Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
Monsanto: Playing God (Part 5)
Episode 143
Who was Bob Shapiro, the guitar-playing Vietnam protester turned Monsanto CEO who genuinely believed genetically modified seeds could save the planet…
1 month, 3 weeks ago
Monsanto: The Pesticide That "Feeds the World" (Part 4)
Episode 142
What was Roundup, the herbicide born from a soap crisis in a radioactive Idaho slag heap, that became the most widely used weed-killer in human histo…
2 months ago
Monsanto: Agent Orange and the Fields of Vietnam (Part 3)
Episode 141
What was Agent Orange, the herbicide that fell like mist on the jungles of Vietnam — and how did a chemical born in a West Virginia factory end up de…
2 months, 1 week ago
Monsanto: A Chemical War Comes Home (Part 2)
Episode 140
Who was Edgar Queeny, the cold-eyed social Darwinist who inherited a chemical company from his father and turned it into one of the most powerful ind…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Monsanto: The Sweetener and the Salesman (Part 1)
Episode 139
Who was John Francis Queeny, the broke Irish-American salesman who founded one of the most powerful and controversial companies in the history of mod…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
The Green Revolution 2.0: Bill Gates and the Remaking of Agriculture
Episode 138
Who is Bill Gates, the college dropout from Seattle who built the operating system of global capitalism - and then turned his restless, problem-solvi…
3 months ago
Huitlacoche: Corn Smut or Sacred Gift?
Episode 137
What is huitlacoche, the fungus that Indigenous farmers in Mexico gave thanks for at harvest - and that American agronomists spent a century trying t…
3 months, 1 week ago
The Rise of Plastic in Fresh Produce
Episode 136
What is plastic, and how did a shortage of billiard balls accidentally give birth to the material that would feed the modern world? Why did a Belgian…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
The Tree of Life: Empires, War, and the Modern Date (Part 2)
Episode 135
How did the humble date palm become entangled in the great age of empire? Why did steamships, railways, and the opening of the Suez Canal transform a…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
The Tree of Life: How Dates Built the Ancient World (Part 1)
Episode 134
How did a humble desert fruit help build some of the world’s earliest civilizations? Why did ancient farmers in Mesopotamia become master matchmakers…
3 months, 3 weeks ago