The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide its boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? Today on Throughline's We the People: the Eighth Amendment, the death penalty, and what cruel and unusual really means.

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Whether it's pesticides in your cereal or the door plug flying off your airplane, consumers today have plenty of reasons to feel like corporations might not have their best interests at heart. At a moment when the number of product recalls is high and trust in the government is low, we're going to revisit a time when a generation of people felt empowered to demand accountability from both companies and elected leaders — and got results. Today on the show, the story of the U.S. consumer movement and its controversial leader: the once famous, now infamous Ralph Nader.

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Our dreams can haunt us. But what are we to make of them? From omens and art to modern science, we tell the story of dreams and the surprising role they may play in our lives. (Originally ran as The Way We Dream)

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Defeating old age? In 1899, Elie Metchnikoff woke up in Paris to learn he had done just that. At least, that's what the newspaper headlines said. Before long he was inundated with mail from people begging him to help them live forever. The only problem? He didn't know how to do it.

At the time, Metchnikoff was one of the world's most famous scientists. And he believed aging was a disease he could cure. He dedicated his life to that quest, spending his days interviewing centenarians, pulling gray hair out of colleagues and old dogs, and boiling strawberries — all in the pursuit of eternal youth. If you've ever had yogurt for breakfast, you likely have Metchnikoff to thank. (This episode first ran as The Man Who Cured Aging)

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How did love – this thing that's supposed to be beautiful, magical, transformative – turn into a neverending slog? We went searching for answers, and we found them in surprising places. On today's show: a time-hopping, philosophical journey into the origins of modern love. (This episode first ran as Love, Throughline)

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In the Xinjiang region of western China, the government has rounded up and detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups. Many haven't been heard from in years, and more still are desperately searching for their families. Western governments have called this crackdown a cultural genocide and a possible crime against humanity.

In this episode, the first of a three-part series from Embedded, NPR correspondent Emily Feng tells the story of one of those people. For years, a Uyghur man named Abdullatif Kucar had no idea what has happened to his wife and young children after they were detained by Chinese authorities. Emilly follows Kucar as he desperately searches for his family.

But this story is bigger than one family. In this series, Emily also travels across Asia and dives into decades of history to uncover the massive Chinese surveillance of Uyghurs, getting exclusive interviews with the people suffering from that surveillance and the people upholding it – who sometimes are one and the same.

This episode was originally published in 2022. To hear the whole series, head to https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510311/embedded.

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"History" can seem big and imposing. But it's always intensely personal – it's all of our individual experiences that add up to historical events. Over the next few episodes, we're exploring the personal and how it's changed history: from the story of romantic love, to the man who tried to cure aging, to the contents of our dreams...

First up, memory and our sense of smell. What if we told you that the key to time travel has been right in front of our eyes this whole time? Well, it has: it's in our noses. Today on the show, the science — and politics — of smell, and how it links our past and our present. (Originally ran as The Scent of History)

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Throughline associate producer Anya Steinberg talks to supervising senior editor Julie Caine about her reporting trip to Owens Valley in northeastern California for the episode, "Water in the West," about the creation of—and controversy over—the Los Angeles aqueduct.

This normally would be a bonus episode just for Throughline+ listeners. With this being the season of giving, we're sharing this one with everyone! To access all of Throughline's bonus episodes, listen to every episode sponsor-free, and support public radio, sign up for Throughline+ at plus.npr.org/throughline

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Christmas wasn't always a national shopping spree — or even a day off work. But in 19th-century London, it went viral. When Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, the book's tale of miserly Scrooge and the ghosts that transformed him transformed the holiday too, especially in the U.S.

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The U.S. has long professed to be a country where people can seek refuge. That's the promise etched into the base of the Statue of Liberty. But it's never been that clear-cut.

Today on the show, the story of how the U.S. asylum system was forged in response to moments of crisis, and where it left gaps: from Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, to Cuban and Haitian asylum seekers during the Cold War, to the precarious system of today.

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