Slate is dark, and its staff are taking a much needed and deserved breath. And with that, Team Gist has gone dark for a day, too, so we bring you two old interviews from the fall of 2014.

First, an interview with biologist and mathematical modeler Nina Fefferman, who at the time this was recorded was based at Rutgers University and working on predicting the spread of Ebola. Now she's at the University of Tennessee and modeling Covid-19.

The second interview is about the power of analogies with author John Pollack who chats with Mike about his book Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas.

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Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Margaret Kelley.

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