A virus hunter in Nigeria has thoughts o...

A few weeks ago, we talked to two sonic branding experts who compose music for household appliances. And we played for them a song “sung” by a washing machine that they didn’t really appreciate. But many of our listeners immediately identified the tune, a famous melody by 19th-ce ... Show More

If you look up where medicine originated, or the earliest medical interventions, you’ll probably find yourself reading about ancient Greece or Egypt or Mesopotamia. But what about before that? How did early humans treat illnesses or cope with injuries? What did a Neanderthal do i ... Show More

A group of researchers and private investors are planning a series of privately funded missions to Venus, hoping to find signs of life. That may seem like a startling possibility. Although Venus is a close neighbor to Earth, it has a smothering atmosphere of carbon dioxide that h ... 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 Fan MailJoin 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 c ... 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

On 6 and 9 August 1945, the US military bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki using a weapon of unprecedented destructive capability, the atom bomb. These bombings marked the beginning of the nuclear age and remain the only use of a nuclear weapon in an active conf ... Show More

New York has issued a public service announcement advising how people can protect themselves in the event of a nuclear attack. Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons joined Sean to discuss the potential for nuclear war and what ... Show More

Send us Fan MailJoin 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 politi ... Show More

Where did the world’s most devastating weapon come from? In a four-part series, we go behind the scenes at America's nuclear laboratories to understand how a scientific-mystery story about the ingredients of matter led to a world-changing (and second-world-war-ending) bomb less t ... Show More