Innovation is crucial for long-term economic prosperity. One area where that’s happening aplenty: medical technology. From a cancer vaccine to an Alzheimer’s blood test to a life-changing exoskeleton, we take you on a tour of the economics of health technology.
Related episodes: The hidden costs of healthcare churn (Apple / Spotify) More for Palantir, less for mRNA, and a disaster database redemption arc (Apple / Spotify) It's actually really hard to make a robot, guys (Apple / Spotify)
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
In 1956, one of the most important geopolitical events of the post-war period took place in Egypt.
The Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, one of the most important waterways in the world.
In response, a coalition of several countries tried to take it back. However, it didn’t go as planned, and it signaled a major reshuffling of the geopolitical order.
Learn more about the Suez Crisis and how it shaped the second half of the 20th century on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
There are a lot of mixed signals. President Trump slashed taxes, but he’s also bringing in a lot of money through tariffs. Inflation is creeping up, but the stock market keeps rising. Eye-wateringly large investments are flowing to A.I., which could lead to an explosion of productivity but also mass job loss. And then Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a disappointing jobs report, raising concerns that the government’s data on the economy might get shakier.
Natasha Sarin is the president and a founder of the Budget Lab at Yale. She has been tracking these trends and modeling the potential economic effects of many of Trump’s policies. I invited her on the show to walk through what she is thinking about the economy.
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota, Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Katharine Abraham, Skanda Amarnath, Kimberly Clausing, Kathryn Anne Edwards, Matthew Klein, and Claudia Sahm.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
In 1428, a young girl from the village of Domrémy, France, audaciously set out to meet the heir apparent to the French throne, the Dauphin, and told him what he had to do to defeat the English occupying her country.
She claimed that she was told what to do by God.
Against all odds, the Dauphin took her advice, and it worked. After a series of military victories, the Dauphin was crowned king, and the young girl went on to become one of the greatest heroes in French history.
Learn more about Joan of Arc, her incredible story, and how it changed French history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In early July, the Mediterranean Sea experienced a marine heatwave. The surface of the water reached temperatures of 30 degrees in some places.
A social media post at the time claimed that some of these sea temperatures were so different to the normal sea temperature at this time of year, that the sea was experiencing a “1-in-216,000,000,000-year sea temperature anomaly”.
This would suggest that the likelihood of the event was on a timescale far longer than the amount of time the entire universe has existed.
Is the claim true? Dr Jules Kajtar, a physical oceanographer from the National Oceanography Centre, takes a look at the statistics.
We heard about this story because a listener spotted it and emailed the team. Get in touch if you’ve seen a number you think we should look at. moreorless@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Lizzy McNeill
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge
Sound mix: Neil Churchill
Editor: Richard Vadon
