Listen to the latest from the world of science, with Benjamin Thompson and Shamini Bundell. This week, investigating child mortality rates at a local level, and building genes from non-coding DNA.
In this episode:
00:43 A regional view of childhood mortality
Researchers map countries’ progress towards the UN’s Sustainable Developmental Goals. Research Article: Burstein et al.; World View: Data on child deaths are a call for justice; Editorial: Protect the census
07:22 Research Highlights
Astronomers identify a second visitor from beyond the solar system, and extreme snowfall stifles animal breeding in Greenland. Research Highlight: The comet that came in from interstellar space; Research Highlight: Extreme winter leads to an Arctic reproductive collapse
09:22 Evolving genes from the ground up
Natural selection’s creative way to evolve new genes. News Feature: How evolution builds genes from scratch
15:43 News Chat
A spate of vaping-related deaths in the US, and Japan’s import of the Ebola virus. News: Scientists chase cause of mysterious vaping illness as death toll rises; News: Why Japan imported Ebola ahead of the 2020 Olympics
But greater use of biosimilars could create significantly more savings. If biosimilars obtained a 75 percent market share, less than the share of these medicines in many European Union nations, the resulting annual savings for the U.S. healthcare system could be nearly $7 billion, based on Winegarden’s analysis.
the recycling technology is the result of a partnership between coca-cola, the dutch startup ioniqa technologies and indorama ventures, one of 
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s political news, including President Trump’s attitude toward Kurds in Syria and stance toward Turkey’s Syria offensive, testimony from the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and how the prospect of impeachment affects the race among 2020 Democrats.
This week, a method for predicting follow-up earthquakes, and the issues with deep learning systems in AI.
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Ramesh Ponnuru of The National Review join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s political news, including President Trump’s insistence that foreign leaders should investigate the Biden family, how the White House is responding to the subsequent House investigation and the newest fundraising and poll numbers among 2020 Democrats.
Stu Rothenberg of Inside Elections and NPR’s Domenico Montanaro join Judy Woodruff to discuss the latest political news, including how gun policy is factoring into the 2020 presidential campaign, another sexual assault allegation against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the contest between Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for progressive voters and how helpful the Democratic debates are.