Google employee Blake Lemoine is on leave after going public with his belief that the company's "Language Models for Dialog Applications," or LaMDA, is alive. A high-ranking member of Mexican law enforcement has been sanctioned for his long-standing, deeply illegal arrangement with a drug cartel. Over in Utah, a bank has been flagged for issuing 189% interest loans through auto repair shops. All this and more in this week's Strange News.

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It may sound hard to believe, but a great deal of Earth's modern electronics -- everything from jets to your smartphone -- depend on just a few substances, things called rare earth metals, or rare earth elements. While you might not hear about them too often, they're one of the hottest commodities on the planet. As you check out today's episode, countries, companies, and a few very powerful people across the world are scrambling to get a piece of the profits -- and they're increasingly less concerned with who might get hurt along the way.

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An instagram user hips the guys to a bizarre, frightening study of fish off the coast of Florida -- they're testing positive for pharmaceutical drugs, in huge amounts. A caller asks for more information on a little-understood spike in brain tumors in New Jersey. Ben and Matt share phone calls from across the United States responding to recent episodes. All this and more in this week's listener mail.

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Each and every year, billions of children take some form of standardized tests. In theory these tests help measure how much a child has learned, allowing educators to gauge each kid's progress. Yet standardized testing in the US has a troubling origin story, one that's not often talked about. Tune in to learn more.

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Public wifi can be an enormously convenient thing -- it helps people dodge data charges in coffee shops, airports and other places around the globe. But how safe is it? Tune in to learn more.

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The CEO of Axon thought he had a solution to mass shootings in schools: putting taser-equipped drones in public facilities. Axon's ethics board resigned, but the story's not over yet. Researchers reveal an unprecedented finding -- it seems a new drug has completely eliminated all traces of a very specific type of cancer. All this and more in this week's Strange News.

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Most Americans can agree that society isn't perfect -- in fact, most people in other parts of the world can say the same about their own societies. But how can we attempt to address these issues? Is there genuinely a conspiracy between the world's wealthiest people to keep the disadvantaged divided? This week, the guys welcome special guest, author, comedian and philosopher Baratunde Thurston to explore these questions and more.

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For the majority of human history, a failing vital organ was a death sentence. Yet hard-won lessons from countless tragic medical experiments have given modern humans the amazing ability to swap a failing organ from a healthy one, often with good odds of surviving the operation. So where do the organs come from? Is there really any truth to the rumors of an illegal organ trade?

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For some, outsourcing is perfectly fine -- for others, it's dangerous. In today's episode, the guys dive into the ins and outs of outsourcing, from the advantages to the drawbacks... to the conspiracies and corruption surrounding it.

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For millennia humankind has dreamed of reaching the heavens, and in recent decades several countries have begun turning these dreams into reality. Yet the path to the stars isn't all altruism and noble scientific advancement -- in fact, human activities in space have often been shrouded in secrecy, and the practice continues today.

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