How much of what you do is actually your choice? What if you were secretly being controlled by a parasite that had infected your brain? What if that infection was spreading? 

Guests:

David Walton, author of The Genius Plague

Tade Thompson, author or Rosewater

Charissa de Bekker, researcher at the University of Central Florida

Sandeep Ravindran, science journalist

For additional reading and resources on this episode, visit flashforwardpod.com. 

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The voices from the future this week were provided by Charles Anderson, David Dunsmuir, Anthony Friscia, Andrea Klunder and Brent Rose. Check out Brent’s project Connected States, in which he drives around the US in a big van, at http://www.connectedstates.com/. You can listen to Andrea’s podcast The Creative Imposter wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to be a voice in a future scene for Flash Forward, that is one of the perks of a $10 Patreon pledge! Whenever I need voices I send out a little note to those patrons and people can sign up to do one! 

The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky. Who is amazing! You should check out their art AND you should go look at the new magazine that they’re creating at the comics website The Nib. Go to membership.thenib.com to learn more about that.

If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at [email protected]. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool. 

And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! Head to www.flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to Apple Podcasts and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s episode we travel to the near-future of advertising. Welcome to a future in which you can sign up to be a brand ambassador, and get paid for every time you mention a product in conversation. Simply download the app, and your phone will listen to your every word waiting to hear brand names, and pay you some money every time you mention one. 

Guests:

Deborah Dahl, speech technology expert and principal of Conversational Technologies

Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Lindsey Webber, writer, editor and cohost of the podcast Who? Weekly

Bobby Finger, writer at Jezebel and cohost of the podcast Who? Weekly

Kristen Strader, campaign coordinator for Public Citizen’s Commerical Alert program

