The Curiosity Desk

The GLP1 boom and spurred a resurgence of the "skinny culture" of the 1990s-2000s. We talk about the impact that has on body image and mental health with family physician Dr. Mara Gordon and Rachel Rodgers, Associate Professor of Psychology at Northeastern. We've had a few big snow storms and yet... technically we are still in a drought. Meteorologist Dave Epstein explains why.    And Mondays are...

Racial disparities in kidney transplants have been a persistent problem, but a change to a key algorithm that measures kidney function is yielding important progress. Anil Oza, a reporter for Stat News, and LaVarne Burton, president and CEO of the American Kidney Fund, explain the science and what it means for Black patients.  GBH reporter Jeremy Siegel got inside an air traffic control simulator...

A mysterious short-wave radio broadcast from Iran sent out a series of number sequences, when the US and Israeli attack on Iran began. Reporter Shane Harris wrote about this for The Atlantic, and explains how similar dispatches were used by spies in previous generations, and what this dispatch of numbers could mean for the war in Iran.  The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO...

Wildfire smoke from Canada is increasingly part of our summer experience in New England. Writer John Vaillant chronicled one of the most destructive fires that consumed Fort McMurray, Alberta, 10 years ago for his book, "Fire Weather". Vaillant talks with us about how fires and firefighting techniques are changing, due to climate change. GBH News’ Gal Tziperman-Lotan brings us Four Thing to Know i...

Some birds are doing better than others, and there are plenty of factors in the mix.  John Hebert and Lyra Brennan from Mass Audubon join to explain why some species are more resilient than others. GBH News’ Gal Tziperman-Lotan brings us Four Thing to Know in today’s news. The squeak of a sneaker on the basketball court is one of the most identifiable sounds in sports. But what actually makes that...

Nantucket’s wastewater is revealing a not-so-hidden secret: people on the island are consuming noteworthy amounts of cocaine. Axios reporter Mike Deehan and JohnCarl McGrady with the Nantucket Current talk through the story that water samples tell. Mondays are America 250 days on The Curiosity Desk . Today, how AI is brining history to life in the Boston Museum of African American History exhibit,...

AI is being used in modern kinetic wars and in cyberwarfare. We learn how, and how to understand the risks of it, with cybersecurity professor Josephine Wolff at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and Joan Donovan, founder of The Critical Internet Studies Institute.  The Paralympics are underway, and GBH reporter Megan Smith takes us into the sport of wheelchair curling.   And it’s our month...

Strategy, tactics, reading the room – all skills that Jennifer Shahade says we can learn from chess. She would know best, she’s a three-time national chess champion, and author of the upcoming book “Thinking Sideways.”  Shahade and Edgar talk about life and chess, while she gives Edgar a whooping in a live game. Punch, an orphaned baby macaque at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan, gained a social med...

Pokemon has been delighting fans for 30 years, becoming a cultural and financial behemoth in the process. Edgar talks to Daniel Dockery, a freelance writer and author of “MONSTER KIDS: How Pokemon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All,” and Heather Cole, associate professor in Game Design and Interactive Media at West Virginia University. GBH News’ Gal Tziperman-Lotan brings us Four Thing to Know...

MIT Economist Jon Gruber explains the factors that determine the U.S. poverty line, a rubric that impacts trillions in federal aid.  Then, Wikipedia is full of curiosities, and Annie Rauwerda is here for it. Her wildly successful Instagram page, Depths of Wikipedia , shines a light on odd and charming corners of the website. Rauwerda’s one-woman show is at the Wilbur next week.  And, it’s time for...

The US and Israel attacked Iran this weekend, and fake images, videos and disinformation about it immediately spread across the internet. We talk with disinformation expert Joan Donovan about to find credible info on chaotic news events.  And, the power to wage war versus the technical power to declare it. Boston College history professor Seth Jacobs explains the War Powers Act, and its shortcomin...

Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica has been called "the Doomsday Glacier," a reference to the rise in sea level that would results if Thwaites melts. Brent Minchew, a geophysicist at Caltech and chief scientist with the Arête Glacier Initiative , describes his research into how to stop that from happening.   Cape Cod got hit hard in the blizzard, and our colleagues at WCAI were put to the test to keep...

