A rogue strain of flu, subclade K, has sickened more than 19 million people in the US so far this season. And the flu shot hasn’t offered that much protection. What’s going on with this superflustorm?

Joining Host Flora Lichtman with some answers is Jennifer Duchon, a pediatric infectious disease specialist.

Guest: Dr. Jennifer Duchon is a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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This time last year, Los Angeles was on fire, and more than 16,000 homes and buildings burned to the ground. Cars, batteries, solar panels, insulation, and cleaning supplies went up in flames, releasing chemicals like lead, benzene, and asbestos into giant smoke plumes that wafted across the city.

A year later, scientists are trying to understand the fallout of this urban wildfire—what chemicals got left behind, how to remediate them, and the threats to our health. Host Flora Lichtman talks with Yifang Zhu and Francois Tissot, who are at the forefront of this research. And for one of them, this work is personal.

Guests:
Dr. François Tissot is a professor of geochemistry at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
Dr. Yifang Zhu is a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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Deepfakes have been everywhere lately, from fake AI images of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro following his (real) capture by the United States, to X’s Grok AI generating nonconsensual images of real people in states of undress. And if you missed all that, you've almost certainly had your own deepfake close encounter in your feed: maybe rabbits bouncing on a trampoline or an unlikely animal friendship that seems a little too good to be true.

Deepfakes have moved beyond the realm of novelty, and it’s more difficult than ever to know what is actually real online. So how did we get here and what is there, if anything, to do about it?

Joining Host Flora Lichtman are Hany Farid, who’s studied digital forensics and how we relate to AI for over 25 years, and Sam Cole, a journalist at 404 Media who’s covered deepfakes and their impact since 2017.

Guests:
Dr. Hany Farid is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at University of California, Berkeley.
Sam Cole is a journalist at 404 Media, based in New York, NY

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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