Is the capacity to imagine unique to humans? Scientists thought so—but a pretend tea party with a bonobo named Kanzi suggests otherwise.
Yesterday
How Is Screen Time Affecting My Kid?
Screens are ubiquitous in today’s world, and concerns about how they affect kids are mounting. Last month, Australia banned social media use for kids under 16, with some European countries poised to follow. But what’s the science on how neverending YouTube videos or TikToks affec ... Show More
23m 33s
Feb 11
Who Wants To Smell An Ancient Embalmed Mummy?
Wandering through a museum, you can get a glimpse of what life in ancient societies looked like. But what did it smell like? And is it even possible to get a whiff of, say, a freshly embalmed mummy, or a 5,000-year-old Saudi Arabian incense burner? That’s exactly what some chemis ... Show More
19m 2s
Feb 2025
Season 4, Episode 6: Jon Wolfsthal; Federation of American Scientists, Doomsday Clock
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
51m 26s
May 2022
Who Killed Nuclear Energy?
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
1h 15m
Jan 2025
Season 4, Episode 4: Annie Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario
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
52m 18s
Jun 2024
The world after nuclear war
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
57m 6s
Aug 2024
Edward Kaplan, "The End of Victory: Prevailing in the Thermonuclear Age" (Cornell UP, 2022)
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
1h 4m