Slate's Explainer Podcast: Episodes

Bear Naked Why is it so hard to tell boy polar bears from girl polar bears? By Juliet Lapidos Various news sources reported last week that handlers at Kushiro Municipal Zoo in northern Japan tried, and failed, to mate two polar bears before realizing that both Tsuyoshi and Kurumi are female. Tsuyoshi ...
Google's Blind Spots Can governments get Google Earth to obscure images of sensitive locations? By Nina Shen Rastogi The 10 gunmen who terrorized Mumbai last week used Google Earth to plot their attacks, according to statements made by the sole captured terrorist. The attackers targeted public areas ...
Start the Presses? What it means for the Fed to start "printing money." By Jacob Leibenluft With the Federal Reserve struggling to find new ways to stimulate the economy, some financial commentators—like the Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby and the Economist—have mentioned the possibility that ...
Are Private Jets Safer Than Commercial Airliners? The Big Three auto companies say they are. By Juliet Lapidos At a hearing of the House financial services committee last week, lawmakers scolded the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies for flying private jets to Washington, D.C., before requesting a ...
The Turkey-Industrial Complex How do farmers produce so many birds for Thanksgiving? By Nina Shen Rastogi If last year's numbers are any indication, some 46 million turkeys across America will be trussed up for Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday. That's about 17 percent of all turkeys raised in the United ...
Slate Magazine Podcast
Slate Magazine Podcast
Measuring the National Carbon Footprint How do you total up the greenhouse-gas emissions for an entire country? By Brian Palmer The United Nations reported this week that Kyoto Protocol signatories have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels, four years ahead of the treaty schedule. ...
The Millionaire Arsonist Is a homeless felon really expected to pay $101 million? By Christopher Beam A homeless man in California was sentenced Monday to four years in prison and ordered to pay $101 million for setting fires that burned down 160,000 acres of national forest. How's a guy who sleeps ...
Can You Be a Gay Mormon? Yes, but only if you don't have sex. By Nina Shen Rastogi Since the passage of California's Proposition 8, which repealed the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, the Mormon Church has been dealing with widespread protests of its support for the measure. What is the official ...
How Many Lashes Can One Man Take? Thousands, if they're performed correctly. By Noreen Malone There were protests in Egypt this week after an Egyptian doctor was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes by the Saudi Arabian government for prescribing medicine to a princess that "drove her to ...
Brother, Can You Spare a Dinar? What kind of lifestyle can an Iraqi neighborhood patrol officer afford? By Brian Palmer The Iraqi government this week assumed responsibility from the United States for paying the salaries of the Sons of Iraq, the formerly disaffected Sunnis who now serve as neighborhood ...
Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar? The best way to interrogate a child. By Juliet Lapidos An 8-year-old Arizona boy charged with murdering his father and another man appeared in court on Monday. Police say the boy confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber gun, but his defense attorneys ...
Cyberspace Invaders Is a cyber-attack an act of war? By Christopher Beam Chinese hackers have breached the White House computer network on numerous occasions, the Financial Times reported Thursday. Officials believe the attacks may be sponsored by the Chinese government. Is a cyber-attack by a foreign ...
What Happens to All the Ballots From Election Day? They'll likely be shredded by Christmas of 2010. By Jacob Leibenluft With all but a few House and Senate races decided, election officials around the country are finishing up the process of counting the vote. When all is said and done, those officials ...
The Presidential Transition FAQ Does the president-elect get to ride around in Air Force One-elect? And other questions … By Juliet Lapidos Speaking from the White House Rose Garden this morning, President Bush promised a smooth changing of the guard between his outgoing administration and Barack ...
Slate Magazine Podcast
Voting From the Hospital I got hit by a car over the weekend. Can I still cast a ballot on Election Day? By Nina Shen Rastogi Over the three days leading up to Election Day, close to a million Americans are likely to have been admitted to hospital emergency rooms. Many of those will end up confined ...
McCain's Secret Polls Why do a campaign's internal numbers look so different from the public data? By Jacob Leibenluft Most public polls find Barack Obama with double-digit leads in Iowa and Pennsylvania, but members of the McCain campaign cite internal numbers showing a tight race. A campaign might ...
Must Obama Prove He's a Natural-Born Citizen? The flimsy rules on eligibility standards for presidential candidates. By Christopher Beam A federal judge in Pennsylvania this week threw out a lawsuit that challenged Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency by claiming he's not a U.S. citizen. A ...
Please wait...