Solutions with Henry Blodget

President Trump surprised many people a few weeks ago when he signed an executive order accelerating research into psychedelics. Compounds like psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, ketamine, and others have developed large and enthusiastic followings in the past decade, and some seem quite promising in the treatment of depression, PTSD, addiction and other conditions. Unusually, they are also one of the very few issues that have support across the political spectrum. This week, we discuss why this is a turning point for psychedelics and what might come next with Anne Philippi, a former journalist at Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ who now runs The New Health Club, a media organization dedicated to psychedelics. 
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Anil Seth is concerned about the “mythology of conscious AI” – the growing argument that LLMs and other AI systems might one day achieve consciousness. Seth is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and a leading expert on consciousness. He’s skeptical that AI will ever achieve true consciousness, and argues there’s danger in perceiving these technical systems as feeling beings.  Today, we discuss that danger, and what science even defines as "consciousness."
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In the summer of 2024, a baby named KJ was born with a rare disease with a 50% mortality rate. Six months later, he became the first patient to receive personalized gene editing therapy. He is now healthy and thriving. Dr. Jeff Coller, who directs the RNA Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins University, says KJ’s treatment could be the most important medical story of the decade. Today, Dr. Coller explains the ground-breaking science behind KJ’s treatment, and what it will take to bring it mainstream.
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Dr. Kira Hoffman once fought fires as a firefighter. Now she works on starting them - for the sake of wildfire prevention. Dr. Hoffman is a fire ecologist at the University of British Columbia and an expert in why wildfires are getting worse and the solutions that can mitigate their damage. We discuss why she forecasts a “dire” wildfire season this year, how fire policy has transformed over the past century, and what Americans can do across the country to protect their homes now. 
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Recent high-profile tragedies, FAA understaffing and underinvestment, and ballooning TSA lines during the government shutdown have many questioning whether U.S. air travel is as safe as we've been told — but what's the reality? And how do we make it safer, cheaper, and more comfortable?

Darryl Campbell is the aviation-safety correspondent for The Verge. We discuss potentially privatizing the TSA, why we're facing a shortage of air traffic controllers and what we can do about it, and how air travel got needlessly politicized.
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