The World as You’ll Know It: The Future Of Aging

For over a century, we’ve been in the midst of a revolution in longevity – one that is unprecedented in human history. More than a quarter century has been added to the average lifespan since the 1900s.  How should individuals and society make the most of this time? How can we rethink education, careers, healthcare, and retirement in light of our longer lives? In the season finale of The World As...

The world today is oversaturated with trends, tips, and treatments for how to live long and be healthy while doing it. But it can be hard to know who to listen to – and what actually works. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Eric Topol, renowned cardiologist and author of the book Super Agers: An Evidenced-Based Approach to Longevity, to clear up some of the myths around healthy aging and shine light...

Women tend to live longer than men, even under the most difficult conditions like famines and epidemics. While it’s true that women tend to go to the doctor more and engage in less risk-prone activities, behavior alone doesn’t explain this phenomenon. In this episode, demographer Virginia Zarulli tells us about the implications of the startling fact that, in times of extreme hardship, it is often...

We’ve known about Alzheimer’s and its devastating effects for more than 100 years, and have been predicting an imminent cure for at least the last 25. So why is it that after so many years of research and unrelenting loss, we’re not further along in our progress towards a cure? In this episode we consult three experts who have dedicated much of their lives to understanding this question. Neurobiol...

A forgotten name, misplaced keys, feeling overwhelmed by some new technology. Classic signs of a brain beginning its long, inexorable descent into old age? Not necessarily. In fact, new research shows that we can preserve and even enhance our cognitive skills as we get older. In this episode, we explore the science behind the aging brain with psychologist and lifelong learner Dr. Rachel Wu, who ha...

Blood transfusions, cryotherapy, experimental drugs and intermittent fasting are just a few of the measures so-called biohackers are taking in hopes of radically extending their lifespans. But what started as a faddish subculture has boomed into a multi-billion dollar industry – encompassing both shady claims and reputable scientific research. In this episode, we unpack the science and the hype be...

In 2000, two scientists — Steve Austed, a biologist and Jay Olshanksy, a biostatistician — made a bet. Would a  person live to the age of 150 by the year 2150? Austad bet yes and Olshansky bet no. The wager? $150, which will grow to more than one billion by the time it’s settled.   In this episode, we revisit this twenty-five year old bet  to find both men sticking to their guns. We also  speak to...

Human beings are living longer than ever. Thanks to advances like vaccines, antibiotics, pasteurized milk and clean water, we’ve added more than 30 years to the average lifespan over the last 120 years. That’s more than was added in the previous 10,000 years combined. More recently, enormous progress has been made in our treatment of deadly conditions like heart disease and cancer, with mortality...

The Paris Climate Agreement says we need to reach “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. That means for every new carbon molecule we put in the air, we have to take one out. Even the most optimistic forecasts still anticipate burning fossil fuels well past that date. So how do we balance the carbon books? Enter direct air capture, or DAC — a mechanical process that sucks carbon out of the atmosphere...

Hydrogen has long been the great hope of the environmental movement. Hydrogen-powered cars; airplanes; even home heating. A single molecule could power it all. Much of that has gone nowhere. But now, hydrogen is being touted as the answer to carbon-free steel. Can we trust in our hydrogen future this time? To explore that question, host Arielle Duhaime-Ross talks to Rachael Fahkry, policy director...

Heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather event, and scientists expect the earth to continue to get hotter. Unfortunately, one of the most effective tools we have to combat heat — air-conditioning — also contributes to global warming. The hotter we get, the more AC we’ll need: It’s a conundrum. So how do we keep cool without making the planet hotter at the same time? Host...

The United States was once on track to be a world leader in nuclear power, building more than 100 plants in the 1970s and 1980s. But cost and safety concerns led to decades of decommissioning old plants and canceling plans to build new ones. Now, with clean energy production a top priority, there are signs of a revival. Reactors at the first new nuclear plant to be built in almost 30 years went on...

Americans drive more, drive further, and pay less for fuel than people in other developed countries. Partly for this reason, our vehicles are more than just a means of transportation — they’re extensions of who we are. So persuading Americans to swap out gas-dependent cars for EVs is a different — and in many ways more difficult — challenge. What’s it going to take to get more Americans into elect...

