The Daily Dive

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pediatric hospitals are currently packed with kids coming down with respiratory syncytial virus or RSV.  Babies under a year old are being hospitalized at six times the rate from 2019 and overall rates for people of all ages are seven times higher.  The good news is that help could be on the way.  This week, Pfizer announced that a clinical trial of their maternal vaccine prevented 69% of severe c...

For now, it seems like all the changes to Twitter are playing out in real-time on the platform itself.  On Tuesday, Elon Musk tweeted that it would be changing the verification method for accounts and that it would be rolled up into its “Twitter Blue” service at a cost of $8 per month.  When verification first started, it was an attempt to combat misinformation.  Heather Kelly, tech reporter at Th...

After an extremely hot employment market and people job-hopping their way to better paying positions, it seems like the Great Resignation is cooling off.  While overall job listings are still higher than pre-pandemic levels, demand is falling in areas where remote work really took off such as HR, software development, marketing, and math-related roles.  Emily Peck, markets correspondent at Axios,...

 Last week, Paul Pelosi, the husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was attacked at their home in San Francisco.  We are now learning more about the attacker who left an extensive online trail of support for conspiracy theories and blog posts railing against Jewish and Black people, the media, and transgender people.  When he entered the home, he kept asking “Where’s Nancy?”  Julia Manchest...

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world is running out of helium, but the concern is not that we won’t be able to blow up balloons, the shortage could impact the usage of MRI machines.  Helium is a non-renewable element that comes form the Earth’s crust and in its liquid form, it’s used to cool the magnets that make the MRI work.  Caroline Hopkins, freelance reporter for NBC News, joins us for why it is so scarce and how manuf...

The debate to watch this week was between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz.  It was Pennsylvania’s first and only Senate debate and could be the thing that tips the scales.  John Fetterman’s recovery from a stroke he suffered some months ago was on full display.  The Democrats’ speech was delayed, and he struggled to answer coherently at times.  Dr. Oz, on the other hand, was very polished and comfort...

The midterm elections are now less than two weeks away and both parties are making strategic shifts in messaging and reallocating financial resources.  Republicans are moving money away from races they see as a lock and attacking Democrats by doubling down on crime and inflation issues.  Democrats are sending resources to areas that were once solidly blue as they have been put on the defensive and...

Results from the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress are showing the largest drop in math scores ever with declines in every state.  Reading scores didn’t fare much better with the largest drop in 4th grade reading since 1990.  Educators say that the pandemic has exacerbated existing gaps in education and tech issues hampered remote learning.  Ben Chapman, education reporter at the WS...

Xi Jinping has claimed a third term as the Communist Party leader in China.  He will now serve another five-year term overseeing the world’s second largest economy and a growing military continuing to pose threats to the U.S. on multiple fronts.  Julia Manchester, national political reporter at The Hill, joins us for the latest in China and more.  With the midterm elections just a few weeks away,...

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scientists at Boston University recently created in a lab a new Covid virus that had the transmissibility of the Omicron variant and was also more likely to cause severe disease.  They called it the Omicron S-bearing virus.  The study found that the engineered virus had a mortality rate of 80%.  The experiment has once again called into question the purpose of so-called “gain of function” research...

The latest way immigration smugglers are trying to recruit more help is by advertising on social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat.  Posts are promising hundreds or thousands of dollars for a few hours of driving.  The problem is, the recruits often don’t know what they are in for until they are close, picking up migrants by the border and driving them inland.  Alicia Caldwell, im...

On Monday, hearing aids became available for people to purchase over the counter without the need to see a doctor first.  The FDA cleared the sale of these and is seen as a win for those with hearing loss, but before you go out and buy one, make sure to do your research.  There will be a lot of different models at different price points, and you’ll need to choose the best option for you.  Nina Kec...

As housing affordability continues to be a problem across many parts of the country, could an algorithm be responsible for apartment rents going up?  The software called YieldStar suggests daily prices for open units using data analytics.  In some cases, the software suggests double digit price increases.  It even goes as far as to suggest that landlords could get more revenue with a lower occupan...

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a new Hollywood drug on the scene, but it’s not a party drug, it’s a frug that is used to treat diabetes.  People are looking to Ozempic and similar drugs used to treat Type 2 as a quick fix for weight loss.  These drugs have an ingredient called semaglutide which stimulates insulin production, but also targets areas of the brain that regulate appetite.  Sara Ashley O’Brien, reporter at th...

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After tons of anger and outcry from the entire city of Los Angeles, former City Council President Nury Martinez has resigned her city council seat.  This comes after leaked audio surfaced in which you can hear Martinez and two other councilmembers make crude and racist remarks.  The scandal has outraged residents who shut down council meetings demanding more resignations.  In the wake of the leake...

This year’s rankings of universities around the world has fewer U.S. universities ranking in the top 100 and China stepping up with more high impact research.  A higher percentage of China’s research is being cited globally and is focused on materials science, chemistry, and engineering while the U.S. is focusing on clinical medicine and physics.  Doug Belkin, higher education reporter at the WSJ,...

The effort to create a more secure and powerful internet, one that could potentially be unbackable lies in quantum research going on at the University of Chicago, more specifically in a basement closet at the lab there.  In this closet they are firing off quantum particles into a fiber-optic network with the hopes of eventually connecting a network of supercomputers.  Jeanne Whalen, reporter at th...

Leaked audio has led to a scandal at the Los Angeles City Council.  City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmembers Kevin de Leon and Gill Cedillo, and LA County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera were all caught in a conversation from last year where they were talking about redistricting and Latino political power and how they could sway it their way, but the conversation quickly devo...