Many are still reeling from the tragedy at the Astroworld Festival where eight people died and hundreds were injured. Many questions remain on how things escalated so quickly, but crowd surges like the one that night happen fast and often go unnoticed until it’s too late. Emergency plans for the event covered other things like active shooters, but nothing in the case of a crowd surge. Ahiza Garcia-Hodges, reporter at NBC News, joins us for more.

Next, we have been learning a lot about mRNA because of the Covid vaccines, but the next big thing for RNA could be fixing moldy food. The next generation of pesticides and fungicides could use RNA to target very specific insects and fungi. One particular type of fungus they hope to target is responsible for at least $10 billion in damage to crops every year. Matt Reynolds, senior writer at Wired, joins us for how RNA may be used next to help farmers.

Finally, the crypto market continues to be the Wild West. The combined value of all cryptocurrencies is over $3 trillion and that is driving interest and investors to snatch up newer cryptocurrencies and unfortunately, fall for scams. One example is “Squid coin” which capitalized on the popular Netflix show, but ended up being a “rug pull” scam. Thomas Urbain, markets and tech reporter at AFP, joins us for what to know.

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