Galaxy Brain

It’s our best hope for life after earth—and a freezing, irradiated desert more than 30 million miles away. In our season finale, scientists and writers debate whether colonizing Mars is the most important mission in the history of the human race, or an absurd daydream.

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“Where is everybody?” That’s the question physicist Enrico Fermi asked in 1950. Nearly 70 years later, we’re getting tantalizingly close to solving the riddle known as Fermi’s Paradox: If the universe is so large and so old, why haven't we found life on other planets?

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Since the Internet exploded journalism’s business revenue, local newsrooms around the country have been in free fall. We speak to The Denver Post's former managing editor and other experts to debate how to save the news—and, just possibly, democracy itself.

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Finding love on the Internet can be awkward, annoying, or downright scary. In this episode, two sociologists debate the merits of online dating and discuss their research on the history of romance in America.

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Digital devices rob us of our attention, creativity, and, some studies show, our mental health. We ask psychologists and authors if smartphone and social media usage has triggered a national health crisis — and what we can do to free ourselves from the allure of modern technology.

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Silicon Valley and Wall Street are obsessed with Bitcoin and its underlying technology called blockchain. Boosters say it'll fix everything from elections to shipping to identity theft. But what exactly is blockchain, how is it being used, and is the hype really worth it?

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Amazon might become the first trillion-dollar company in the history of the world. Has the Everything Store become a dangerous monopoly threatening the U.S. economy?

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In the last 18 months, Facebook has gone through one of the worst public relations crises of any major tech company. In this episode, two guests debate whether Facebook is fixable, or whether its business model is designed to sell us lies. Read more here.

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On Crazy/Genius, host Derek Thompson asks big questions about everything from online dating to blockchain to space exploration. Is technology moving us forward or backward? How did we get here — and where are we headed? Starting May 10.

Music by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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