What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future

In the U.S., the PCR test is the gold standard for COVID testing. Common knowledge would have it that the test is more accurate—and therefore more effective at containing the spread of the dease—than the rapid antigen test.  What if that isn’t quite true?  Guest: Michael Mina , assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health  Host: Lizzie O’Leary Need to set up...

The final episode of Season 1 features Ted Ross, Chief Information Officer for the City of Los Angeles. His role became more vital than ever during the pandemic, with L.A.’s 4 million residents and 50,000 employees relying on the city’s complex technological operation for support. Ted helped his city navigate the challenge with tech solutions built on principles designed to serve citizens and insp...

Recently, China restricted video game playing to just three hours a week for its young people: 8pm to 9pm, Friday through Sunday. And that’s not the only change. Over the last few months, private tutors, diehard celebrity fans, and tech giants have all faced fresh restrictions from Beijing. What’s behind this new wave of crackdowns? Guest: Brenda Goh , technology correspondent for Reuters Host: Li...

The Colorado River Basin is experiencing its 22nd year of drought. Its reservoirs are at their lowest-ever levels. The water stored in the system is at just 40 percent of its capacity. How did the situation on the Colorado become so dire? And what does the shortage mean for the 40 million people who rely on its waters? Guest: Abrahm Lustgarten , senior investigative reporter at ProPublica Host: Li...

A medicine meant to treat parasites is the latest unproven COVID treatment craze. With warnings from the FDA, and prescribers clamping down, some are going to extreme lengths to get their hands on the drug. What’s behind Ivermectin’s sudden rise? Guest: Brandy Zadrozny , senior reporter for NBC News  Host: Lizzie O’Leary Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, che...

Elizabeth Holmes convinced countless people that her company would change the world. Can she convince 12 jurors that she didn’t intend to deceive her company’s patients and investors? Guest: Rebecca Jarvis , host of “The Dropout” podcast and ABC News Chief Business, Technology & Economics Correspondent  Host: Lizzie O’Leary Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.c...

The Biden administration says a third dose of vaccines for all American adults will end the pandemic faster. And experts say there is evidence of waning vaccine effectiveness against mild-to-moderate disease. But globally, what’s the best use of the next available dose?  Guest: Saad Omer , director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.  Host: Lizzie O’Leary This episode was produced by Alyssa E...

Experts say that a “fully approved” designation for the vaccines could have sweeping effects. Broader vaccination mandates, inclusion for new age groups, and reassurance for those hesitant to take a vaccine without the designation. As calls for approval grow louder and more urgent, the Food and Drug Administration is yet to give its blessing. What’s happening inside the FDA as they work toward thi...

America used to be at the vanguard of railroad technology. What went wrong? And can the new infrastructure bill fix our broken system? Guests: Alon Levy and Eric Goldwyn of the Marron Institute at NYU  Host Henry Grabar   Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts...

Whether it’s a phone screen or a coffee machine, why is it so hard to fix our own stuff? And what can we do to make it a bit easier? Guest: Jason Koebler , editor-in-chief of Motherboard and contributor to the CYBER podcast Host Lizzie O’Leary Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscrib...

This week, Amnesty International and a French journalism nonprofit named Forbidden Stories revealed that technology from a spyware firm called NSO Group is being deployed on a massive scale. The spyware, called Pegasus, gives the user access to every part of a victim’s smartphone -- notes, messages, photos, and recordings.  What’s it like for security researchers to see their worst fears about dig...

Over the last month, North Americans have seen record-breaking heat, droughts, wildfires, and floods. The science is clear: we are living through the effects of climate change. Now scientists are trying to answer: is this the new normal? Guest: Daniel Swain , climate scientist at UCLA  Host Lizzie O’Leary   Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ...

For many white-collar workers, the full-time work from home era is coming to an end. Some are going back into offices five days a week. Many others will be expected to split the week between home and the office.  As the new rules are laid down, office workers are asking themselves: do we want work to go back to the way it was? Or is it time, finally, to try something different?  Guest: Brigid Schu...

