Stanford Radio

Professor Chris Lemons addresses how parents and teachers can support students with disabilities during the covid-19 pandemic. Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 21, 2020.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E131 | Renee DiResta: How to beat bad information Inadvertent misinformation and outright disinformation have become a scourge on American discourse, but those committed to the truth are keeping pace. Renée DiResta is research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a multi-disciplinary center that focuses on abuses of information technology, particularly social media. She’s an expert in the role technology platforms and their “curatorial” algorithms play in the rise and spread of misinformation and disinformation. Fresh off an intense period keeping watch over the 2020 U.S. elections for disinformation as part of the Election Integrity Partnership, DiResta says the campaign became one of the most closely observed political dramas in American history. She says that whether it comes from the top down or the bottom up, bad information can be spotted and beaten, but overcoming falsehoods in the future will require vigilance and a commitment to the truth. She e

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E130 | Will Tarpeh: How to take the waste out of wastewater The very notion of wastewater, and what we choose to do with it, could change dramatically if this Stanford chemical engineer has his way. Once the bathwater is drained, the toilet flushed or the laundry done, few give a passing thought to the wastewater that leaves our homes. But chemical engineer Will Tarpeh might change your mind, if you give him the chance. Tarpeh says that that water is a literal mine of valuable chemicals. Chemicals like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium make great fertilizers. Lithium can be used in lithium ion batteries. And even pharmaceuticals could be recovered and reused. In fact, Tarpeh points out that if we could harvest all the world’s urine, it could supplant 20–30% of our nitrogen needs — and in some places can be cheaper to do than existing production and transport methods. Waste, Tarpeh says, is just a state of mind. His “pipe dream,” he says, is to develop next-gener

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E129 | Kwabena Boahen: How to build a super-efficient super-computer Could new-age computer chips, modeled on the how the human brain works, empower a watershed for artificial intelligence? At least one expert has staked his career on it. Bioengineer Kwabena Boahen builds highly efficient “neuromorphic” supercomputers modeled on the human brain. He hopes they will drive the artificial intelligence future. He uses an analogy when describing the goal of his work: “It’s LA versus Manhattan.” Boahen means structurally. Today’s chips are two dimensional — flat and spread out, like LA. Tomorrow’s chips will be stacked, like the floors of the skyscrapers on a New York block. In this analogy, the humans are the electrons shuffling data back and forth. The shorter distances they have to travel to work, and the more they can accomplish before traveling home, will drive profound leaps in energy efficiency. The consequences could not be greater. Boahen says that the lean chi

Stanford alumnus Travis Bristol, professor at UC Berkeley, explains why it’s important to recruit and retain Black teachers. Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 7, 2020.

Stanford Professor Sam Wineburg helps teachers and students discern fact from fiction online. Originally aired on SiriusXM on November 7, 2020.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E128 | Daphne Koller: How machine learning is transforming drug discovery A veteran of the age of artificial intelligence explains why she left academia for a chance to change the pharmaceutical industry. In a world where a drug takes years and billions of dollars to develop, just one in 20 candidates makes it to market. Daphne Koller is betting artificial intelligence can change that dynamic. Twenty years ago, when she first started using artificial intelligence to venture into medicine and biology, Koller was stymied by a lack of data. There wasn’t enough of it and what there was, was often not well suited to the problems she wanted to solve. Fast-forward 20 years, however, and both the quantity and quality of data, and the tools for studying biology, have advanced so dramatically that the adjunct professor of computer science at Stanford founded a company, insitro, that uses machine learning (a subspecialty of ​artificial intelligence) to explore the causes an

Jeff Orlowski, The Stanford alumnus behind the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma wants you to stop scrolling for our collective benefit. Describing himself as a technical optimist, film director Jeff Orlowski on implementing positive change for social media for the betterment of humanity.

