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ISS Results: Stem Cells in Space

Dr. Abba Zubair discusses how stem cell research aboard the International Space Station is advancing regenerative medicine and what scientists learned from a recently published study. Episode 432

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

Medicine keeps advancing. Trust is falling behind. This hour, TED speakers explore why the future of healthcare depends not only on innovation, but also on listening, humility and honesty.

Guests include viral immunologist Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire and writer James Robinson.

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Sand heists and property rights in the Caribbean (Summer School)

Imagine a nation where, for the residents, land is for the claiming. You walk down the street, pick out a nice looking plot of land, and just plop down a marker. No rent, no taxes, no deed – just free land. That’s the communal system of property rights that governed a small Caribbean island for over a century.

This week on our Summer School World Tour we make port on the small economies of island nations, a great place to explore how different experiments play out. Every small change – the good and the bad – has big consequences.

First, the fascinating test case on the island of Barbuda, where the people there have found a way to run things without the usual, formal land rights.

Then, we consider the vulnerabilities of small nations as we dig into a mysterious sand heist in Jamaica. A stolen beach – yes, you read that right – and something called “sand forensics” reveal the importance of this seemingly infinite resource and the challenges of protecting public spaces when there’s money to be made.

Along the way we found ourselves asking: Does property have to be private? What happens when it’s not? How can you protect scarce resources when they’re part of the vast, public spaces everyone shares?

Featured Episodes:

Featured Terms:

  • Tragedy of the commons
  • Property rights
  • Path dependence
  • Ownership in common

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This episode of Planet Money Summer School is hosted by Robert Smith. It was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre and edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark. It was fact-checked by Leyla Doss and engineered by Annlie Huang.

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894: I Couldn’t Help but Notice

People dealing with new, glaring, massive changes happening right where they live.

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  • Prologue: Rick Cole, a city councilmember in Pasadena, CA, talks to Ira about how he responded to a surprise nighttime military exercise in his neighborhood this June – complete with helicopters, gunfire, and flash bangs. (5 minutes)
  • Act One: A doctor trained as a midwife tells the eye-popping story of how she and others came together to save a baby during a birth that suddenly went wrong, in a part of rural Maine where the local labor and delivery unit had closed less than a month before. (26 minutes)
  • Act Two: Producer Valerie Kipnis never felt like an insider in the jokes and stories her family told about growing up in the Soviet Union until she saw this year’s Oscar-winning documentary, Mr. Nobody Against Putin. The film follows the changes unfolding in one school as Russia rolled out a nationwide propaganda push after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Valerie interviewed the young teacher at the center of the documentary and learned things that never made it into the film. (21 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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What makes a toy go viral

Squishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these toys are reshaping how toys get made.

Today on the show, we have the story of the once-humble squishy dumpling and what it teaches us about how to make a viral hit and how to manufacture it, without getting left holding the bag. Hear it all firsthand from the creator of this trendy toy. 

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This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio – “Melty Heart,” “Summer Escape,” and “Twilight Sparkle”

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CHAPEA 2: Audio Log 3

NASA’s CHAPEA II crew shares what it was like to operate through a simulated two-week communications blackout with Earth, and NASA analog scientist Sarah Whiting explains what researchers are learning for future Mars missions. Episode 431 

Addiction, motherhood and Jesus with writer Anne Lamott

Writer Anne Lamott has gained a cult following through shockingly honest prose on love, death, faith, writing and more. This hour, her wisdom from a career spanning 21 books and some 40 years.

This episode originally aired April 2024.

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How to beat the resource curse in Norway (Summer School)

Let’s call it the luxury of restraint. This is what enabled Norway to avoid the fate of so many other countries when they discovered oil and it changed the mix of their economy overnight.

Norway! It’s expensive, wealthy, and abundant in resources. We’re going to compare two of them in particular today: deep reservoirs of oil and icy waters full of salmon. While one resource was heavily in demand, the country had an oversupply of the other.

In this episode, we learn how Norway built its wealth by carefully avoiding the pitfalls of discovering oil that have plagued countries in the past and how it creatively created demand for its raw fish abroad.

How do you dodge the dreaded resource curse? What clever ways can you benefit from oversupply? And lastly, how do you get rich and stay that way?

Featured Episodes:

Featured Terms:

  • Resource curse / Dutch disease / paradox of plenty
  • Coordination problem
  • Free-rider problem

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This episode of Planet Money Summer School is hosted by Robert Smith. It was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre and edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo with help from Annlie Huang and Robert Rodriguez.

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893: Testosterone

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered everyone over 30 in the military to have their testosterone tested. That inspired us to rerun this classic episode where everyone at This American Life tested their testosterone and compared results. It did not lead to workplace harmony.

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  • Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Alex Blumberg, who explains that he wanted to do this show because of his conflicted relationship with his own testosterone. He tells Ira that the reasons go back to a girl in his 8th-grade homeroom. We also hear from a man who stopped producing testosterone due to a medical treatment, and found his entire personality was altered. (10 minutes)
  • Act One: What’s it like to get injected with testosterone? When Griffin Hansbury transitioned, he got massive shots of it and was surprised at the effect it had on him. (17 minutes)
  • Act Two: The men and women on staff at This American Life decide to get their testosterone levels tested to see who has the most and least, and whether personality traits actually match hormone levels. (13 minutes)
  • Act Three: What happens when a man suddenly loses all of his testosterone? We return to Alex Blumberg’s interview from the top of the show with a man who that happened to. He says life without testosterone is life without desire. By that he doesn’t mean sexual desire. He means any desire. (6 minutes)
  • Act Four: Novelist Miriam Toews interviews her 15-year-old son, someone at an age when boys experience a jolt of ten or twenty times the testosterone they had as children, about all the things she doesn’t understand about what he’s going through. (11 minutes)

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Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School)

Let’s head to a small town in Kenya that’s become globally famous for helping economists answer some of the biggest questions facing humanity.

In Kenya and Nigeria, economics isn’t just theory, it’s real life. We’ll look at some radical experiments that turned out to be enormously successful.

What are the building blocks of health, education and prosperity for all? How does a nation grow rich? What is the most effective way to spend a dollar to fight poverty? We find answers in a town that became the laboratory for new concepts in economic research that netted some researchers the most prestigious prize in economics.

Featured Episodes:

Featured Terms:

  • Randomized controlled trial
  • Human capital
  • Missing middle

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The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark. This episode was fact-checked by Leyla Doss, with engineering by Annlie Huang.

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