End-to-end encryption is a way to keep messages private. It’s sometimes used by apps, which basically turn those messages into unintelligible chunks of data as soon as a user hits “Send.” The idea is that no one, except sender and recipient, can access that message. Not hackers, not third parties, not even the app platform itself. And you need special “keys” stored on an individual device to decrypt it. But many messaging platforms don’t have this kind of encryption, and some provide it only as an option. Kimberly Adams of “Marketplace Tech” spoke with Matthew Green, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, about why more apps don’t have end-to-end encryption by default.

A report out this week warns extreme heat waves, like the ones many parts of the world have experienced this summer, are likely to worsen over the next three decades. Climate research nonprofit First Street Foundation says by 2023, more than 8 million Americans could experience heat above 125 degrees Fahrenheit. In 30 years, more than 107 million people across the country will deal with those sweltering temperatures. And most of them will probably want air conditioning. But traditional AC units create more carbon emissions, which create more global warming. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Ankit Kalanki, a manager at Third Derivative, a climate tech accelerator. He says there are companies working on updating the technology that keeps us cool.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Among other things, it allocates about $370 billion for climate-friendly technology and programs. This includes tax rebates and credits to incentivize Americans to replace their old air conditioners or furnaces with heat pumps, which can be used for both cooling and heating homes and are more energy-efficient than traditional systems. But making the switch can be costly for households. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Alexander Gard-Murray, a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University’s Climate Solutions Lab.

Following backlash from Republican leaders, the Federal Election Commission is giving the OK to a pilot program from Google that would allow authorized political committees or campaigns to bypass Gmail’s spam filters and go directly into a user’s inbox. Google came up with the program after the GOP accused the company of disproportionately shunting Republican campaign emails to spam, citing a recent study from North Carolina State University. “Marketplace Tech’s” Kimberly Adams spoke with Ashley Gold, a tech and policy reporter for Axios, about the details of that study, the pilot program and more.

Weapons detection screening systems are becoming more and more common. These systems use touchless sensors to screen for objects that look like weapons in people’s pockets or backpacks, then they feed that information back to a computer system where security guards can view it. In Detroit, city leaders hope the technology can be used to prevent gun violence. As WDET’s Eli Newman reports, that means bringing security checkpoints to public spaces.

Bruce Springsteen fans were appalled last month, when Ticketmaster sold some seats for his upcoming concert tour for as much as $5,000. The average price was actually around $262, according to Ticketmaster. But for a certain subset of tickets, when demand spiked, so did the prices. Ticketmaster uses “dynamic pricing algorithms,” which calculate the price of a seat based on real-time demand. Among other things, it’s an attempt to edge out ticket scalpers. There’s been backlash against this before. Ride-hailing apps like Uber use this kind of algorithm too; it’s called surge pricing. And it has kicked in during emergencies like a terrorist attack and a mass shooting — prices went through the roof as people were trying to flee. “Marketplace Tech’s” Marielle Segarra spoke with Vivek Farias, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, about the concept behind dynamic pricing and how to potentially avoid letting an algorithm create situations like this.

Grand Theft Auto will be getting a female protagonist, according to a report from Bloomberg. At the time of this writing, Rockstar Games, which makes Grand Theft Auto, has not confirmed this and didn’t respond to Marketplace’s request for comment. But it would be a notable change — there are far fewer playable female characters than male ones in video games. And for a long time, women have been typecast as damsels in distress, like Princess Peach from Super Mario, or as sex objects depicted with little clothing and exaggerated proportions, like Lara Croft from the 1990s Tomb Raider games. She’s an archaeologist who explores old ruins in teeny, tiny shorts and a tank top. Research suggests those trends have changed in recent years — there are more playable female characters who are more nuanced and interesting.

Understanding proteins — like the spike protein of the coronavirus — is superimportant for the study of diseases and the development of drugs and vaccines. So there’s a lot of excitement about the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database, built by the artificial intelligence lab DeepMind with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Researchers there have used machine learning to predict and map more than 200 million protein structures from all kinds of organisms. Meghan McCarty-Carino of “Marketplace Tech” spoke with Matthew Higgins, professor of molecular parasitology at the University of Oxford. He studies malaria parasites for a potential vaccine, and he said the database has sped up that work.

In Rio de Janeiro, surgeons separated 3-year-old conjoined twins Arthur and Bernardo Lima in June. When the twins were born, they were attached at the head, their brains intertwined. Separating them would require dozens of complicated surgeries. To prepare, the twins’ doctors in Rio used 3D printed models of the kids’ brains and they practiced the surgeries in virtual reality, using goggles and controllers while connected to another medical team in London that had done this before. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Noor ul Owase Jeelani, a pediatric neurosurgeon at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital. His team led the VR training, and then he flew to Brazil to be one of the lead surgeons on the case.

Last week saw multiple major cryptocurrency hacks, one affecting wallets mostly linked to solana coins. Another hit Nomad, a blockchain bridge where users exchange assets on different blockchains. The losses totaled about $200 million. And these are just the latest hacks. So far this year, there’s been more than $1 billion stolen. So, why is this industry such a target? Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Josephine Wolff, associate professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.