When we treat ourselves to “self-care,” maybe what we’re really trying to achieve is Nirvana? Amy Larocca is a journalist who spent 20 years at New York magazine as both fashion director and editor at large. She joins guest host Paige Phelps to discuss how the moneyed and elite have moved from fashion to the “wellness” space, how Gwyneth Paltrow and other celebrities peddle products with dubious claims, and why, in an increasingly secular world, wellness makes us feel closer to the divine. Her book is “How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time.”

Falling global birth rates could be setting us up for disastrous consequences down the line. Dean Spears is founding executive director of r.i.c.e., a nonprofit that works to promote children’s health, growth, and survival in rural India. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss a future with far fewer humans in just the next few decades and why stabilizing the diminishing population is such a monumentally difficult task. His book, written with co-author Michael Geruso, is “After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People.”

Wildfires are more dangerous than they’ve ever been — take if from a former firefighter. Jordan Thomas is a former Los Padres hotshot wildland firefighter and currently an anthropologist and chancellor’s fellow at the University of California. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why climate change doesn’t tell the whole story of why today’s fires rage out of control, our complicated relationship to fire, and what it’s like to run directly into the flames. His book is “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World.”

Last summer, former military officials testified to Congress about UFOs, and once again the nation’s imagination was ignited. Greg Eghigian, professor of history and bioethics at Pennsylvania State University, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the history of America’s fascination with UFOs — an obsession that spread globally — and what it all means for our civilization back here on Earth. His book is “After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon.”

This episode originally aired June 20th, 2025.

If opioids treat pain like a hammer, what medical researchers are looking for is something more like a delicate scalpel. Rivka Galchen holds a medical degree in addition to being a staff writer for The New Yorker, and she joins guest host Courtney Collins to discuss progress on developing alternative painkillers and why pain is so hard to manage in the first place. Her article is “The Radical Development of an Entirely New Painkiller.”

To conquer the deserts of Africa or ice of Greenland, the U.S. military needed to get pretty crafty. Northeastern University history professor Gretchen Heefner joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how modern warfare has shaped the way the Army Corps of Engineers approaches the challenges of extreme environments, the havoc those efforts have brought to those communities, and the outlandish ideas that failed along the way. Her book is “Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments.”

What is DOGE now without Elon Musk? New Yorker Benjamin Wallace-Wells joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the agencies gutted by Musk’s attempts at cost cutting and how they’re managing to stay afloat, the people in charge now that he exited in dramatic fashion, and what government employees want the public to know about how they really detect fraud and abuse. His article is “Move Fast and Break Things.”

The United Nations is a storied institution, but it lacks teeth to actually make a difference. Journalist Amanda Chicago Lewis joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why U.N. resolutions are easily ignored, how red tape keeps workers from forwarding policy recommendations, and why the culture inside the agency belies the peaceful exterior it tries to project. Her article “Wishful Thinking” was published in Harper’s.

While the Trump administration enacts hefty tariffs on other nations, U.S. businesses are worried about how these taxes might affect them, too. Emily Kilcrease is a senior fellow and director of the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the state of limbo U.S. business owners find themselves in, why global trade policy did, in fact, need an overhaul, and who absorbs the cost of international trade wars. Her article “Tell Me How This Trade War Ends” was published in Foreign Affairs.

There is a growing number of people who think studying ghosts or alien abductions should be serious science. Journalist Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling joins host Krys Boyd to discuss a pushback against the scientific establishment, what our affinity for storytelling has to do with our long-held beliefs, and why the paranormal might need to be taken seriously in the future. His book is “The Ghost Lab: How Bigfoot Hunters, Mediums, and Alien Enthusiasts Are Wrecking Science.”