Advertising in ChatGPT was the last straw for Zoë Hitzig. She quit her job as a researcher at OpenAI, saying that ads inject a troubling incentive structure into AI. We talk to her about her work and her perspective.  And, another round of Curiosity Questions from listeners! Edgar and senior producer Aidan Connelly answer queries about blue whales, Harvard’s “whispering arch,” and why weather apps...

Put aside your space savers, and take a look up north: Montreal Gazette transportation reporter Jason Magder describes his city's ingenious method of removing snow from city streets.  Then, historian Sara Morrison from Westfield State describes the long history of methods Boston has tried for managing snow here. Things were much more chaotic in Boston of yore.  And our monthly look at the most-sea...

As we all dig out from the blizzard, we talk to meteorologist Dave Epstein about this storm and this winter generally compare to the historical record. The essential question, have several mild winters made us lose our edge when it comes to serious cold and snow?  And librarians from the GBH Archives plow through (ahem...) decades of GBH tape to share gems from wintry television and radio from yea...

Massachusetts is getting pummeled with wind and snow in a genuine blizzard today, so we have a snow-themed special to keep you company. Under the ice: Jason Stolarski & Julie Wood explaining everything that goes on under the ice when the Charles River freezes over. Jason is a project leader for the MassWildlife Watershed Project, and Julie’s Climate Resilience Director for the Charles River Wa...

In a parking lot, everyone has a go-to method -- you either pull into a parking space, or back into it. Practitioners of each method tend to outrage the other. We ask Daniel Findley and Bryan Northrop help settle – once and for all – which is more efficient. Findley’s a civil engineer at NC State's Institute for Transportation Research and Education, and Northrop is vice president at Skanska, a co...

First up, President Trump's proposed “Board of Peace” has its first meeting today. We ask Abiodun Williams to explain the traditional structures of international diplomacy. Williams is a professor of the practice of international politics at Tufts.  And, with figure skating fans in awe of the quadruple jump, we ask what ARE the limits for figure skating? Anette “Peko” Hosoi and Jerry Lu from the M...

It's National Sauna Week, and we stoke the fires of sauna envy in a conversation with Mark Babson, owner of Got Sauna, and Saana McDaniels, former president of the Finlandia Foundation. Plus, what ever happened to Smell-O-Vision?! Sandeep Robert Datta is a neurobiologist at Harvard, and he explains why it’s so hard to authentically replicate the sensation of smell.    --------- Have something you’...

Winter Olympics has us hooked, and today we spotlight the one sport the US has never won an Olympic medal in: biathlon. Susan Dunklee is a multi-Olympian biathlete and coach based in Vermont. She explains how to excel at both cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. By listener request, we take a look at small town library that has an international border running right through the children's book...

It's President's Day and we're all about Americana and the executive branch today.  First up, a musical spin on our America 250 series with a listen back to De La Soul's 1989 album "Three Feet High and Rising." Writer and historian Dart Adams makes a strong argument for why the rap album was truly revolutionary. Then, we give some attention to lesser-told stories about the American presidency. Meg...

Valentine's Day isn't just for people - coyotes are getting it on this time of year too. Meghan Crawford is a biologist with Mass Wildlife and talks us through coyote mating season.  And then, don't step on cracks, don't break mirrors, don't let the evil eye notice your good fortune: today is Friday the 13th! Folklore and mythology scholar Kerry Noonan from Champlain College explores the cultural...

Our 'How Close We Are We?' series looks at big-picture problems and the people moving us towards solutions. Today, Sangeeta Bhatia and Angela Belcher -- both researchers at MIT -- explain the advances in treatment for ovarian cancer.  And, your DIY questions and conundrums are solved by Mark Philben. Mark writes the “Ask the Remodeler” column for the Boston Globe, and takes your calls on ice dams...

Ticketmaster is the service that music fans love to hate, blaming the industry titan for exorbitant prices and concert tickets that are impossible to get. We get into how things got so lousy for would-be concertgoers with Andy Cush, a music journalist and former contributing editor for Pitchfork.   GBH News' Gal Tziperman-Lotan returns with the latest edition of her “Four Things to Know” newslette...

Buy-now-pay-later programs are gaining popularity. Matthew Schulz helps break down who benefits and who takes a risk with BNPL. Matthew is Chief Consumer Finance Analyst at Lending Tree also author of “Ask Questions, Save Money, Make More: How To Take Control Of Your Financial Life.” GBH News' Gal Tziperman-Lotan returns for the Curiosity Desk edition of her Four Things to Know  newsletter.  And S...