Our miniseries Not Now, But Soon challenges the stories we often tell about disasters and explores how we can use speculative fiction to create better futures and policies.
On this episode, host Malka Older is joined by Nasir Andisha, ambassador and permanent representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations, to reimagine Afghanistan and the stories we tell about its past, present, and future. As ambassador, Andisha represents the people—not the current government—of a country that has been navigating disaster for decades. He shares the story of what it’s like to lose his nation while continuing to advocate for its people.Resources
Visit Nasir Andisha’s website to learn more about human rights, policy, and Afghanistan’s challenges.
This episode features brief audio snippets from the BBC and Inside Edition.
This podcast is part of the Future Tense Fiction project, a speculative fiction series that uses imagination to explore how science and technology will shape our future. Read the short stories from the series published by Issues in Science and Technology.
Our miniseries Not Now, But Soon challenges the stories we often tell about disasters and explores how we can use speculative fiction to create better futures and policies.
On this episode, host Malka Older examines the stories behind statistics with Julisa Tambunan, deputy executive director of Equal Measures 2030, a global feminist coalition. Tambunan uses data to advocate for policies that center the lived experiences of women, girls, and underrepresented minorities. She explains why gender inequality is a disaster and how collecting better data—both statistics and stories—can help create a better future for everyone.
Resources
Visit Equal Measures 2030 to learn more about achieving gender equality through data-driven advocacy.
This podcast is part of the Future Tense Fiction project, a speculative fiction series that uses imagination to explore how science and technology will shape our future. Read the short stories from the series published by Issues in Science and Technology.
Our miniseries Not Now, But Soon challenges the stories we often tell about disasters and explores how we can use speculative fiction to create better futures and policies.
On this episode, host Malka Older explores food systems with investigative journalist Thin Lei Win. Win shares her experience growing up in Myanmar, and how that has shaped how she sees the intersection between food production, climate, and disasters.
This podcast is part of the Future Tense Fiction project, a speculative fiction series that uses imagination to explore how science and technology will shape our future. Read the short stories from the series published by Issues in Science and Technology.
Resources
Follow Win’s weekly newsletter, Thin Ink, to learn more about food, climate and where they meet. Get started with her newsletter with these articles:
“Moonstruck”: a critique of the focus of the food system’s focus on technology and productivity to solve food insecurity, at the expense of equity.
“A System Under Strain”: a roundup of recent reports on food systems.
Win coordinated The New Humanitarian’s series on emerging hunger hotspots as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Find more of Win’s food system investigations at Lighthouse Reports.
“The Hunger Profiteers”: how financial speculation could be fueling hunger.
“Farmers Protest, Who Gains?”: Who is leading the farmers’ protest in Europe and are they truly representative of farmers?
Visit Kite Tales to read stories from Myanmar’s people in their own words.
Our new miniseries, Not Now, But Soon, challenges the stories we often tell about disasters, and explores how we can use speculative fiction to create better futures and policies. On our first episode, host Malka Older talks to Steven Gonzalez, an anthropologist of technology who researches the human labor behind data centers.
Gonzalez is also a speculative fiction writer under the byline E. G. Condé. He is one of the creators of Taínofuturism, which incorporates Indigenous Caribbean traditions to imagine futures from a radically different perspective. His novella, Sordidez, explores how survivors’ efforts to rebuild after a hurricane intersects with oppression and conflict in a future Caribbean.
In this episode, Gonzalez compares these different types of disasters: the dramatic and immediate impacts of the hurricane, and the slower, steadier, and often overlooked disasters of environmental destruction, resource depletion, and exploitation of human labor associated with our internet infrastructure.
Resources:
Visit Steven Gonzalez’s website to learn more about the impacts of cloud computing.
Find Gonzalez’s fiction under the byline E.G. Condé. Check out his novella, Sordidez, winner of the Indie Ink Award for "Writing the Future We Need: Latinx/Latine Representation by a Latinx/Latine author."
This podcast is part of the Future Tense Fiction project. Read all Future Tense Fiction stories at issues.org/futuretensefiction.
Why do disasters happen? How do we rebuild after a disaster? What lessons can we learn from them? Our new miniseries, Not Now, But Soon, challenges the stories we often tell about disasters, and explores how we can use speculative fiction to create better futures and policies.