🚀 Further reading and source notes can be found here 🚀

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

~~~~ TAKE THE SURVEY! (Please) ~~~~

Today we tackle the age-old question: what if animals could talk? Or, more precisely, what if we could actually understand what animals are saying?

Guests:

Con Slobodchikoff, professor at Northern Arizona University, CEO of Zoolingua, and author of Chasing Dr. Doolittle: Learning the Language of Animals.

Irene Pepperberg, professor of psychology Harvard University, author of Alex and Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence-and formed a Deep Bond in the Process

Alexandra Horowitz, professor at Barnard, head of dog cognition lab, author of Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

Ashley Shew, professor at Virginia Tech, author of Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge

Keri Cronin, professor at Brock University, author of Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1875-1914

Further Reading:

The “Clever Hans Phenomenon” revisited

Lost in Translation: Koko the gorilla and language research

The Alex studies: cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrot

Reddit AMA: I am Dr. Irene Pepperberg, research associate at Harvard in the field of avian cognition...ask me anything

Animal language studies: What happened?

Learn to sniff like a dog.

“‘Can’t You Talk?’: Voice and Visual Culture in Early Animal Welfare

(more reading at Flash Forward's main site)

Learn more about Twenty Thousand Hertz here

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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?

Guests:

Ben Hellwarth, journalist and author of SEALAB: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor

Jim Fourqurean, professor of Marine Science at Florida International University and the director of the Center for Coastal Oceans Research

Roger Garcia, operations director at Aquarius Reef Base

Katherine Sammler, assistant professor at California State University Maritime in the department of Global Studies & Maritime Affairs

Further Reading/Watching:

The Silent World

JFK's Moon Shot speech

JFK 1961 remarks on the ocean

JFK Address at the Anniversary Convocation of the National Academy of Sciences, 22 October 1963

SEALAB: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor

To Tell The Truth featuring Bob Barth

I have lived underwater

Medina Aquarius Program

From the Ocean’s Abyss to the Vacuum of Space: Privatization in the Vertical Commons

National Governance Of Ocean Volumes

Subsuming the Submerged: Producing Seabeds as Political Territories.

Knowing the Abyss: Seeking Geographies of Ocean Space.

The Deep Pacific: Island Governance and Seabed Mineral Development.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

Credits:

Produced by me, Rose Eveleth.

The intro music: Asura

Outtro music: Hussalonia.

Voices of the future this episode: Stephen Granade and Andrea Klunder.

Episode art: Matt Lubchansky.

Get in touch at [email protected].

Support the show.

Rate & review on Apple Podcasts.

Twitter // Facebook // Instagram

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode I welcome you to the Museum of Non-Human Art, a brand new gallery full of art made entirely by machines, computers, algorithms, robots and other non-human entities. I hope your enjoy your visit!

To see pictures of any of the artworks we talked about on this show head to the website! 

Guests:

Elizabeth Stephens, Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland

Michael Noll, computer artist, professor emeritus at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California

Ahmed Elgammel, director of the The Art & Artificial Intelligence Lab at Rutgers University

Orit Gat, art critic & writer

Xiaoyu Weng, Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Associate Curator of Chinese Art at the Guggenheim 

Further Reading:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Bananas?

Machines in the Garden

Automata by Jacquet-Droz

The Story of Jacquet-Droz

When the Machine Made Art

"Incredible Machine" (1968) — main-title animation sequence for award-winning movie by Owen Murphy Productions for the American Telephone & Telegraph Company.

"Patterns by 7090," by Michael Noll

"Computer Generated Ballet" by Michael Noll

Human or Machine: A Subjective Comparison of Piet Mondrian’s ‘Composition with Lines’ and a Computer–Generated Picture

CAN: Creative Adversarial Networks Generating “Art” by Learning About Styles andDeviating from Style Norms

Quantifying Creativity in Art NetworksLarge-Scale Classification of Fine-Art Paintings: Learning the Right Metric on the Right Feature

A Computer Vision System for Artistic Influence Mining

Tales of Our Time Exhibit at the Guggenheim

Sun Yuan & Peng Yu: Tales of Our Time

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.

Want to send a note or idea? Spotted a reference? Email me at [email protected]. Want to donate? Head this way. Can't give money? Leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Tell a friend about the show! 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1918, the Spanish flu killed four to five percent of the entire global population. Infectious disease experts all agree that another pandemic is coming. It's when, not if. But are we ready for it? Today's episode explores what happens when a pandemic strikes, what the most likely candidates are, and whether or not the world is ready.

Guests:

Ed Yong, science writer at The Atlantic

Nahid Bhadelia, assistant professor at Boston University School of Medicine and the Medical Director of Special Pathogens Unit (SPU) at Boston Medical Center

Laura Spinney, science writer and author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World

Nicola Twilley, co-host of Gastropod and author of a forthcoming book on quarantine

Further Reading:

The Next Plague is Coming. Is America Ready?

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World

Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being by Harold Napoleon

Strengthening Health Systems While Responding to a Health Crisis: Lessons Learned by a Nongovernmental Organization During the Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic in Sierra Leone

Medicine’s Long, Thin Supply Chain

What Bill Gates Fears Most

Predicting virus emergence amid evolutionary noise

Nebraska’s Biocontainment Unit

The Terrifying Lessons of a Pandemic Simulation

Clade X Livestream

CDC Director: Why I Don’t Support A Travel Ban To Combat The Ebola Outbreak

Protecting the Public's Health from Diseases, Disasters and Bioterrorism

How prepared is the world for the next epidemic? This tool shows most countries are not.

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The voices from the future this episode were provided by Paul Krueger, Sean Raines, and Sameer Ajmani. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.

