Why Amazon Built a Spatula-Wielding Robot
Aaron Parness is a director of applied science at Amazon Robotics. His problem is this: How do you build a robot that can put stuff on shelves. Today on the…
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Determinative Decisions Before Birth: Genes and Names
Nate is on vacation this week, so Maria is joined by journalist David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene and Range. They talk about a new company that offers comprehensive…
Introducing: The Chinatown Sting
In the late 1980s, federal authorities laid a trap. They’d gotten a tip that huge amounts of heroin were being mailed to New York City inside boxes filled with tea.…
Loudon Wainwright III
In 2022, at 75 years-old, Loudon Wainwright III released Lifetime Achievement—an aptly titled album from a songwriter whose debut came more than fifty years earlier. Over the decades, Loudon has built…
Disaster Favours the Daring: Shipwreck at Honda Point
In 1923, legendary navigator Captain Dolly Hunter led a squadron of warships into America’s worst peacetime naval catastrophe. The mission was supposed to be a speed trial, a display of…
Drilling Smarter Wells to Unleash Geothermal Energy
In many places on Earth, there’s steam just below the surface. We don’t know where those places are — but if we could figure it out, we could unlock a…
The Game Theory of Reality TV (with Boston Rob)
This week, Maria interviews reality TV legend Boston Rob. Rob has been on Survivor six times, and has also appeared on The Amazing Race, The Traitors, and Deal or No…
Infinity Song: Live From Tribeca Festival
Great musical chemistry often starts at home. Think of family bands like Sly and the Family Stone, The Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, Haim, Oasis, AC/DC, and The Jacksons. Infinity…
Paradise Poisoned: How Utopias Fall Apart
Dore Strauch and Friedrich Ritter make an unconventional couple, united by their contempt for shoes, root vegetables and, above all, society. In 1929 they leave Germany and begin anew on…
Where the Puck Is Going: Why Maximum Gerrymandering May Be Inevitable
As Texas embarks on a rare round of mid-decade redistricting and California threatens to answer with its own, Nate and Maria analyze the history, politics, and game theory of gerrymandering.…
Inventing a Better Pain Pill
Dr. Stephen Waxman is a professor of neurology, neuroscience and pharmacology at Yale. His research on pain helped pave the way for a newly approved, non-addictive pain drug called suzetrigine.…
Margo Price
Margo Price’s new album, Hard Headed Woman, was recorded in the heart of Nashville at the legendary RCA Studio A—the very place where the “Nashville Sound” was born, and where…
