#public-health
99 episodes
#5584: What Happens When Isolation Isn't Chosen
Chosen solitude and forced isolation damage the body differently — and the science shows the damage isn't a one-way door.
#5468: Why Nobody Stops the Candy Bin Grazers
A hand, a mouth, forward motion: what open-bin snacking at Mahane Yehuda reveals about norms nobody enforces anymore.
#5446: The Potter's Field: Who Buries the Unclaimed Dead?
From Hart Island's million graves to the met mitzvah, how societies bury the unclaimed — and why the shame of a pauper's funeral is surprisingly mo...
#5363: One Well Adult vs. a Stomach Bug
Solo caregiver, sick kid, sick partner — how to run fluids, spot red flags, and decide on night checks.
#5336: Cholera and the 3.4 Billion Without Safe Sanitation
Cholera is fast, cheap to treat, and entirely preventable — yet 3.4 billion people lack safe sanitation. Here's why the numbers don't add up.
#5335: The Hidden History of Toilets and Sanitation
From Indus Valley flush drains to Roman sponge sticks to gong farmers — the surprising, gross, and brilliant story of human waste.
#5280: What Chemicals Do to Workers in 2026
2.9 million work-related deaths a year — and 2.58 million of them are disease, not injuries. What workers still don't know about the air they breathe.
#5279: Heavy Metals: Real Syndromes vs. Online Noise
Lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium — each metal has its own syndrome, route, and treatment. The vague online version misses all of it.
#5214: Meningitis: Why It Kills So Fast
Meningitis is an anatomical description, not a prognosis. Same word, wildly different odds — from a bad week to five days from flu symptoms to a fu...
#5209: Sensitivity, Specificity & the Numbers Doctors Use
A field guide to the numbers in a medical paper — what sensitivity, effect size, and risk ratio actually answer, and when they mislead.
#5157: When Labored Breathing in a Baby Means Go
A reassuring oximeter reading isn't the whole story. How to read the work of breathing, count infant breaths, and know when to head in.
#5150: Gaza's Hunger Numbers: What the Data Actually Shows
Famine classification fights obscure simpler questions: how many children are acutely malnourished, and what does the data actually show?
#5149: What 40 Million Tons of Rubble Does to a Landscape
Satellite imagery shows the scale. It doesn't show the eight meters of crushed concrete, the asbestos dust, or the ordnance beneath.
#5148: How the WHO Essential Medicines List Works
Five days in 1977, eight experts, one list that now shapes what billions of people can get from their pharmacies.
#5029: How Much Tuna Is Actually Safe to Eat?
We break down the science of mercury in tuna, the real symptoms of toxicity, and whether canned fish can actually hurt you.
#4953: What Actually Drives Crime Rates?
Youth bulges, alcohol, lead exposure — the surprising science of what makes crime rise and fall.
#4885: Cold Sanctuaries: A Radical AC Policy for Heat Survival
What if every neighborhood had a free, permanent air-conditioned refuge? One man's radical idea for surviving extreme heat.
#4767: What Future Generations Will Blame Us For
We examine today's miracle materials and practices that history may judge as our biggest mistakes.
#4766: Lead Paint: Why 34 Million Homes Still Have It
Why lead was in paint, how it actually becomes dangerous, and why we'll never remove it all.
#4744: Lyme Disease: Facts, Myths, and Tick Safety
What Lyme actually is, why Storrs is ground zero, and how to stay safe outdoors without spiraling.
#4705: The Parasite Hiding in Your Salad
Cyclospora isn't a bacteria—it's a parasite that turns lettuce into an incubator. Here's why outbreaks keep happening.
#4674: Why Earth's Heat Has a Ceiling (And 57°C Is a Lie)
Why 40°C is routine but 57°C is impossible, and what that means for your body, your car's thermometer, and heatwave deaths.
#4646: A Single Slice of Turkey: Border Biosecurity Explained
Why a leftover sandwich triggered a full customs inspection — and the surprising science behind agricultural biosecurity.
#4182: The Corner Store Loophole: Alcohol, Law & Addiction
Why corner stores can sell to visibly addicted customers—and what that does to the body.