Are We Doomed?

Investigative series on existential threats to humanity and the planet AI summary

NPR Network Visit website › Science · EN · 29 episodes · latest 2026-11-10

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What it is about

Is the world ending, or does it just feel like it? "Are We Doomed?" investigates the greatest risks facing society, the planet, and our species. What’s real? What’s hype? And how do we actually make it out alive? Nukes. Asteroids. Autocracy. Rogue AI. Climate-driven pandemics. Angry hippopotamuses. Teeth clenched, curiosity engaged, quips ready, this “slightly narrative” podcast explores everything from the existential and the unexpected to the overblown. Award-winning public radio journalist Ben Bradford brings you wild true stories, high-production sound design, and world-class experts answering the questions they never prepared for (“Why is the Earth doing this to us?”). From NuanceTales and distributed by the NPR Network, this show delves into history, science, technology, and the natural world, to help you separate legitimate world-changing risks from doomsday fantasies. Come for the supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park (real), stay to learn why the post-apocalyptic wasteland won’t look like the movies (sorry, you won’t be wandering with a shotgun and a dog), and leave with a better understanding of how our brilliant, bumbling species can chart a path through our current, terrifying adolescence.

Publisher’s own description, taken unchanged from the podcast feed.
2026 NuanceTales

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Latest episodes

Are We Running Out of Sand?!

2026-11-10 · 36 min

Sand is everywhere. Beaches. Rivers. Deserts full of powdery dunes. How could we possibly run out? Journalist Vince Beiser has dug deep into the past century — and more — of human construction and found one tiny grain…
Is the Microplastic In You Really Bad?

2026-10-27 · 32 min

You have plastic in you. In your lungs, your gut, your blood, maybe your brain. That sounds bad. But how bad? Ben Bradford investigates whether microplastics are shaping up to be one of those hazards humanity realizes…
How High Can You Build a Seawall?

2026-10-13 · 33 min

It’s a particularly watery moment, with a hurricane on the Gulf Coast and El Niño-fueled waves flooding California homes. Not helping: The seas are rising, and they’re going to keep rising. How much can we build to stop…
Can Other Planets Tell Us Our Fate?

2026-10-06 · 32 min

The universe should be crawling with life. With hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies, at least someone must have gotten a few billion years’ head start on us. So where is…
Can Science Defeat Aging?

2026-09-29 · 35 min

Why are babies born young? How come a squirrel lives longer than a rat, but not as long as a naked mole rat (or Ben’s cousin’s tortoise)? Scientific breakthroughs over the past few decades suggest the ultimate doom…
Bug Fight Club

2026-09-22 · 40 min

You’re a critter in the forest, peacefully munching on a tree — until it’s chopped down, turned into a pallet, and you’re shipped across the ocean. What do you do? Sometimes, the answer is escape, find defenseless trees…
Who Keeps Winding the Doomsday Clock?

2026-09-15 · 35 min

“Uh oh,” said several Manhattan Project scientists after they helped build a bomb and then it got used. They jumped to stop it from ever being used again. Solution: a newsletter. Through a somewhat convoluted chain of…
Can "Scams" Be a Doom?

2026-09-08 · 36 min

Scams are old. Mesopotamia old. Snake oil old. They haven’t doomed us yet. But investigative journalist Joseph Cox of 404 Media sees something changing: new technology is making the oldest cons more personal, more…
Just a Minor Sun Explosion

2026-09-01 · 37 min

In 1859, the sky turned blood-red, telegraph machines sparked and chattered, and some of their batteries exploded. Then humanity responded by building a civilization that runs on electricity, satellites, GPS, internet…
The Everything Vaccine

2026-08-25 · 41 min

From mild runny noses to savage pandemics, viruses and other pathogens have tormented humans for all of history. We are locked in a perpetual race against tiny shapeshifting enemies that mutate, spread, and occasionally…

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Publisher details

Oldest episode in feed: 04/2026
Typical length: 35 min
Format: Episodic Newest first, episodes stand alone

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