David Quammen is the author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, which eerily predicted the kind of zoonotic virus outbreaks that we’re seeing right now. In this interview, we talk about his experience tracking ebola in Africa in 2007, why bats make such great hosts for viruses, and why we’ll be seeing more outbreaks like this in the future.
The novel coronavirus pandemic has officially destabilized our economy, our workplaces, and our homes. That’s the bad news. The worse news? It won’t be the last.
In today’s video I speak with bestselling author David Quammen about zoonotic viruses – viruses that jump from animals to humans. Why they’re so dangerous, why we’ve been seeing more of them in recent years, and why COVID-19 will not be the last one we’ll be dealing with.
You never know what life’s gonna throw at you. Often our best efforts and most brilliant ideas turn into hellish nightmares. From the plant that ate the south to a pill that destroyed a generation, here are 5 times that’s happened.
Our asteroid belt holds minerals and precious metals worth trillions, even quadrillions of dollars. So could asteroid mining create the first trillionaire? Or is the hype overblown?
There are millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt (and perhaps just as many trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit), and some of them potentially contain precious metals worth more than all the money in the world. One single asteroid, 16 Psyche, is worth quintillions of dollars. But somehow early pioneers in asteroid mining like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries have struggled and gone under. How, in this new space race, with the prices of launching to space falling every year, has asteroid mining not become a thing? The answer, and the reality about asteroid mining, is more complex than we think.
You might have heard of Quasars or have a vague idea of what they are, but the incredible reality of these monsters from long ago are almost beyond human comprehension.
Electric cars have a dark secret – cobalt. The element that is in almost all lithium-ion batteries is often considered a conflict mineral because half of all cobalt reserves are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a troubled region with over a century of instability.
But is it as bad as the anti-EV crowd has led us to believe? What’s the reality of the situation, and what are some of the solutions?
Dead whales have a tendency to explode, and in some cases, humans blow them up for them. Here’s why. Maybe don’t eat while you’re watching this.
Hypnosis has a long history, starting as a medical treatment, then becoming pure entertainment, and eventually becoming a psychological tool. But it’s had its share of controversy. Today we’re looking at the history of hypnosis, how hypnosis works, and the dark side of taking a peek at your subconscious mind.
You flush it down the drain every day, but urine is surprisingly useful, and once upon a time, pretty valuable. So today we look at 10 ways urine has been used, and continues to be used today
The placebo effect is the phenomenon of your body responding to a treatment even if it’s not real. It happens so much, so strongly, and so often that it has to be factored in to any medical study.
It speaks to the amazing ability of the brain to physiologically change the body in surprising ways.
