Flash Forward

New & hot: Science

Science

Season Four

Over the past 85 years, antibiotics have been miracle drugs. They’ve kept infections at bay and opened up a world of medical possibilities: organ transplants, heart surgery, chemotherapy. But they’re not going to work forever. The age antibiotic resistance is coming. So what does a world without these drugs look like? 

Revenge of the Germs

If there was a drug that meant you never had to sleep again, would you take it? Would those who didn’t need to sleep have special advantages over those who did? All that and a side of zombies, in this week’s episode.

Never Lay Me Down To Sleep

Your face is one of your most valuable possessions. But what happens when facial recognition is so good that any company can grab an image of your face while you’re walking down the street, and link it to everything from your social media profiles, to your credit score, to your workplace? 

Facetime

(00:00) The Sirens of Titan
(07:00) Plot Time!
(50:30) Recurring Characters
(56:30) VonneWHAT?
(1:04:00) Kurt Blurt
(1:13:00) Related Reading
(1:28:30) Movie Time
(1:44:00) Kurt News

Related Reading: 

Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons: https://goo.gl/Tuo0UJ

V for Vendetta -- Alan Moore & David Lloyd: https://goo.gl/yYGwhM

Speaker for the Dead -- Orson Scott Card: https://goo.gl/QUiIA5

Dark They Were and Golden Eyed -- Ray Bradbury: https://goo.gl/xFKAeA

Mozart in Mirrorshades -- Bruce Sterling & Lewis Shiner: https://goo.gl/BCNgfs

The Stranger -- Albert Camus: https://goo.gl/ppBtSI

Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein: https://goo.gl/S1vr3K

The Sirens of Titan

California has one of the largest economies in the world. So what would happen if it broke away from the United States? Could California ever go independent? And if it did, what would that look like?

California Dreaming

This episode, we travel to a future where your romantic partners aren’t chosen by questions or swipes, but rather by your brainwaves.

Love On The Brain

What would it be like if you could hop on a space cruise ship, and take a trip to Mars?

Mons Voyage

In the 1960’s, the United States spent millions of dollars exploring two different realms: outer space, and the deep oceans. But today, only one of those programs is still around. Why do space colonies seem more likely than underwater cities? And what does it take to build a settlement on the sea floor?

Under The Sea

What would it be like if we could actually understand what animals were saying?

Dr. Doolittle

What if we just gave everybody money? It sounds simple, but universal basic income is a trendy idea again and a lot of you have asked for an episode about a future where everybody gets money from the government no matter what. And it turns out that while it sounds simple, just giving everybody money is way more complicated than you might thing.

Money For Nothing

Computers are getting smaller and smaller. But what if we had sensors the size of dust, that could float through the air undetected, talk to one another, gather information, and transmit that information back down to a central place? This is the concept behind smart dust, and it’s more plausible than you might think.

Eyes In The Skies

Would you replace ALL your food with pills? Where does this trope come from in science fiction, and what does it say about us that it still persists?

Farm To Tablet

If humans want to really have a go at leaving Earth and living in space or on other planets, we’re going to have to figure out a lot of things: spaceships, food supplies, fuel, how to keep everybody from killing one another. But one thing seems to be frequently left out of the picture, when it comes to distant space travel research: reproduction. It turns out we know very, very little about what pregnancy in space might look like, or whether it’s even possible at all.

What To Expect When You're Expecting In Space

Related article:

Frequency and signature of somatic variants in 1461 human brain exomes

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-018-0274-3

Genepod - Somatic mosaicism for genetic variants in brain tissue

Getting from one place to another is hard. What if we could just teleport? From the physics of how this would work (it wouldn’t) to the ripple effects on politics, urban development, and tourism, this episode is all about what would happen if we could zip instantly from one place to another.

The Commute From Hell

What happens when the Rio Grande dries up? The river is often overshadowed, at least in the US, by the Colorado River. But the Rio Grande creates the border between US and Mexico, and the water that flows through it is at the center of a looming geopolitical crisis. So what happens when towns, farms and cities on both sides of the border start to run out of water?

Water Would Be Nice

At long last, we’re doing genetic editing. What’s the deal with the recent news about CRISPR babies? What does a future full of human genetic editing look like? And how might CRISPR change the food we eat?

Snip Snip Snip

“Social atomization” is a term that sounds like science fiction. It could be the title of a 1950s B-movie where a mad scientist vaporizes a dance party. But when sociologists use that term, “social atomization” is a complementary set of shifts you might have noticed lately: more loneliness, less societal trust, and an increasing feeling that nobody’s got your back. What does it mean if that’s happening to all of us? How can that happen without anybody intending it? And can that impact everything from your personal health to your national government? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt sits down with Jason Pargin (who writes for the site as David Wong). They’ll explore why prior generations with rampant crime (!), Richard Nixon (!!), and the music of disco (!!!) feel better off and more cohesive than we do today. We’ll also take one step back and look at the awful reasons why some people are talking about this in the first place. And if we all stick together and trust each other, we might see a few ways out of this predicament. Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/how-loneliness-epidemic-snuck-up-us-with-jason-pargin/

How A Loneliness Epidemic Snuck Up On Us (with Jason Pargin)

The most successful people in the world are SO EXCITED to call themselves that. Hard-charging, in-leaning, unstoppable titans of industry want everyone to know it. One of their favorite brags: never sleeping more than a few hours a night. Is that actually a cool thing? Should all of us let ourselves get talked into that lifestyle? And are a bunch of our daily habits that kind of smart-seeming bad health trap? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt sits down with Jason Pargin (who writes for the site as David Wong). They want you to hang in there, friend. If there’s one takeaway from today’s episode (and there are so many more than just one!) it’s that you oughta receive all the healthy support you can get from others and from yourself. Other takeaways: an immense range of fascinating facts about our bodies, our culture, and the war they’re in at all times if we’re not careful. Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/5-mainstream-health-habits-that-trick-you-into-feeling-lousy/

5 Mainstream Health Habits That Trick You Into Feeling Lousy

The phone you are reading this text on is easy to hold...if you’re a man. That’s according to statistics on average hand size &amp; average phone size. If you’re a woman? Good luck taking one-handed pictures on this slightly-too-big brick that might give you repetitive stress injuries men don’t experience. Of course a phone is merely a device (that you do everything in your life on). But what if there’s a mountain of data proving women get erased from all aspects of modern society, from design to media to medicine? And what if that erasure is a full-on life-or-death issue that (almost) no one is talking about? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by journalist, activist, and author Caroline Criado Perez. They dive into an array of facts, figures, and critical lacks of data, all gathered in her amazing new book ‘Invisible Women: Data Bias In A World Designed For Men’. They’ll also explore the conscious &amp; unconscious biases that drive women out of the workforce, swing voters into screwing over their own countries, and cause massive problems we could fix with a little more awareness...and maybe even a modest investment in studying human organs besides the penis. Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/the-bizarre-hassles-women-face-in-our-world-designed-men/

The Bizarre Hassles Women Face In Our World Designed For Men

Today we travel to a future where forensic science gets so sensitive, just touching something could mean becoming suspect number one. 

More info and show notes here: https://www.flashforwardpod.com/2019/09/03/crime-csi/

CRIME: CSI++

Flash Forward is a show about possible (and not so possible) future scenarios. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Could there ever be a fecal transplant black market? (Complicated, it wouldn’t, and yes, respectively, in case you’re curious.) Hosted and produced by award winning science journalist Rose Eveleth, each episode combines audio drama and journalism to go deep on potential tomorrows, and uncovers what those futures might really be like. The future is going to be weird, so let's get ready for it together.