In this trailer episode, Lisa Margonelli introduces miniseries host Malka Older, an author, humanitarian aid worker, and disaster researcher. Older explains how she became involved in disaster work, and what disasters can teach us about society and our values.
Not Now, But Soon premieres on September 16. This miniseries is part of the Future Tense Fiction project, a collaboration between Issues and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination.
Resources
Rethink disasters by reading Malka Older’s Issues piece, “Disasters.”
Check out Older’s Future Tense Fiction story, “Actually Naneen.”
Find more of Older’s publications on her website, including Infomocracy, a cyberpunk political thriller, and ...and Other Disasters, a collection of short fiction and poetry centered around disasters.
Watch Older discuss how speculative fiction can be used to create better policies in the Issues event, “How Can Science Fiction Help Design Better Science and Tech Policies?”
People know that their pets are unique individuals. Each dog has his or her own quirks, likes, and dislikes. But what about cormorants? Research reveals that wild animals are just as uniquely individual as our pets. Rats show empathy. Crows can hold grudges. Even termites have different personalities. What would it mean if society took animal intelligence and self-awareness seriously?
Lisa Margonelli explores this question with Brandon Keim, author of the recent book Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World. Keim also wrote about animal intelligence and what it might mean for policy for Issues in the Spring 2025 issue. In this episode, Keim discusses animal personhood, movements around animal representation, and cormorants—one named Cosmos in particular.
This is our last episode before our summer break, but we will be back in September with a miniseries about rethinking disasters. Write to us at podcast@issues.org with your thoughts on this season and other ideas you’d like us to explore. Subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter to be the first to hear when we return.
Resources:
Learn more about animal individuality by reading Brandon Keim’s book, Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World.
Keim explores the policy impacts of new research on animal intelligence in his Issues piece, “When That Chickadee Is No Longer ‘A Machine With Feathers.’”
Visit Keim’s website to find more of his work.
Think tanks are a vital part of the policy ecosystem, but what do they do? In this installment of Science Policy IRL, host Jason Lloyd talks to Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute. He has been involved in science and technology policy for his whole career, previously practicing telecommunications law and serving as the Federal Trade Commission’s chief technologist.
In this episode, Chilson discusses what it’s like to work at a policy think tank, the questions about artificial intelligence that motivate his work, and why he is optimistic about our technological future.
Resources
Check out Neil Chilson’s book, Getting Out Of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.
Find more of Chilson’s work on his website and explore his Substack, including:
“Red Teaming AI Legislation: Lessons from SB 1047”: How the concept of “red teaming” can be applied to creating legislation.
“10 Years After the Best Tech Policy Movie Ever”: Lessons from The Lego Movie for emergent leadership.
Learn more about the Abundance Institute’s vision for artificial intelligence policy by reading their recommendations here.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was once thought of as a condition that affects only children. The belief was that children would grow out of it, but research has shown that the condition often persists throughout life. In fact, ADHD is the second most prevalent psychiatric disorder in adults, but many misconceptions still exist about it.
On this episode, host Sara Frueh is joined by David Goodman, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of the Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Center of Maryland. Goodman has treated adults with ADHD for over 40 years. Goodman explains how ADHD affects adults, the complexities in how it’s diagnosed and treated, and open questions for research in the field.
Resources:
Visit the Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Center of Maryland’s website to learn more about adult ADHD, and find links to more of David Goodman’s research, interviews, and publications.
The American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders will release guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in late 2025. Check out their website to learn more.
Read the New York Times article “Have We Been Thinking About ADHD All Wrong?,” which was discussed during the podcast episode.
Kelvin Droegemeier, a longtime leader in science policy, joins host Megan Nicholson for this installment of Science Policy IRL. Droegemeier began his career as a research meteorologist and went on to serve in many different leadership roles in state and federal government. He directed the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2019–2021, served on the National Science Board from 2004–2016, and served on the Oklahoma Governor’s Science and Technology Council from 2011–2019. He is currently a professor and Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Science and Policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
On this episode, Droegemeier shares what it’s like to work on science policy at the state and federal levels, discusses what he sees as the pressing science policy issues of our time, and reflects on his leadership roles in academia and government.
Resources:
Read Kelvin Droegemier’s book, Demystifying the Academic Research Enterprise: Becoming a Successful Scholar in a Complex and Competitive Environment, to gain a better understanding of how the academic research enterprise works.
