Cited Podcast

On a daily basis, we are exposed to thousands of toxic chemicals. This is no accident; it is by design. They are everywhere – coating our consumer products, in our food packaging, being dumped into our lakes and sewers, and in countless other places. However, for the most part, regulators say that we need not worry.

Hanford is the most-polluted place in America. On our last episode, you heard about the nuclear plant’s largely-forgotten history–how it poisoned the people living downwind. On our season finale: a nuclear safety auditor tries to get it shut down, the downwinders struggle for justice, and we take you into the plant itself.

Richland, Washington is a company town that sprang up almost overnight in the desert of South Eastern Washington. Its employer is the federal government, and its product is plutonium. Here, the official history is one of scientific achievement, comfortable houses, and good-paying jobs. But it doesn’t include the story of what happened after the bomb was dropped — neither in Japan, nor right there in Washington State. On part one of our two-part season finale, we tell the largely-forgotten story of the most toxic place in America.

Medical experts are rushing to see which drugs might help treat COVID-19. There are dozens of candidates: Remdesivir, Hydroxycloroquin, Actemra, Kevzara, Favipiravir, the list goes on. They better pick the right one; because billions of dollars of public money is at stake, not to mention 100s of thousands — if not millions — of lives.

The town of Buxton, North Carolina loves their lighthouse. But in the 1970s, the ocean threatened to swallow it up. For the next three decades, they fought an intense political battle over what to do. Fight back against the forces of nature, or retreat? It’s a small preview of what’s to come in a time of rising seas. We team up with 99% Invisible to tell the story

When genetically modified corn was found in the highlands of Mexico, Indigenous campesino groups took to the streets to protect their cultural heritage, setting off a 20-year legal saga.

How the accidental finding of genetically modified corn in the highlands of Mexico set off a twenty-year battle over scientific methods, academic freedom, Indigenous rights, environmental law and international trade. Part one of two.

Expo 1967 was the centrepiece of Canada’s 100th birthday. In a country of only 20 million, 50 million people attended Expo ’67. Amid the crowds and the pageantry, one building stood out. The Indians of Canada Pavilion. This was more than a tall glass tipi. It revealed (at least partly) Canada’s sordid colonial history.

In 2011, an American psychologist named Daryl Bem proved the impossible. He showed that precognition — the ability to sense the future — is real. His study was explosive, and shook the very foundations of psychology.

Growing up, Chris Dum has a morbid fascination with ‘deviant behavior.’ It led him down an unusual career path: he decided to study most reviled people in our society. Sex offenders. But it wasn’t enough to study them from a distance.

Before there was the War on Science, there were the Science Wars. In the 1990’s, the Science Wars were a set of debates about the nature of science and its place in a democratic society. This little-known and long-forgotten academic squabble became surprisingly contentious, culminating in an audacious hoax. Today, some scholars say the Science Wars might just explain how we got our ‘post-truth’ moment. To figure out if they’re right, we go back to the beginning.

The Obama years were the closest thing we’ve had to technocracy. The President and his administration celebrated science and expertise, and they gave enormous regulatory…

At Crosstown Clinic, doctors are turning addiction treatment on its head: they’re prescribing heroin-users the very drug they’re addicted to. This is the story of one clinic’s quest to remove the harms of addiction, without removing the addiction itself.