The Middle + SciFri: How Can Trust In Sc...

All the pups we love—from chihuahuas to great danes—are descendants of the mighty gray wolf. But how did we end up with so many breeds? The story that's often told is that dog diversity really took off with the Victorians in the 1800s, but new research is unleashing a different t ... Show More

We keep hearing that these are unprecedented times for science: scientific skeptics running federal agencies, growing mistrust of vaccines, and messaging from the highest levels of government that scientists are in the pocket of industry. To understand how unique this time really ... Show More

In a speech last week in a speech at the World Economic Forum, President Trump said China was making a lot of wind turbines, but not using much wind power in their own country. Is that right? China studies professor Jeremy Wallace joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about the renewable ... Show More

It’s a measure of their insanity that leaders around the world are seriously considering nuclear war. Ivana Hughes of Columbia on what that would mean. (00:00) How Powerful Are Nuclear Weapons? (09:46) What Would Happen if a Nuke Detonated Over Times Square? (24:56) Ozone Layer D ... Show More

Since the US bombing of Japan in World War II, the world entire has remained terrified of nuclear weapons. Even as scientists and scholars spent decades warning about the existential threat posed by technology that can literally end civilization, countries across the planet raced ... Show More

Send us a textJoin Professor Jeffrey Sachs and global security expert Jon Wolfsthal to unravel the stark reality behind the Doomsday Clock - now set at a perilous 89 seconds to midnight. What does this ominous timepiece truly measure, and why has humanity never been closer to cat ... Show More

Much of our discussions about nuclear weapons focus on Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, or the Cold War. But what does the current nuclear age really look like? Sarah Scoles joins Heather Williams to discuss her book “Countdown” and share first hand reporting on the scientists ... Show More

Emmet Penney, creator of Nuclear Barbarians, Grid Brief, and the ex.haust podcast, walks us through the rise, fall and future prospects of nuclear power in the United States. Emmet dives deep on the historical, regulatory, political, and environmentalist forces behind nuclear ene ... Show More

Send us a textJoin Professor Jeffrey Sachs and award-winning journalist Annie Jacobsen as they discuss Jacobsen’s chilling and rigorous depiction of nuclear war in her groundbreaking book, Nuclear War: A Scenario. With meticulous research and interviews with military and politica ... Show More

A mile of pure fire. A flash that melts everything — titanium, steel, lead, people. A blast that mows down every structure in its path, 3 miles out in every direction. Journalist Annie Jacobsen spent years interviewing scientists, high-ranking military officials, politicians, and ... Show More

Waging and winning a nuclear war have been called “thinking about the unthinkable” but that’s exactly what Edward Kaplan and I discussed in our interview about his recent book, The End of Victory: Prevailing in the Thermonuclear Age (Cornell UP, 2022). The current Dean of the Sch ... Show More

Many of you will have been waiting for this podcast after my brief review of Annie Jacobsen’s new book Nuclear War: A Scenario on Critical Mass. I took advantage of our discussion to flesh out some of the harrowing details of her remarkable fictional account of a plausible 72 min ... Show More