The Elixir of Life

For most of human history, people went about their daily lives with a worm or two (or fifty) in their guts. Only in the past century, with pharmaceuticals and sanitation practices, have we made significant strides towards deworming the whole of humanity. And that’s typically been ...  Show more

With all of the black-and-white moralizing in our world today, we decided to bring back an old show from 2011 about the little bit of bad that's in all of us...and the little bit of really, really bad that's in some of us. Cruelty, violence, badness... in this episode we begin wi ...  Show more

This week, Slate’s TV critic and host of the podcast Decoder Ring, Willa Paskin, and poet, essayist, podcast host, and author, Nichole Perkins, fill in for Dana and Julia. The panel begins by taking a spin with Julian Fellowes’ (creator of Downton Abbey) new show The Gilded Age. ...  Show more

Scientists now agree that COVID spreads via airborne transmission. But during the early days of the disease, public health officials suggested that it mainly did so via close contact. The subsequent back-and-forth over how COVID spread brought science journalist Carl Zimmer into ...  Show more

In a hauntingly innovative exhibit, brain cells grown from the late composer Alvin Lucier’s blood generate sound. Set in a museum in Perth, Australia, the installation blurs the line between art and neuroscience. Host Rachel Feltman and associate editor Allison Parshall explore t ...  Show more

In a hauntingly innovative exhibit, brain cells grown from the late composer Alvin Lucier’s blood generate sound. Set in a museum in Perth, Australia, the installation blurs the line between art and neuroscience. Host Rachel Feltman and associate editor Allison Parshall explore t ...  Show more