What's Your Problem?

Pushkin Industries

Every week on What’s Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers talk about the future they’re trying to build – and the problems they have to solve to get there. How do you take a drone delivery service you’ve built in Rwanda and make it work in North Carolina? How do you convince people to buy a house on the Internet? How do you sell thousands of dog ramps to weiner dogs all across America when a pandemic breaks the global supply chain?  Hosted by former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein, What’s Your Problem helps listeners understand the problems really smart people are trying to solve right now. iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.

  • 44 minutes 32 seconds
    The World Is Getting Better (Really)

    Hannah Ritchie is a data scientist and the deputy editor of Our World in Data. She is also the author of Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet. Hannah’s problem is this: How do you use data to get past the doomsday headlines and solve big problems to achieve sustainability?

    Check out Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    7 November 2024, 5:30 am
  • 28 minutes 32 seconds
    Rabies: When Monsters are Real…from Incubation

    Why has rabies invaded our nightmares for centuries? Author and veterinarian Monica Murphy tells us about the cultural history of rabies (which involves vampires and werewolves!) and how our long nightmare with the disease came to an end. Then, wildlife biologist Kathy Nelson tells us about a surprising program that works to control raccoon rabies… from the sky. Enjoy this episode from Incubation, another Pushkin podcast. 

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    31 October 2024, 4:30 am
  • 36 minutes 26 seconds
    Using Gene Therapy to Help the Blind See

    After decades of research, gene therapy is starting to work. Shannon Boye is a professor of cellular and molecular therapeutics at the University of Florida. She is also the co-founder and chief scientific officer of Atsena Therapeutics. Shannon’s problem is this: How do you use gene therapy to cure certain forms of blindness? 

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    17 October 2024, 4:30 am
  • 40 minutes 3 seconds
    Bringing Back Mammoths and Dodos*

    *Or at least, sort of bringing back mammoths and dodos.

    Beth Shapiro is the chief scientific officer at Colossal Biosciences and the author of How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction. Beth's problem is this: How do you use the tools of modern biology – and hundreds of millions of dollars – to bring back species that have been extinct for centuries? And on another level, Beth’s problem is explaining to the world what it really means (and doesn’t mean) to bring back an extinct species.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    10 October 2024, 4:30 am
  • 36 minutes 50 seconds
    What Elevators Teach Us About Technology, Design, and Human Behavior

    The elevator made the modern city possible: No elevators, no skyscrapers. Today, people are working on entirely new kinds of elevators that can go higher and faster than ever. On today’s show, we talk about those innovations with Lee Gray, who is possibly the world’s leading elevator historian and definitely a professor of architectural history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    3 October 2024, 4:30 am
  • 38 minutes 34 seconds
    Can the Plant Microbiome Revolutionize Farming?

    The invention of synthetic fertilizer was one of the key breakthroughs of the 20th century. It’s the reason we can grow enough food to feed billions of people. It’s also super energy intensive. Karsten Temme is the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Pivot Bio. Karsten's problem is this: How can you use the tools of gene editing to get microbes in soil to provide more nitrogen for crops?

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    26 September 2024, 4:30 am
  • 38 minutes 45 seconds
    Turning Pollution into Jet Fuel

    Jennifer Holmgren is the CEO of LanzaTech. Her problem is this: How do you capture pollution from factories, feed it to bacteria, and get the bacteria to produce ethanol, which can become everything from polyester to jet fuel?

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    19 September 2024, 4:30 am
  • 40 minutes 39 seconds
    Reinventing Mining to Power the World

    Moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy will require huge amounts of copper, lithium, and other metals. Kurt House is the co-founder and CEO of KoBold Metals. The company recently made a huge copper discovery in Zambia, and is looking for other metals in other places. Kurt's problem is this: How do you use AI – machine learning, data science – to find the metals we'll need for the energy transition?

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    12 September 2024, 4:30 am
  • 35 minutes 29 seconds
    Inventing a Vaccine for Bees

    Dalial Freitak and Annette Kleiser are the co-founders of Dalan Animal Health, a company that has brought to market the first vaccine for insects. Their problem is this: How do you turn a discovery about insect immune systems into a vaccine that can protect the bees we need to grow everything from almonds to blueberries?

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    5 September 2024, 4:30 am
  • 39 minutes 24 seconds
    A Better Way to Make the Chemicals in Everything

    Sean Hunt is the co-founder and CTO of Solugen, a company that sells around $100 million a year of industrial chemicals. Sean's problem is this: How do you make the chemicals that go into everything around us -- our food, our clothes, our cars -- without using fossil fuels?

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    29 August 2024, 4:30 am
  • 44 minutes 18 seconds
    How Refrigeration Changed the World

    Refrigeration is an underrated technology. It completely transformed what billions of people eat every day. 

    Today’s guest, Nicola Twilley, tells the story of refrigeration in her new book, Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. Topics under discussion include: Why brewers were key drivers of refrigeration technology; the extraordinary technology inside a bag of lettuce; and why the technological frontier in food preservation may mean that we don't need to keep so much stuff so cold.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    8 August 2024, 4:30 am
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