A Beginner's Guide to Playing God

#3 - How to Clone Your Cat

If we hadn't eaten so much avocado toast, maybe we could afford to clone our cat... but should we? On this episode, we tell you how exactly cloning works and why it might not be such a good idea to use cloning for human reproduction.

Highlights: Jim's evil twin, Barbara Streisand's dogs, a spare $100k, and organ harvesting.

#2 - How to Use Gene Drives to Kill All Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes carry diseases that kill more than 700,000 people every year... but do they deserve a death sentence? On this episode, we discuss a controversial technology called a "gene drive" that could allow us to wipe out disease-carrying mosquitoes. Should we use it? And what could go wrong?

Highlights: what male mosquitoes eat, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, flesh-eating maggots, Nazis dropping mosquitoes out of airplanes

#1 - How to Make an Atomic Garden

Ever wanted to blast plants with radiation until something interesting happens? In this episode, we teach you how to make an "atomic garden," a product of the crazy-for-radiation 1950s and 1960s. With this technique, you could make giant peanuts, produce a better grapefruit... or just make your neighbors really mad at you.

Highlights: an atomic ballet, mega-cancer, accidentally ionizing the neighbors, L Ron Hubbard