Check out the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine project on Improving the Regulatory Efficiency and Reducing Administrative Workload to Strengthen Competitiveness and Productivity of US Research.
Read Science, the Endless Frontier by Vannevar Bush and Issues’s project marking the anniversary of that report, The Next 75 Years of Science Policy, to learn more about the structure of scientific research in the United States.
The National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators provide important metrics to understand the current state of science and engineering.
What is the future of American science and technology? Check out Vision for American Science and Technology (VAST) for a potential roadmap.
Fiction can be an important tool to explore complex science and technology questions: Would our legal system be more equitable if an AI delivered verdicts rather than judges and juries? What will happen to future climate refugees? Is human consciousness just another algorithm? That’s why Issues has partnered with ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination to publish Future Tense Fiction, a speculative fiction series that uses imagination to explore science and technology questions like these ones.
On this episode, host Mia Armstrong-López, an editor of Future Tense, talks to Arula Ratnakar, a computational neuroscience PhD student at Boston University and author of “Coda,” a recent Future Tense Fiction story about computing, consciousness, and cryptography. They discuss how Ratnakar’s work as a writer enhances her work as a scientist and vice versa, and how storytelling can help both experts and nonexperts think about complex technical issues and enhance the practice of science.
Resources:
Read Arula Ratnakar’s story, “Coda,” and Cristopher Moore’s response essay, “Computing Consciousness.”
Check out the paper that inspired “Coda”: “An RNA-based theory of natural universal computation.”
Find more of Ratnakar’s stories and research on her website.
Check out Future Tense Fiction to find more stories!
On Science Policy IRL, we talk to people in science policy about what they do and how they got there. We’ve shared stories of how people have found their way into science policy careers at places like the White House, Congress, and federal agencies. In this episode, we’re exploring a different way into science policy: getting involved with your local government.
Taylor Spicer, the executive director of Engineers and Scientists Acting Locally (ESAL), shares how her organization helps scientists and engineers get involved in local policy. In a discussion with host Lisa Margonelli, Spicer talks about her path from international development to leading an organization dedicated to local civic engagement. She emphasizes that it’s important for people with STEM backgrounds to get involved with policy in their backyards, and describes how ESAL’s network can help you get started.
Resources:
Visit the Engineers and Scientists Acting Locally (ESAL) website to learn more about making a difference where you live, and subscribe to the newsletter to find opportunities in your area.
Want to join ESAL’s online community-building platform? Sign up here to be the first to hear when it launches in July.
What happens in your brain when you hear your favorite song?
In our Music and Health podcast miniseries, we’re exploring how music affects our minds, bodies, and communities. On this episode, host J. D. Talasek is joined by Sweta Adatia, a neurologist practicing in Dubai, and Fred Johnson, a community engagement specialist and artist in residence at both the National Academy of Sciences and the Straz Center for Performing Arts. They discuss their paths into combining music and science, how music impacts the brain, and how music can go beyond entertainment to create stronger, healthier communities.
This series is produced in collaboration with Susan Magsamen and Leonardo journal.
Resources:
Listen to Fred Johnson’s version of “Nature Boy,” and check out his website and his Instagram to listen to more of his music and mantras, and to see Johnson in an upcoming show.
Visit Sweta Adatia’s website to learn more about her work.
Listen to previous miniseries episodes:
The Creative Arts and Healing with Renée Fleming and Susan Magsamen.
Dancing Together with David Leventhal and Constantina Theofanopoulou.
Fungi are ubiquitous in nature—in fact, you’re likely breathing in fungal spores as you read this. Most fungi are harmless to healthy people. But changes in the global climate, in human settlement patterns, and even in our own body temperatures have made fungal pathogens an increasing health threat.
On this episode, host Jason Lloyd interviews Angel Desai, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor at the University of California Davis Medical Center. Desai and George R. Thompson III cowrote “Foiling the Growing Threat of Fungal Pathogens” in the Winter 2025 Issues. Desai discusses what fungal pathogens are, why they are becoming more dangerous, and how the public health community can respond.
Resources:
Learn more about fungal pathogens by reading Angel Desai and George R. Thompson III’s Issues article, “Foiling the Growing Threat of Fungal Pathogens.”