Get in touch: Twitter, Facebook, [email protected]. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode we take on a future where space junk has gotten so bad, that active spacecraft are constantly having to maneuver around it, which wastes fuel and cuts down on operation time. And humans decide to finally do something about it. But what?

Guests:

Loren Grush, science reporter at The Verge

Lisa Ruth Rand, historian of science technology and the environment.

Tiago Soares, systems engineer for ESA’s Clean Space program

Andrew Wolahan, systems engineer for ESA’s e.deorbit program

Alice Gorman, space archaeologist at Flinders University 

Jill Stuart, space policy & law expert at the London School of Economics

Further Reading:

Tracking Space Junk

How can humans clean up our space junk?

The Space Junk Problem is About to get a Whole Lots Gnarlier

Orbital Decay: Space Junk and the Environmental History of Earth’s Planetary Borderlands

The Forgotten Cold War Plan That Put A Ring Of Copper Around The Earth

Project West Ford, NASA Repository

Japanese mission to clear up space junk ends in failure

This is what happens when a tiny piece of flying space debris hits the ISS

ESA Envisat

ESA Clean Space

ESA e.deorbit

Space Age Archaeology

What is Space Archaeology?

The Outer Space Treaty has been remarkably successful – but is it fit for the modern age?

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The space dispatcher from the top of the episode was played by Andrew Hackard. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky. If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at [email protected]. And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool. 

And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! Head to www.flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the rise in consumer DNA tests and online genealogy, people might soon have a pretty good idea where their families came from for generations. But are we putting too much faith in DNA? Can our genetic ancestry really tell us anything about ourselves? And what happens when DNA databases become playgrounds for true crime sleuths?

Guests:

Carl Zimmer, science journalist and author of She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity

Kristen V. Brown, biotechnology reporter at Bloomberg

Kim Tallbear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science

Clan_McCrimmon, moderator of the Lyle Stevik subreddit 

Colleen Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press, cofounders of DNA Doe

Kelly Hills, cofounder of Rogue Bioethics

Further Reading:

She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity

Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science

The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants

In an Age of Gene Editing and Surrogacy, What Does Heredity Mean?

How DNA Testing Botched My Family's Heritage, and Probably Yours, Too

DNA testing is like the 'Wild West'; should it be more tightly regulated?

DNA test kits: Consider the privacy implications

The ingenious and ‘dystopian’ DNA technique police used to hunt the ‘Golden State Killer’ suspect

The Strange Case of the Man With No Name

Web Sleuths: Lyle Stevik

Reddit: Lyle Stevik

GED Match

Active DNA Doe Cases

DNA Doe Lyle Stevik Press Release 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guests:

Susan Quinn, author of Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times and other books.

Monet Noelle Marshall, playwright, consultant, artist, director, founder of JOCOAA.

Monica Byrne, novelist, playwright, futurist, activist.

Further Reading:

Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times by Susan Quinn

The New Deal Art Projects, An Anthology of Memoirs by Francis V. O’Connor

Engendering Culture: Manhood and Womanhood In New Deal Public Art and Theater by Barbara Medosh

American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA:When FDR Put the Nation to Work by Nick Taylor

The Subsidized Muse: Public Support for the Arts in the United States by Dick Netzer

The American Guide to the New Vermont

After the Curtain Calls

Creator of the Week with Monica Byrne

What if Trump Really Does End Money for the Arts?

Global Trends in Art Funding

How the United States Funds the Arts

Culturally Impoverished: US NEA Spends 1/40th of What Germany Doles Out for Arts Per Capita

Why Are Americans So Hostile to State-Funded Art?

Orson Welles’ Voodoo Macbeth: A forgotten diversity landmark

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The voice of your future president was played by Andrea Klunder, the Producer & host of The Creative Impostor and Podcast Envy podcasts. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky. 

If you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool. And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! Head to www.flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to Apple Podcasts and leave us a nice review. Or just tell your friends about the show! 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode we talk exoskeletons: what are they being used for now? What might they be used for in the future? And what happens when they’re everywhere?

Guests:

Tim Pote, PhD student at Virginia Tech

Greg Pote, Tim’s brother

Dr. Bill Marras, professor at The Ohio State University & Director of the Spine Research Institute

Larry Jasinksi, CEO, Rewalk

Ashley Shew, assistant professor at Virginia Tech in technology & disability, and author of Animal Constructions and Technological Knoweldge

Kim Sauder, graduate student in Disability Studies, author of Crippled Scholar blog

Bill Peace, anthropologist & bioethicist, author of Bad Cripple blog

Further Reading:

The robotic exoskeleton market is poised to grow to $1.9 billion in 2025, compared to $97 million in 2016, says ABI Research's Dan Kara.

Berkeley BLEEX Exoskeleton

Exoskeletons Won’t Turn Assembly Workers into Iron Man

We Try a New Exoskeleton for Construction Workers

The Exoskeletons Are Coming

ReWalk Testimonials

For heavy lifting, use exoskeletons with caution

Biomechanical evaluation of exoskeleton use on loading of the lumbar spine

Exoskeletons for industrial application and their potential effects on physical work load

The effects of a passive exoskeleton on muscle activity, discomfort and endurance time in forward bending work.

The Exoskeleton’s Hidden Burden

Walking is Over Rated

The Obsession With Walking

Exoskeletons as a Social Problem

You Cannot Kill a Bad Idea: The Exoskeleton Lives

ReWalk: A Plea for Common Sense

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The voice of the future historian from the intro was by Sarah Werner. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.

For more about the show or this episode go HERE. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices