A teenage whiz kid invents a new toy for Milton Bradley. Then the trouble starts.

The Never Use Alone hotline was set up so that drug users can call if they are say, using heroin by themselves. Someone will stay on the line with them in case they overdose.

Contributor Samuel James thought he knew what happened to his mother. But he was wrong.

We’ve witnessed a revolution in A.I. since the public rollout of ChatGPT.  Our Senior Editor David Kestenbaum thinks that even though there’s been a ton of coverage, there’s one thing people haven’t talked much about: have these machines gotten to the point that they’re starting to have something like human intelligence? Where they actually understand language and concepts, and can reason? He talks with scientists at Microsoft who’ve been trying to figure that out.

When to leave Twitter is a question lots of executives faced when Elon Musk took over the company — those who weren't immediately fired, anyway. We hear an insider’s account from the man who ran Trust & Safety at the company, until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Our senior editor David Kestenbaum introduces us to someone who is literally running around the block as a way to solve one of his problems. David tries to figure out why it works.

David Kestenbaum desperately wants to set the record straight for everybody about whether aliens regularly visit earth. They don’t, he says.

Senior Editor David Kestenbaum talks with a different kind of advocacy group: animal scientists doing their best to save a particular species before it winks out of existence. (16 minutes)

A man in Mississippi tries to get his right to vote back. The state constitution provides a way to do that.

Senior editor David Kestenbaum helps his kids set up an ant farm. They follow all the instructions, to the letter! But he ends up learning a lesson he’s pretty sure the manufacturer did not intend.

A state senator tries persuading his own constituents, from his own party, that the 2020 election was not stolen. (17 minutes)

When you need to retrieve all manner of treasures secured behind steel doors and complex locks, there’s one man you can count on: safecracker Dave McOmie.

David Kestenbaum follows one person as they try to find something—a set of words, some facts, a story—to convince Trump Republicans to get themselves vaccinated.

The discovery of 30 century-old postcards written in old Yiddish by a distant family member challenges David Kestenbaum’s ideas about the unimportance of blood ties.

Fewer than 40 million Americans have gotten the vaccine so far, which leaves a lot of people jealous and wondering what happens inside those little rooms.

For years one group of people has been trying to push a giant boulder to the top of a hill, like Sisyphus. But in this case, it looks like they’ve actually succeeded! David Kestenbaum spoke with four scientists who have been working on a coronavirus vaccine, one that was just shown to work.

David Kestenbaum talks to one teacher there who’s already gone through a month of in-person learning to see what the  future might hold for other schools.

Host Ira Glass gives an update on his health status after going into quarantine last week, and David Kestenbaum interviews a 71 year old trying to avoid the virus.

Host Ira Glass talks with David Kestenbaum about a phone app that can create alternate universes with the press of a button.