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Cocomelon For Adults Oct 10, 2025

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Last week, OpenAI released an app that quickly shot to the #1 spot in Apple's App Store. Sora is like TikTok, except all the videos are AI generated. Is this ... what we're doing now? What's the business case for a fake AI video platform?

Check out Casey Newton's newsletter (Platformer) and podcast (Hard Fork)

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Is my favorite new TV show this year a ripoff? Sep 26, 2025

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The makers of the medical drama The Pitt have been sued. The allegation: that the show is an unauthorized copy of ER.

This week, investigative reporter Nicholas Kulish walks us through the ensuing drama, reads us the possibly damning private emails, and finally helps us decide where inspiration ends and theft begins.

Is ‘The Pitt’ Really an ‘ER’ Spinoff? - Nicholas Kulish

The Obituary Sep 19, 2025

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Not long after Alex’s wife Whitney dies, he looks at her obituary and discovers something strange. A sect of people online has hijacked her story and turned it into a disturbing conspiracy theory.

Check out the place Whitney worked, Project: Onward, a non-profit studio for artists with disabilities. (They have very cool & reasonably priced art for sale).

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How does a rationalist make a baby? Sep 05, 2025

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A member of an unusual Bay Area community decides to try to have a baby in an unusual way – by putting out a very large prize for anyone who can help her find a mate. How the internet shaped one person’s decision-thinking.

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A Dubai Chocolate theory of the internet Aug 22, 2025

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Garbage Day's Ryan Broderick traces the rise of this goopy green chocolate, and explains how Chinese social media is beginning to tug on US culture in unexpected ways.

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Are microplastics really a problem? Aug 15, 2025

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Our listener Louisa is very annoyed by her sister’s preoccupation with keeping her children away from microplastics. Louisa wonders: are people with microplastics anxiety kind of overdoing it?

Search Engine investigates.

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What does it feel like to believe in God? (classic) Jul 25, 2025

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This week, we try to understand an experience that 74% of Americans routinely report having. The first of many conversations (perhaps?). This one, an interview with Zvika Krieger.

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The Cuddly Killer (classic) Jul 18, 2025

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A question that has launched a battle between bird-loving ecologists and ardent, cat-defending activists. What should we do about an invasive species beloved by many Americans -- cats? We hear from people on both sides of the war, and from one person who sits exactly in the middle.

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Why'd I take speed for twenty years? - Part 2 (classic) Jul 11, 2025

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In part two of our story about ADHD medications, we approach the question from a different angle.

We meet a doctor who spent two decades convinced that her brain does not work correctly, and who struggled to find someone who believed her.

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Why'd I take speed for twenty years? - Part 1 (classic) Jul 04, 2025

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One of the millions of millennials given prescription stimulants to treat ADHD decides to quit. And afterwards wonders -- how did these drugs becomes so popular, so fast? This week, the story of amphetamine's birth, life, death, and rebirth in America. (Methylphenidates, too.)

Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong? by Paul Tough

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