Technology

Works in Progress Podcast

by Works in Progress

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Latest episodes

Can we switch off diseases?

October 2, 2026 · 1 hr 16 min

** We’ve paused the Works in Progress podcast feed, so head over to our dedicated Hard Drugs podcast feed to listen to future episodes, if you hadn’t subscribed there already! https://harddrugs.worksinprogress.co/ **What if treating…
Are miracle drugs hiding in plain sight?

July 24, 2026 · 2 hr 32 min

** We’ve paused the Works in Progress podcast feed, so head over to our dedicated Hard Drugs podcast feed to listen to future episodes, if you hadn’t subscribed there already! https://harddrugs.worksinprogress.co/ ** GLP-1 drugs like…
Issue 24: Rats, The Glorious Revolution and the secret to ultra-Orthodox fertility

June 17, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min

Alberta is the only part of the world that has people but not rats. Rats came to the new world on ships to New York, Boston and Philadelphia during the Industrial Revolution. From there they spread west at a rate of 24 kilometers a year…
The lost art of building cities

June 3, 2026 · 1 hr 25 min

In the nineteenth century, cities often grew a thousandfold while increasing wages, the size of homes, and delivering great public goods like electricity and plumbing to their people. What made them so extraordinary? They had a hybrid of…
Inventing the second malaria vaccine with Katharine Collins

May 27, 2026 · 2 hr 15 min

Malaria is caused not by a virus or bacterium, but by a complex, shape-shifting parasite that has evolved alongside us for millennia. This has made vaccine development a brutal challenge. In this episode, Jacob and Saloni are joined by…

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Where did all the good sculptors go?

May 20, 2026 · 1 hr 19 min

The Trump administration wants to bolster traditional art. Their attempt to revive sculpture, a mass statue-building program, is doomed. America doesn’t have the sculptors, foundries, and workers to make hundreds of bronze or marble…
The evolution of bacteria

May 8, 2026 · 11 min

Generations of microbes evolve in hours, not millennia. By speeding up Darwin’s clock, scientists have watched evolution happen in real time, and it’s changed how we understand natural selection. You can see the images, graphs and read the…
What is local government good for?

May 6, 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

Local government works best when areas can compete with each other and capture some of the upside of economic growth. Ben sits down with Judge Glock to discuss how well-structured local incentives helped make Loudoun County, Virginia, the…
Washer woman: The invention of dishwashers

May 1, 2026 · 9 min

In 1965, married American women did 34 hours of housework weekly. By 2010, that had fallen to 18 hours. The dishwasher wasn’t the only cause, but it certainly helped. You can see the images, graphs and read the article at…
The triumph of logical English

April 24, 2026 · 41 min

English prose has become much easier to read. But shorter sentences had little to do with it. You can see the images, graphs and read the article at https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-logical-triumph-of-english/ And you can find the…
How to speed up clinical trials

April 22, 2026 · 56 min

Drug development has never been more expensive, in terms of output per dollar spent. This trend, called Eroom's law, is surprising, considering incredible technological advances. Ben and Saloni talk to Ruxandra Teslo about why this has…
How to spot a monopoly: Measuring competition

April 17, 2026 · 25 min

Competition makes capitalism work. A new method for measuring it may be the holy grail of economic regulation. You can see the images, graphs and read the article at https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-spot-a-monopoly/ And you can…

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About the show

Works in Progress is an online magazine devoted to new and underrated ideas about economic growth, scientific progress, and technology. Subscribe to listen to the Works in Progress podcast, plus Hard Drugs by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen.