A Beetle By Any Other Name
A tiny, unremarkable beetle hiding in the caves of Slovenia has an infamously unfortunate name—one that has sparked heated debates in the scientific world.
Poison and Poisonability
When we think of serial killers, we tend to think of men—Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack the Ripper. But in the 1800s, the deadliest killers often wore corsets. In fact,…
Cybertruck Club Bombarded by Trash Before Leaving Mardi Gras Parade In Shame
With a whopping seven recalls in just over a year — and a fire fatality rate exceeding the infamous Ford Pinto— it's never been a particularly great time to be a…
An Angel at My Table
An Angel at My Table is a 1990 biographical drama film directed by Jane Campion. The film is based on Janet Frame's three autobiographies, To the Is-Land (1982), An Angel…
Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Work, and Algorithms | Matteo Pasquinelli and Richard Hames
What is AI? A dominant view describes it as the quest "to solve intelligence"—a solution supposedly to be found in the secret logic of the mind, such as in its…
The World You Built
this is only new if you haven't paid attention to how the US treats the rest of the world
Cory Doctorow on Elon Musk’s “Chaotic Blitz” at DOGE, Living in a Tech Dystopia, Luigi Mangione
We speak with the acclaimed science fiction author, activist and journalist Cory Doctorow, who has spent decades writing and thinking about the impact of technology on our lives. He coined…
Healing From Helene
In late September 2024, Hurricane Helene inundated western North Carolina with record rainfall that caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides, leading to more than a hundred storm-related deaths, according to the…
Pokémon and The Art of Dubbing Anime
This week’s episode comes from our Patreon podcast Between Imaginary Worlds. It’s a more casual chat show that appears between ad-free episodes of Imaginary Worlds for listeners who support the…