Podcast
Actuality
Hosted by Marketplace · EN
Actuality explores the inner workings of the new global economy. Brought to you by Marketplace® and Quartz, it’s a podcast that combines the best of our economic smarts. Hosts Sabri Ben-Achour and Tim Fernholz find the interesting in the important and the important in the interesting—and define the issues shaping our daily experience in the global economy. In Season Two, we explore the impossible, with: they said it couldn’t be done. From creating a perfect algorithm to a perfect workforce, we reveal the surprising answers to puzzles that once seemed impossible to solve. Join us for new episodes every other week when in season. Produced by American Public Media’s Marketplace and Atlantic Media’s Quartz. Twitter: @ActualityPod
10episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Male Contraception
Jun 30, 201600:20:21Tap to summarizeThey said it couldn't be done: The "male pill." Actuality asks why men haven't seen a new reversible contraceptive in centuries—and if we need one. We found out why Big Pharma gave up on a male pill, and meet people who want to make it happen anyway.Correction: In this episode we refer to "The Pill" by Jonathan Eig. The correct title of Eig’s book is "The Birth of the Pill."
Transcribe →UnAmerican Football
Jun 16, 201600:21:51Tap to summarizeThey said it couldn't be done: Soccer makes it in America. Actuality can't turn on the TV without seeing a soccer game — what gives? We talk with U.S. players Crystal Dunn and Matt Besler to figure out how global football became a media cash cow in America.
Transcribe →Cannabiz
Jun 1, 201600:22:25Tap to summarizeThey said it couldn't be done: Ending the American war on marijuana. This week, Actuality tells the ugly truth about cannabis prohibition and peeks at the green shoots of the nascent legal weed industry — but can the architects of a new market avoid the mistakes of the past?
Transcribe →Museums: Wherefore contemporary art thou?
May 19, 201600:16:16Tap to summarizeThey said it couldn't be done: New art in old museums. Actuality visits an auction house to see a billion dollars of art sold in just a week and learn how this bubbling private market is changing staid public art museums in surprising ways.
Transcribe →A machine to save the world
May 4, 201600:20:58Tap to summarizeThey said it couldn't be done: Nuclear fusion. We visit scientists building a clean power plant that's hotter than the sun — but can they ever deliver? Then: the strange world of cold fusion, the people who hate it and the billionaires betting on it.
Transcribe →Batman v Hollywood
Apr 20, 201600:24:24Tap to summarizeThey said it couldn't be done: Making superheroes into movie stars. Forty years ago, Hollywood told 27-year-old Michael Uslan a Batman movie would never succeed. More than a dozen big-budget superhero movies will hit the big screen in the next few years. Holy impossibility, Batman!
Transcribe →Space Internet
Apr 7, 201600:19:38Tap to summarizeThey said it couldn't be done: Internet in space. The dream of a totally connected world is still out of reach. Companies like OneWeb and SpaceX think a global swarm of satellites is the answer. The idea failed before — does it stand a chance today?
Transcribe →Robot Tastemakers
Mar 23, 201600:24:23Tap to summarizeThey said it couldn't be done: Teaching robots good taste. "Actuality" visits Spotify, where algorithms tell 75 million users what to listen to. Then, Tim and Sabri talk with a world-touring musician and a critic to see if this trend will save the arts — or doom them."Actuality" is brought to you by Marketplace and Quartz. It explores the inner workings of the new global economy, combining the best of our economic smarts. Subscribe to the bi-weekly podcast on iTunes or your favorite audio app.
Transcribe →Smuggler’s Morgue
Jan 14, 201600:18:39Tap to summarizeThis week, Actuality visits a lab at the front line of the fight against a peculiar crime — animal trafficking. The global black market for snakes, sea cucumbers, ivory and the like is hot, but the world is starting to crack down. Plus, whale euthanasia.Subscribe to the Actuality podcast
Transcribe →Actuality’s Holiday Extravaganza!
Dec 18, 201500:42:03Tap to summarizeThis week, Actuality just happens to stop by your house with a helping of holiday cheer, a glass of eggnog and some special guests armed with well-informed cocktail chatter about five of our favorite stories in 2015. Plus, these sweet potatoes are FIRE.
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