Stanford Radio

Evelyn and Alex talk about, what else, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. He says he’s freed the bird, but there’s a whole bunch of restraints he clearly hasn’t thought about. He’s got some not-so-fun meetings and phone calls coming up.

On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, robotics expert Oussama Khatib takes us on a deep dive into the vagaries of creating robots that swim. His most recent project is OceanOneK, a 200-pound, humanoid robot with stereoscopic vision and opposable thumbs that swims a thousand meters down. When the pressure was on, Khatib had to redesign everything, he says, beginning with a new glass-like shell good to 6,000 PSI. Listen in as Khatib and host Russ Altman plumb the depths of underwater robots on this installment of The Future of Everything.

When we talk about content moderation, we often focus on companies at the application layer of the internet, like the Facebooks and Twitters of the world. But there are a whole bunch of other companies in the internet stack that have the power to knock things offline. So what is similar or different about content moderation when it moves into the infrastructure layers of the internet? Evelyn spoke with Alissa Starzak, theVice President and Global Head of Public Policy at Cloudflare and Emma Llanso, the Director of CDT’s Free Expression Project to explore thisincreasingly pressing question.

This week Evelyn and Alex discuss severed fiber-optic cables in France, Kiwi Farms v2.0, worrying moves to crack down on online content in Turkey and Brazil, and how Republicans are going after our last line of defense against an unusable inbox: spam filters. Also Alex reveals Evelyn’s lack of knowledge about 19th Century Railroad regulation.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E198 | Desiree LaBeaud: The curious connection between plastic trash and infectious disease On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Stanford infectious disease expert Desiree LaBeaud talks trash, literally. She says carelessly discarded plastics can collect water, providing a perfect nursery to mosquitoes that then spread dengue, chikungunya, Zika, yellow fever and other killer diseases worldwide. Plastic trash has become a public health nightmare as LaBeaud tells host Russ Altman and listeners of The Future of Everything. Reducing it is now a critical component of life-saving disease prevention strategies.

This week, Evelyn and Alex went long on one of the weirdest tech reporting stories they've ever heard. Last week, The Wire—an Indian news outlet—released a bombshell report alleging it had seen internal Instagram documents evidencing improper influence by the Indian government over Meta. Meta denied the reports and what followed was a back and forth that got stranger and stranger as the saga went on...

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E199 | Alexandria Boehm: Wastewater helps reveal COVID’s real reach Civil and environmental engineer Alexandria Boehm joins Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast to discuss how a new form of epidemiology is using the tools of engineering to test wastewater to track COVID-19’s true spread. The wastewater that enters a treatment facility is really just one big biological sample, Boehm says. Testing it is far more accurate than COVID-19 case data, and it is useful for tracking other diseases in our communities, as well. Listen in to this episode of The Future of Everything, as Boehm and host Russ Altman explore the great promise of wastewater epidemiology.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court granted cert in two cases concerning the scope of platform liability for content on their services: Gonzalez v. Google, about whether platforms lose section 230 immunity when they recommend content to users, and Twitter v. Taamneh, about whether platforms can be found to have aided and abetted terrorism if they are found to have been insufficiently aggressive in removing terrorist content from their sites. The cert grants were a surprise, and the cases are complicated. Evelyn sat down with Daphne Keller, the podcast’s Supreme Court Correspondent, to dig into the details.

Stanford’s Evelyn Douek and Alex Stamos bring you the latest in online trust and safety news and developments, including two new Supreme Court cases, a Chinese influence operation targeting the US ahead of the mid-terms and PayPal’s accidental foray into content moderation discourse.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E197 | Is a good diagnosis possible without revealing your medical secrets? New cryptographic techniques allow patients to get personalized health care yet never divulge their medical secrets to anyone—even their doctors. On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, Stanford bioengineer Jan Liphardt talks about the challenge of getting good medical recommendations and diagnoses while guaranteeing that a patient's health secrets remain private. Computing on encrypted data is the way, he says. Tune in as health data expert Liphardt and host Russ Altman discuss the future of health privacy.