Angel Desai and Maimuna S. Majumder’s October 2020 Issues article, “How Contact Tracing Apps Could Help Prevent COVID-19 Super-Spreader Events,” offers lessons about contact tracing and disease surveillance that can be applied to future outbreaks.
How can wildfire smoke spread disease? Read Leda N. Kobziar and George R. Thompson III’s “Wildfire Smoke, a Potential Infectious Agent” in Science to learn more.
Check out “Infectious Diseases in a Changing Climate” by Matthew C. Phillips, Regina C. LaRocque, and George R. Thompson III in JAMA to read more about the impact of climate change on infectious diseases.
More than half of US states have legalized cannabis for recreational or medical use. Regulations on cultivation, production, and marketing vary from state to state, and most of these policies were developed without a robust public health strategy. Because it is not federally legal, Washington has provided only limited guidance to states on how to control the variety of cannabis products on the market. What’s more, the dazzling arrays of gummies, vapes, and chocolates are available with much higher concentrations of THC (the psychoactive component of cannabis) than have been previously available.
A recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, Cannabis Policy Impacts Public Health and Health Equity, examines the connections between public health and marijuana legalization.
On this episode, host Sara Frueh talks to Yasmin Hurd, vice-chair of the report committee, Ward-Coleman Chair of Translational Neuroscience, and director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai. They discuss the research on the complex landscape of modern cannabis products, what’s known about their public health impacts, and strategies policymakers could use to minimize harms.
Resources
Read the National Academies’ report, Cannabis Policy Impacts Public Health and Health Equity.
Visit the Hurd Lab and Addiction Institute websites to learn more about Yasmin Hurd’s work on addiction.
“People always say, ‘Well, if I could only do one art form, what would it be?’ And I always say dance.” —Susan Magsamen
In our podcast miniseries Music and Health, we’re exploring how music impacts our minds, bodies, and communities. In this installment, we’re learning about the power of dance. Host J. D. Talasek is joined by David Leventhal and ConstantinaTheofanopoulou. Both began their careers as dancers and use dance to inform their current work. Leventhal is a program director and one of the founding teachers of Dance for PD, a program that offers people with Parkinson’s disease research-backed dance classes. Theofanopoulou is a research assistant professor at Rockefeller University. Her research focuses on understanding the neuroscience of complex sensory motor behaviors. They discuss how dance is helping patients regain movement abilities, and what neuroscience research says about dance as a form of healing.
This series is produced in collaboration with Susan Magsamen and Leonardo journal.
Resources:
Listen to the first episode of the mini-series, Music and Health: The Creative Arts and Healing, featuring Renée Fleming and Susan Magsamen.
Visit the Dance for PD website to learn more about the program, and find classes in your area or virtually.
Learn more about Constantina Theofanopoulou’s research by visiting her website.
Vaccines, oil spills, genetic engineering, and stem cells—anywhere there’s science, there’s also misinformation. It muddies our ability to make good decisions, ranging from far-reaching ones like creating policy to simple ones like what to buy at the grocery store. Misinformation also undermines trust in scientific institutions and across society. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine tasked an expert committee with addressing misinformation. Their report,Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science, is out now.
On this episode, hostMonya Baker is joined byAsheley Landrum, one of the authors of the report and an associate professor at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. Landrum’s research focuses on science, communication, and media psychology. She discusses what exactly science misinformation is, how to tackle it, and the unexpected places it can arise.
Resources:
From lullabies to movie soundtracks to workout playlists, music has the capacity to change how we feel. But what is the evidence that music’s effects can transform physical health? On our new podcast miniseries, Music and Health, we’ll explore the power of music to heal our minds, bodies, and even communities.
On the first episode of this series, host J. D. Talasek is joined by Renée Fleming and Susan Magsamen. Fleming is an opera soprano, actress, and long time advocate for the healing powers of the arts. She recently edited a book called Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness. Magsamen founded the International Arts + Mind Lab, and created the NeuroArts Blueprint. They discuss health and arts research, current initiatives to use the arts to heal, and how this vital approach to care can be expanded.
This series is produced in collaboration with Susan Magsamen and Leonardo journal.
