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Death, Sex & Money | From Brazilian Butt Lifts to Botox: Your Beauty Confessions Sep 23, 2025

Show notes

Over the past few months, we've been asking you to tell us stories about your beauty interventions. You told us about feeling caught between viewing appearance improvements as vanity and recognizing how much looking a certain way affects your relationships, career, and self-worth.

In this episode, Anna talks to listeners about their appearance choices: Asher, who spent $43,000 on plastic surgery and openly celebrates his investments; Caroline, who used fillers and Botox after her divorce but recently filed for bankruptcy and can no longer afford treatments; Alexandra, who stopped dyeing her gray hair at 38 despite pushback from family; and Nick, whose multiple cosmetic surgeries nearly ended his marriage and forced him to confront deeper issues.

Read Nick Dothée’s essay: What Plastic Surgery Couldn’t Fix

Podcast production by Zoe Azulay

Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus.

And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com.

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How To! | Use Hypnosis Sep 16, 2025

Show notes

Much of our common understanding of hypnosis has been gleaned from mind-control plots in Hollywood movies or hokey on-stage demonstrations. On this episode of How To!, Carvell Wallace brings on Stanford University psychiatrist and researcher Dr. David Spiegel to talk about what hypnosis is (and isn’t), as well as its potential to address stress, pain, and even athletic performance. Plus, with Carvell wrestling with an ongoing major project, Dr. Spiegel tests our host’s hypnotizability—then leads him through an exercise aimed at confronting procrastination.

Learn more about Dr. Spiegel and his self-hypnosis app, Reveri. If you liked this episode, check out How To Stop Being Anxious and How To Quiet the Chatter in Your Head.

Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.

How To! is produced by Rosie Belson, with Kevin Bendis and Sophie Summergrad, who produced this episode. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer.

Get more of How To! with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of How To! and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the How To! show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/howtoplus for access wherever you listen.

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What Next | Can You Get a COVID Vaccine? Sep 08, 2025

Show notes

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tenure as HHS Secretary has meant turmoil for the CDC: thousands of employees have either been let go, or are unclear on their employment status; leadership has been stepping down; and there was a shooting at their Atlanta building in August. The result is RFK being yelled at in the Senate, thousands of CDC employees calling for his resignation, and a country less prepared for the next pandemic.

Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, science and global health reporter at the New York Times.

Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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Political Gabfest | CDC DOA Sep 04, 2025

Show notes

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what the spate of legal defeats for the Trump administration portends as cases wind toward the Supreme Court, the real world effects of RFK Jr. gutting the CDC with guest Dr. Josh Sharfstein, and whether Democrats should compel government shutdown or avoid it now that Congress is back.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss NASA Voyager’s journey through space as it reaches a new milestone and wax philosophical about the immensity of the universe and Earth’s place in it.

In the latest Gabfest Reads, Emily talks with Jonathan Mahler about his new book, The Gods of New York. They discuss the unraveling of Mayor Ed Koch’s New York City; how the city’s current mayoral race is mirroring the past; and more.

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Kevin Bendis

Research by Emily Ditto

Want more Political Gabfest? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Political Gabfest show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or visit slate.com/gabfestplus to get access wherever you listen.

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What Next | Could Artificial Blood Save Lives? Aug 28, 2025

Show notes

Blood has a very short shelf life, even under the best of conditions—and you can picture the less-than-ideal conditions where blood is frequently needed—which is why scientists have been working on a blood alternative. The results are promising.

Guest: Nicky Twilley, host of “Gastropod” podcast and author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet and Ourselves.

Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Ethan Oberman, and Rob Gunther.

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What Next: TBD | Trump Vs. Cancer Research Aug 24, 2025

Show notes

President Trump has proposed cutting $2.5 billion from the National Cancer Institute, which in addition to cuts to the National Institutes of Health and research universities almost makes you wonder: whose side is he on in the fight against cancer?

Guest: Angus Chen, cancer reporter for STAT news

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

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Amicus | Punished For Their Pregnancies Aug 23, 2025

Show notes

Women were prosecuted for experiencing miscarriage or stillbirth even before the Supreme Courtswept away the protections of Roe v. Wade. But these prosecutions have ramped up since, in both red and blue states. The stakes are ramping up too, with legislators introducing bills that would treat abortion as homicide, potentially subjecting patients to the death penalty. This week, Mark Joseph Stern talks with Karen Thompson, the legal director of Pregnancy Justice. They discuss what happens when the state decides a fetus, or even an embryo, has equal or greater rights than pregnant people. As fetal personhood legislation moves ahead in more and more red states, this concept is also seeping into the law in blue states. Women have been jailed because their pregnancies ended in a way the state disliked. Grandmothers have been prosecuted decades after pregnancy loss thanks to investigators using forensic genetic genealogy to hunt them down. As Thompson explains, a frightening frontier in the battle for bodily autonomy and reproductive rights is here, and it demands our attention.

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What Next: TBD | The CDC Under Fire Aug 22, 2025

Show notes

Two weeks ago, a gunman fired over 500 bullets at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta. Between the anti-public health rhetoric coming from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the top, personnel cuts and firings, and now a literal shooting, many employees are reaching their breaking point.

Guest: Lauren Weber, health science accountability reporter for the Washington Post.

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Death, Sex & Money | The Internet Taught Me to Diet, Then Saved Me With Weightlifting Aug 19, 2025

Show notes

Casey Johnston grew up in a family where being thin mattered. In college, the internet told her to eat 1,200 calories and do endless cardio if she wanted to lose weight. That habit followed her into her late twenties, until she came upon a Reddit post about weightlifting that changed her relationship to her body and just about everything else.

Casey Johnston is the author of Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, and she writes the substack, She’s a Beast.

Podcast production by Zoe Azulay

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ICYMI | Kendra Fell In Love With Her Psychiatrist—Then She Met TikTok Aug 13, 2025

Show notes

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by senior supervising producer Daisy Rosario to talk about Kendra, the woman whose 25-part TikTok series about falling in love with her psychiatrist has captivated the internet. However, what viewers thought would be the next Reesa Teesa “Who The Fuck Did I Marry?” series turned out to be something much more complicated, as Kendra’s story went from suspicious to downright troubling. Now, TikTok is diagnosing Kendra with mental health issues, while still consuming her content like entertainment.

Get more of ICYMI with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of ICYMI and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the ICYMI show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/icymiplus for access wherever you listen.

This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, and Kate Lindsay.

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