In the past 50 years, solar energy has surpassed all expectations. Even early solar experts couldn’t predict how affordable and widespread it would become. The story behind its success involves Einstein, US presidents, obscure legislation and a global relay race.  Now the question is – What can the rise of solar power teach us about the future of other climate technologies? Join this season’s host...

We’re currently involved in one of the most ambitious projects we, as humans, have ever attempted: Rebuilding the world, pretty much from the ground up, in order to switch from fossil fuels to clean energy sources. In this season of The World as You'll Know It, science journalist Arielle Duhaime-Ross goes deep inside the world of cutting-edge climate technologies and asks: How is this going to wor...

In our final episode, Host Gary Marcus shares his hopes for and fears about an AI-driven future. On the one hand, AI could accelerate solutions to some of society’s most difficult problems; on the other, it could deepen existing problems and create new existential risks to humanity. Getting it right, Marcus emphasizes, depends on establishing both national and international standards for the indus...

Some people use chatbots for therapy. Others have fallen in love with them. And some people argue that AI systems have become sentient and are entitled to certain rights. In this episode, Gary Marcus explores our relationship with AI technology —  how it’s changing and where it might lead. He speaks with Blake Lemoine, an engineer who believes that a Google program has achieved sentience and even...

The emergence of generative AI threatens to automate millions of jobs, potentially ushering in a new and unprecedented wave of job displacement. In the past, newly created jobs replaced those lost. Will that happen this time? To discuss this, Gary Marcus is joined by Amy Winter, a concept artist who sees generative AI as a threat to her career, Brian Merchant, the technology columnist for the Los...

Misinformation has already influenced our elections, ruined reputations and fundamentally changed society’s relationship with the truth. Now, large language models like GPT have the potential to create and spread misinformation at a speed and scale we’ve never seen before. As new technologies allow bad actors to imitate the way we write, the way we speak and the way we appear in photos and videos,...

New large language models are capable of writing essays, drafting marketing pitches and having human-like exchanges on chat apps. But can they make us laugh the way a human can? To explore this, host Gary Marcus is joined by Dr. Naomi Saphra, an AI researcher and comedian, Bob Mankoff, former Cartoon Editor of The New Yorker magazine and Yejin Choi, a computer science professor at the University o...

We've been promised wide-scale driverless cars for more than a decade, but a true driverless experience still remains out of reach. It turns out that taking humans out of the loop is putting everyone on the road at risk. Host Gary Marcus talks to Cade Metz, a tech reporter for The New York Times and Dr. Missy Cummings, former senior safety advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrat...

After its victory on Jeopardy, IBM made a billion-dollar bet on Watson: cancer. But it turned out that diagnosing patients isn’t the same as answering questions on a game show. Gary Marcus talks to journalists, doctors and computer scientists to find out how and why IBM’s experiment failed to live up to expectations, then looks at a new AI project that is showing promise at treating one of the wor...

In 2011, Watson, a computer built by IBM, shocked the world by becoming the first non-human contestant to win Jeopardy. An immediate sensation, Watson became the symbol of the seemingly limitless horizons of artificial intelligence. Host Gary Marcus retells this amazing story with the help of Dave Ferrucci, the genius behind Watson’s success, and Ken Jennings, the all-time Jeopardy champion and th...

From the producers of The World as You’ll Know It, a new series about the perils and promise of artificial intelligence with cognitive scientist, Gary Marcus. For all the progress in artificial intelligence over the last 70 years — computers can now beat people at chess and Go, detect fraud, give driving instructions and write like Shakespeare — we still don’t know how to build AI we can trust. Th...

Judith Warner speaks with Dr. Matthew Johnson about the state of psychedelic research today and the likelihood that certain drugs — MDMA and psilocybin specifically — could soon be approved for the treatment of conditions like addiction and PTSD. Psychedelics have long been known for their abilities to alter perception, but renewed interest by major research institutions in psychedelics’ ability t...