Last week the Fifth Circuit upheld a Texas social media law that, among other things, prevents platforms from discriminating against users based on their viewpoint. The leading opinion declared that a bunch of things we thought we knew about how the First Amendment and content moderation work are wrong. Next stop: the Supreme Court. Evelyn talks with Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, and Genevieve Lakier, Professor of Law and the Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar at the University of Chicago, about what the ruling said and what it means—to the extent that’s decipherable.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E196 | The water problem that’s still unresolved in schools across the country Access to clean drinking water should be a given and there are health consequences for children when it’s not. Stanford pediatrics professor Anisha Patel tells us how engaging a local community about their health concerns can lead to impactful discoveries and interventions. She recounts how a visit to a middle school helped her team realize that simple access to drinking water was a problem in schools across the nation. Patel also shares how similar interactions during the COVID pandemic created a system of free lunches at public schools that helped ensure food security for children throughout the country. On this episode of The Future of Everything, Patel and host Russ Altman discuss the future of community health.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E194 | A scientist uses radar technology to map the insides of ice sheets The technique helps us understand ice sheets right here on Earth -- and whether there could be life far, far beyond. To better understand the inner workings of glacier — which are often many kilometers in depth — researchers are using ice-penetrating radar, which sends radio waves through the ice, to create maps of what it looks like inside. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford radio glaciologist Dustin (Dusty) Schroeder explains how this technique works and how the data it generates can help us understand the implications of climate change here on Earth. Together with host, bioengineer Russ Altman, Schroeder also discusses how he and his team are using this technology to investigate the habitability of moons and planets in our solar system – and whether there might be life already there. Listen and subscribe here.

Criminal law expert David A. Sklansky discusses the August 8 search by the FBI of Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence and the legal implications of news reports that the former president took more than 700 pages of classified documents, including some related to the nation’s most covert intelligence operations, to his private club. Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 27, 2022.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E195 | How un-syncing the brain can help Parkinson’s patients Abnormal levels of neuronal synchronicity is a hallmark of many neurological conditions. A Stanford professor discusses how to alleviate their symptoms. When we think of synchrony, we often think of positive things, like ice skaters gliding in tandem. But if there’s too much synchrony in the brain – when neurons fire simultaneously – it can be a problem. In fact, abnormal neural synchrony underlies many neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and dystonia. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford professor of neurosurgery Peter Tass joins host, Stanford bioengineer Russ Altman, to discuss how vibrational therapies, such as a glove that applies vibrations to an individual’s fingertips, can help patients with neurological conditions by helping the neurons break and unlearn synchronicity. Listen and subscribe here.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E193 | How to put AI tools into the hands of primary care physicians Artificial intelligence tools can improve patient care. But health care AI innovations are mostly in specialized areas. A Stanford physician explains why that needs to change. Primary care medicine represents 52% of all care delivered in the United States, but when it comes to AI innovation, it’s been largely left behind. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford physician Steven Lin, explains how AI could improve healthcare logistics, optimize patient care, and significantly lower costs by reducing the clerical burdens that cost the U.S. healthcare system billions of dollars a year and keep physicians from spending more time with their patients. Learn more with Lin and host, bioengineer and fellow physician, Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E191 | A mobile app can help communities improve their health and well-being A Stanford professor explains how a relatively simple tool can empower individuals to identify and advocate for meaningful changes in their neighborhoods. Take a look around your neighborhood and you’ll see a few things you like -- and, most likely, a few you don’t. Maybe you need a crosswalk near the senior home. Or garbage keeps getting dumped on the sidewalk. Now imagine if you and others in your community could document what you saw, collect those data, identify and agree on issues to prioritize, and then find feasible solutions for them? In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Stanford faculty member Abby King, professor of epidemiology and population health and of medicine, explains how this scenario is possible, starting with a mobile app called the Our Voice Discovery Tool. King and host, bioengineer Russ Altman, also discuss how this by-the-people typ

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: E190 | Using technologies from the gaming industry to improve medicine A Stanford professor explains how augmented and virtual reality, body tracking, and other technologies from the gaming industry could be used in medicine. Unfortunately, not every medical procedure is 100% successful. Due to the complexity of breast cancer lumpectomies, for instance, 16–25% of surgeries fail to remove the entire tumor, requiring patients to repeat the procedure. But to improve surgery success rates, and their efficiency, physicians are now looking to technologies from a surprising source: the gaming industry. In this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything, Bruce Daniel, a professor of radiology, explains how technologies developed by the gaming industry, such as virtual reality and body tracking, can be used to improve medicine. With host, bioengineer Russ Altman, Daniel also discusses how the potential of these technologies goes beyond surgeries, even helpi

Pam Karlan, one of the nation’s leading experts on law and voting and the political process, discusses the new conservative-majority Supreme Court—and potential consequences of its blockbuster term, including the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 13, 2022.

Urban law expert Michelle Wilde Anderson discusses her new book, The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America, which looks at how local leaders are confronting government collapse in four blue-collar American communities—and the progress they are making against some of the seemingly intractable problems of poverty. Originally aired on SiriusXM on August 13, 2022.