities.

Michael Ricci has had a long career in republican politics, including working as Speaker Paul Ryan's communications director and Speaker John Boehner's Chief Speech writer. We talked with him about the stakes, and the bill's prospects in the House.

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Up First from NPR - Megabill Wrangling, State Of Democracy Poll, USAID Ends

Republican leaders must find a fragile balance in the reconciliation bill between making deep cuts and protecting programs for the vulnerable. Also, an overwhelming majority of Americans say democracy is under serious threat, and USAID officially ends today.

Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Jason Breslow, Dana Farrington, Rebecca Davis, Janaya Williams and Lisa Thomson. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Claire Murashima and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zo van Ginhoven. And our technical director is Zac Coleman
.

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The Indicator from Planet Money - We’re nearing ‘peak population.’ These economists are worried.

Over the past century, the world's human population has exploded from around 2 billion to 8 billion. Meanwhile, the average fertility rate has gradually declined. And if that trend continues as it has, we may soon see a crash in the population rate, which some argue could have disastrous effects.

Today on the show, we talk to co-authors Michael Geruso and Dean Spears about their forthcoming book After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. Together, they explain why you should care about declining fertility rates.

Related episodes:
Babies v climate change; AI v IP; bonds v world

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Fact-checking by
Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

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NPR's Book of the Day - ‘The Rachel Incident’ looks back on early-20s friendships, love and mistakes

The novel The Rachel Incident is rooted around a wonderful, messy friendship. Rachel and James live together, party, and get themselves into a peculiar situation with an older married couple. In today's encore episode, author Caroline O'Donoghue speaks with NPR's Miles Parks about how abortion and sexual repression in Irish society play a large role in Rachel's early adulthood. O'Donoghue also shares why it was important to her that the novel be told from an older Rachel's perspective, reflecting on her youth.

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Short Wave - On July 4th, Are You A Thrill- Or Chill-Seeker?

Independence Day is approaching! Imagine in a few days, someone has procured illegal fireworks from a couple of states over. Are you:
A) first in line to light them
B) content to watch while others set them off
C) going to find a fire extinguisher — just in case — while loudly condemning the activity?

Ken Carter, a psychologist at Oxford College of Emory University, says everyone has a different level of sensation-seeking. This episode, we get into the factors at play, like people's brain chemistry, when deciding whether or not to do an activity, like setting off fireworks. Plus, he and Emily reveal their scores to his forty-point scale.

Ken's 40-point sensation seeking survey can be found in his book, Buzz!.

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1A - ‘If You Can Keep It’: Church And State, Continued

Last month, President Donald Trump openly questioned the separation of church and state during the establishment of the Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty. He said that he is bringing religion back to the country.

We continue our "If You Can Keep It" series by assessing the boundaries of the separation between religion and the government.

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