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Solving Solar’s Biggest Problem
Season 1 Episode 127
We need better, cheaper ways to store solar and wind energy when it’s dark out and the wind isn’t blowing.
One option: Compressing air in underground…
1 year, 7 months ago
How Bubbles Power Breakthroughs
Season 1 Episode 126
There are moments in history when people make huge technological advances all of a sudden. Think of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo missions, or, m…
1 year, 7 months ago
Teaching AI to Build Stuff in the Physical World
Season 1 Episode 125
AI works well in the virtual world. That’s partly because the internet provides so much data to train AI models. But there’s no analogous data set fo…
1 year, 8 months ago
NVIDIA: At the Heart of the AI Boom
Season 1 Episode 124
In the past few years, NVIDIA has become one of the most valuable and important companies in the world by making GPUs, the chips powering the AI boo…
1 year, 8 months ago
What Claude Shannon Figured Out
Season 1 Episode 123
Claude Shannon is a major figure in the history of technology. Known as the father of information theory, Shannon spent decades at Bell Labs and MIT…
1 year, 8 months ago
Measles: The Cancer Killer?... from Incubation
Season 1 Episode 122
We thought we knew everything there was to know about measles. But in recent years, new research has revealed that the virus attacks the immune syste…
1 year, 9 months ago
RoboPod and the Perpetual Money Machine – Cautionary Questions 2… from Cautionary Tales
Season 1 Episode 121
What really drove the 2008 financial crash? What’s a shadow bank? And what’s the connection between NIMBYs and BANANAs? Tim Harford and Jacob Goldste…
1 year, 9 months ago
Turning Solar Energy Into Fuel (The Solar Era, Part 3)
Season 1 Episode 120
Solar power and batteries are becoming cheap and ubiquitous. Great. But there are problems batteries can’t solve – like fueling ships and planes. One…
1 year, 10 months ago
Get Happier, Help Others: Some Good Ideas About Giving
Season 9 Episode 23
It's the season of giving: colorful paper and shiny bows, sure, and charitable giving, too. In this special episode, Jacob Goldstein, the host of Wha…
1 year, 10 months ago
Can Hot Bricks Save the World? (The Solar Era, Part 2)
Season 1 Episode 119
This is the second of three episodes about the solar-power revolution. Last week, we talked about how solar power got so cheap. This week, we’re talk…
1 year, 10 months ago