Resources
Read Renée Fleming’s book, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, to learn more about how music and the creative arts are being used for health. The book was also recently reviewed in Issues by Susan Fitzpatrick, who called Fleming’s introduction “beautifully written, providing a lyrical and comprehensive summary of the main ideas in the book.”
Learn more about Susan Magsamen’s work by visiting the International Arts + Mind Lab website, and check out Magsamen and Ivy Ross’s book, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us.
Visit the NeuroArts Blueprint website to find information on how the creative arts impact the brain. You can also find more information about and apply for the Renée Fleming Neuroarts Investigator Award.
Visit the Sound Health Initiative website to learn more about the partnership between the National Institutes of Health and the Kennedy Center to research the potential of music to treat a wide range of conditions.
Listen to the Real Young Prodigys’ song “Where My Bus At” and learn more about how the song helped inspire change in Louisville. Thank you to the Real Young Prodigys for allowing use of their song in this episode!
In Alaska, reindeer are much more real than the fantasy animals that pull Santa’s sleigh. Introduced to Alaska from Siberia by the US government in the 1890s, reindeer were part of a strategy to solve food shortages among the Native peoples after the gold rush. Today, reindeer provide food security and economic opportunities for the Alaskan Native community. Even more so than farming, reindeer herding requires a deep understanding of the needs of Indigenous communities and academic science—as well as how to navigate and influence local, state, and federal policies.
On this episode, host Lisa Margonelli is joined by Jacqueline Hrabok and Bonnie Scheele of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’s High Latitude Range Management program to learn more about the interplay of science, policy, and community in reindeer herding.
This is our final episode of 2024. We’ll be back in late January for an interview with opera singer and actress Renee Fleming and neurology professor Susan Magsamen on the intersection of music, art, and health. And we would love to explore more local science policy issues in our upcoming episodes! Write to us at podcast@issues.org about any policy developments happening near you.
Resources:
Learn more about the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ High Latitude Range Management program.
Visit Bonnie Scheele’s reindeer farm at the Midnite Sun Reindeer Ranch website and Facebook page.
The word "bureaucracy" conjures up images of red tape and long lines at the DMV, not cutting-edge innovation. But some of the most significant scientific and health innovations of the past century have actually come from scientist-bureaucrats at government research institutes.
On this episode, host Jason Lloyd is joined by Natalie Aviles, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia and author of An Ungovernable Foe: Science and Policy Innovation in the US National Cancer Institute. Aviles explains what the National Cancer Institute does and how the mission and culture of the agency have enabled its scientist-bureaucrats to conduct pioneering cancer research, such as the invention of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine.
Resources: Check out Natalie Aviles’s book, An Ungovernable Foe: Science and Policy Innovation in the U.S. National Cancer Institute, to learn more about the NCI.
Read “How Federal Science Agencies Innovate in the Public Interest” at Issues.org to learn more about the development of the HPV vaccine and the importance of agency discretion.
New York City is the perfect place to understand the importance of modern engineering, but the most valuable lessons won’t be found at the Empire State Building or in Central Park. To truly discover what makes modern life tick, you have to look at the unloved, uncelebrated elements of New York: its sewers, bridges, and elevators.
On this episode, host Lisa Margonelli talks to Guru Madhavan, the Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and senior director of programs at the National Academy of Engineering. Madhavan wrote about the history of this often-overlooked infrastructure in a trilogy of Issues essays about New York City’s history. He talks about how the invention of the elevator brake enabled the construction of skyscrapers and how the detailed “grind work” of maintenance keeps grand projects like the Bayonne Bridge functioning. He also highlights the public health and sanitation-centered vision of Egbert Viele—the nearly forgotten engineer who made New York City livable.
Resources:
Read Guru Madhavan’s New York Trilogy:
“The Greatest Show on Earth” about the invention of the elevator brake.
“The Grind Challenges” about the Bayonne Bridge and maintenance grind work.
“Living in Viele’s World” about the contrast between Egbert Viele’s and Frederick Law Olmsted’s competing visions of New York City.
Learn more about the invisible work that undergirds modern life by checking out Madhavan’s latest book, Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World.
Read the 2019 article Madhavan cites about how engineering benefits society.
Lisa mentioned riding on a tugboat pushing a barge full of petroleum, but she misremembered! The repairs were then occurring on the Goethals Bridge, not the Bayonne. Here’s the whole story of “A Dangerous Move” from the New York Times.