President Trump has repeatedly refused to state clearly that he will accept the results of the November election. In so doing, he raises critical questions for American democracy—particularly if the election is close. In this episode of Stanford Legal, Pam Karlan, one of the nation’s leading experts on the law of democracy discusses critical issues in this important election for the next American president. Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 24, 2020.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E127 | Markus Covert: How to build a computer model of a cell A bioengineer sets out to create a computer simulation of a single living cell and comes to grips with the remarkable complexity that is life. When Stanford bioengineer Markus Covert first decided to create a computer model able to simulate the behavior of a single cell, he was held back by more than an incomplete understanding of how a cell functions, but also by a lack of computer power. His early models would take more than 10 hours to churn through a single simulation and that was when using a supercomputer capable of billions of calculations per second. Nevertheless, in his quest toward what had been deemed "a grand challenge of the 21st century," Covert pressed on and eventually published a paper announcing his success in building a model of just one microbe: E. coli, a popular subject in biological research. The model would allow researchers to run experiments not on living bacteria in a lab, but

Calley Means, Stanford Alum and Founder of Anomalie, a start up driving change beyond the traditional in the wedding dress industry. Accomplished fashion entrepreneur Calley Means is disrupting the bridal industry through customizable technology that designs the perfect wedding gown and ready to wear pieces. Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 17, 2020.

The Electoral College is a uniquely American system, with electors in each state choosing our president rather than the popular vote. After two recent presidents lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College (Bush and Trump), is it outdated and unfair? In this episode, Stanford historian Jack Rakove joins Pam and Joe to discuss the history and present-day relevance of the Electoral College. Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 10, 2020.

Revelations about President Trump’s tax returns, and news about how much or how little he has paid to the federal government, have made headlines in recent weeks. In this episode, Stanford Legal co-host Joe Bankman, himself a tax law expert, breaks down the important takeaways from what we know about the President and his taxes. Originally aired on SiriusXM on October 10, 2020.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the legal icon known as the architect of the legal fight for women’s rights in the 1970s, is remembered in this episode of Stanford Legal by her former SCOTUS clerk Lisa Beattie Frelinghuysen. Join Pam, Joe, and Lisa for this discussion about RBG’s legacy, key cases, and recollections of the notorious justice. Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 26, 2020.

Antero Garcia, Stanford education professor, discusses civic engagement in times of COVID-19 and political division. Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 26, 2020.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E126 | Rafael Pelayo: How to get a good night’s sleep A sleep expert offers insight into why so many of us are not getting enough zzz’s, what the consequences are and, above all, how we can sleep better. COVID-19 is changing how many scientists, like Stanford sleep expert Rafael Pelayo, MD, view their field. First off, the shift to telemedicine is providing Pelayo, author of the new book How to Sleep, an unprecedented glimpse into the sleep environments of his patients. “I’m making house calls for the first time,” he says. Second, surprisingly, some of his patients, unburdened of long commutes, say they are sleeping and dreaming more than ever. But, others are not so fortunate, reporting increased trouble sleeping and more nightmares. Pandemic-induced or not, the consequences of lost sleep are universal and readily apparent in the country’s diminished productivity, in the rates of stroke, heart attacks and car accidents, and in the pervasive irritable mood many ca

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: Marietje Schaake: Can democracy survive in a digital world? A former Member of the European Parliament sizes up the state of democracy in the digital age and finds much to fret about, but also ways to fight back. Marietje Schaake was a Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2019 and now serves as the international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. As she has watched democracy evolve in the age of instantaneous global communication and hyperconnected social media, she has grown concerned about the resilience of democracy as technology disrupts the status quo. While the technologies—and the often-unregulated companies who created them—claim to be well-meaning, she says democracy is under attack from propagandists and bad actors using these transformative tools in troubling ways. The business models based on surveillance and advertisi

Ronan McGovern on empowering people to be their best selves, with a particular focus on the Neurodiverse among us. Originally aired on SiriusXM on September 19, 2020.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman Andrew Huberman: How stress affects the mind — and how to relieve it The year has unleashed stresses few would have imagined just months ago, but the science of stress — and of stress relief — is keeping pace. A Stanford neurobiologist explains. Andrew Huberman is a Stanford neurobiologist and ophthalmologist keenly interested in the biology of stress and ways to manage stress. He’s developed and tested a number of stress-relieving techniques — from specific patterns of breathing to visual tools — and uses virtual reality to help humans control their stress in adaptive ways. He is also testing how people can access better sleep using stress-relief tools. Much of this work is done in collaboration with David Spiegel, MD, associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine. Huberman studies how the nervous system takes in and processes information and uses it to drive reflexive and deliberate behavior. In that regard, humans are largely visual

Xiao Wang, Founder of Boundless, a start up that empowers families to navigate the immigration system more confidently, rapidly, and affordably. Originally aired on September 12, 2020.