From Slate Studios & ServiceNow, this episode of Let’s Workflow It features Deryck Mitchelson – one of the leaders taking on the greatest workflow challenge of our time – the effort to vaccinate millions of citizens from COVID-19. As Director of Information Security for NHS National Services Scotland, Deryck manages his nation’s contact tracing and vaccination systems, and shares his unique pe...

Last week, the U.S. government released a new report that attempts to categorize 144 verified sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP. They could only definitively explain one of them.  The new report signals a shift in the way we think about UAP. As technology has advanced and evidence of these encounters has increased, the question has become more urgent: What exactly is happening in...

For nearly two years, an unprecedented experiment has been taking place in the town of El Zonte in El Salvador. Funded by a mysterious donor, the town’s residents built a Bitcoin economy, using the cryptocurrency to purchase just about anything.  Now, El Slavador has passed a new law making it the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Can they replicate El Zonte’s success at a national s...

Ever since police used a DNA platform called GEDmatch to crack the Golden State Killer case in 2018, police departments around the country have rushed to use genetic genealogy to crack their own cold cases. The result? Hundreds of violent cases solved.  So--why are some states passing new laws to limit this new technology? Guest: Nila Bala , senior staff attorney at the Policing Project at NYU Law...

Over the last decade, billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson have come to embody the future of space travel and exploration. What does it mean when the ideas and ambitions of a few powerful men come to dominate the conversation so thoroughly? Guest: Lucianne Walkowicz , astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and founder of the Just Space Alliance Host Lizzie O’Leary This episode...

Two weeks ago, as wildfires burned north of Los Angeles, the crime app Citizen offered $30,000 for information that would lead to the arrest of a suspected arsonist. They had the wrong guy.  Why is Citizen offering bounties in the first place? And what does this bounty debacle say about the app’s aspirations for the future? Guest: Joseph Cox , reporter at Motherboard  Host Henry Grabar Need to set...

After years of careful planning and public spats, Apple and Epic—the maker of Fortnite—have spent the last three weeks in court, fighting over the future of mobile gaming. What happens if, for once, Apple loses? Guest: Elizabeth Lopatto , deputy editor at the Verge  Host Lizzie O’Leary   Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcas...

Last week, a hacker group called DarkSide shut down the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies 45 percent of the fuel consumed on the East Coast. Gas prices skyrocketed, people started hoarding gas, and DarkSide walked away with over $4 million in Bitcoin. How did they do it? And what makes this hack different from those we’ve seen before? Guest: David Uberti , cybersecurity reporter at the Wall Street...

The Serum Institute of India was supposed to supply vaccines not just to India, but to the entire Global South. Now, with cases surging, there aren’t nearly enough vaccines for India’s population, not to mention the many countries that are relying on it. How did such a successful institution come up so short? And what are the costs of that failure? Guest: Samanth Subramanian , senior reporter at Q...

The question of Donald Trump’s banned account--to keep it blocked, or reinstate it--is one of the toughest that Facebook has ever faced. But the social network had a plan: punt the decision to its newly minted Oversight Board, a semi-independent “Supreme Court” tasked with making hard decisions about what content stays up, and what comes down.  Did that plan just backfire? Guest: Kate Klonick , pr...

There was a time—back when Steve Jobs ran Apple and Mark Zuckerberg was in his early days as Facebook’s CEO— that Apple and Facebook were friends.. Or, at worst, frenemies. But as the companies grew, so did two competing views of how the internet should work.  What led to the rift between Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook? And will Apple’s new privacy rules undercut Facebook’s vision for the internet?...

Last week, a Tesla Model S crashed into a tree in a neighborhood north of Houston. Both men inside the car were killed. But according to police, neither of them was in the driver’s seat.  This is not the first crash in which Tesla’s “autopilot” feature has likely played a role. Should we really be trusting this technology? Guest:  Missy Cummings , professor of electrical and computer engineering a...