In recent months, an Alaska Airlines jet lost a door plug mid-flight, and a Japan Airlines plane collided with another aircraft at an airport in Tokyo. Accidents like these are uncommon, but they could help engineers design safer airplanes. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University associate professor Anthony Brickhouse tells WSJ’s Danny Lewis how advanced materials and computer systems could  bring flight into a safer future, while making sure human pilots are still part of the equation.



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Further reading: 

How Safe Is Flying Today? Answering Your Questions 

Boeing 737 MAX Missing Critical Bolts in Alaska Airlines Blowout, NTSB Says 

Boeing Finds New Problem With 737 MAX Fuselages 

Inside a Flaming Jet, 367 Passengers Had Minutes to Flee. Here’s How They Did It. 





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How Today’s Aircraft Accidents Could Make Future Planes Safer

Is it an earworm or an icon? The Super Mario Bros. theme is the soundtrack to many childhoods and has remained resonant today. Recently inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry, the song was not easy to write. Video game composer Koji Kondo faced musical and technical challenges in creating the song. Columnist Ben Cohen talks to New England Conservatory musicologist Andrew Schartmann about how Kondo created this lasting and genre-changing piece of music.



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Further reading:

The Mind Behind the Music You Can't Get Out of Your Head 

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Science of Success: The Mind at Work Behind an Iconic Song

AI has brought new challenges for corporate executives in managing their workforces and supply chains. Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi tells WSJ reporter Emily Glazer how she is adjusting to uncertainty and gives her outlook on the future of the workplace and manufacturing. This conversation was recorded at WSJ’s CEO Council Summit on December 12, 2023. 



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Further reading: 

Leading in Uncertain Times 

Sam Altman Seeks Trillions of Dollars to Reshape Business of Chips and AI 

Logistics-Tech Startups Face Uncertain Future as Freight Slump Continues 

The Do’s and Don’ts of Using Generative AI in the Workplace 



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Could AI Prevent the Next Global Supply Chain Crisis?

Badge swipes and passwords are cornerstones of security in the modern workplace. But in a world where security is increasingly tied to biometrics and personal devices, your face or fingerprint may soon become the key to workplace security. While biometrics could provide better protection for sensitive information than an easily forgettable password, what are the privacy risks of biometric tech going mainstream? WSJ’s Danny Lewis explores the future of biometric security at work, and whether it could even go beyond face scans and fingerprints.



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

Your Face Is Your Ticket: A Creepy Convenience 

Apple Makes Security Changes to Protect Users From iPhone Thefts 

Rite Aid Banned From Using AI Facial Recognition in FTC Settlement 

What Is the Future of Identity Verification? 



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How Face Scans and Fingerprints Could Become Your Work Badge

Will the human resources department  be replaced by robots? Not quite, but the use of generative artificial intelligence  in HR is on the rise. WSJ reporter Chip Cutter tells us  how companies are incorporating AI tools internally and what might change in the future. Plus, we hear from Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, who recently introduced paidleave.ai, a free AI-powered chatbot designed to help workers navigate paid family leave benefits. Saujani tells WSJ’s Charlotte Gartenberg about what she sees as the potential risks and benefits of AI in the workplace.



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

New York City Passed an AI Hiring Law. So Far, Few Companies Are Following It. 

How AI Will Change the Workplace 

HR Departments Turn to AI-Enabled Recruiting in Race for Talent 

The Do's and Don'ts of Using Generative AI in the Workplace

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Is AI Taking the Human Out of the HR Department?

Nvidia's Jensen Huang is Silicon Valley's longest tenured CEO, and his company recently joined the trillion dollar club. But if he knew at the start what he knows now, would he do it all again? WSJ Science of Success columnist Ben Cohen explains Huang’s approach to success and what that might mean for tomorrow's entrepreneurs.



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or e mail us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

He Built a Trillion-Dollar Company. He Wouldn’t Do It Again. 

Tech’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ Stocks Are Back on Top 

Markets Analysis: Nvidia Stock Jumps to Record High 

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Science of Success: The Nvidia CEO’s Lessons in Building a $1T Company

Fake images are already turning heads online, and Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, says we’re only going to see more of it. Farid specializes in image analysis and digital forensics. He tells WSJ’s Alex Ossola why it’s so easy to use generative AI to create convincing fake images, and why it could cause problems in the future. Plus, he discusses the potential tech solutions that will help us decipher whether an image or video we’re seeing online is too good to be true. 



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

Real or AI? The Tech Giants Racing to Stop the Spread of Fake Images 

Reality Is Broken. We Have AI Photos to Blame. 

A New Way to​ Tell Deepfakes From Real Photos: Can It Work? 

AI-Created Images Are So Good Even AI Has Trouble Spotting Some 

Sharing Fake Nude Images Could Become a Federal Crime Under Proposed Law 

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Why AI Keeps Getting Better at Making Fake Images

AI voice assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa have become part of our everyday lives. But for people with atypical voices, including those with conditions like Parkinson’s disease and muscular dystrophy, these tools can be frustrating to use. Now a number of big tech companies including Amazon and Google, as well as research organizations are coming up with ways to make them more useful. What will it take to create voice assistants that work for everyone right out of the box? 



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Further reading: 

Tech Firms Train Voice Assistants to Understand Atypical Speech 

Amazon Makes Alexa Chattier and More Capable Using Generative AI  

Alexa, Siri, Cortana: Why All Your Bots Are Female   

Deep Speech: Scaling up end-to-end speech recognition (2014, arXiv)  

Librispeech: An ASR corpus based on public domain audio books (2015, IEEE International Conference)  

Speech Accessibility Project from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Alexa, Can You Hear Me? Making AI Voice Assistants Better for Everyone.

One of AI’s biggest, unsolved problems is what the advanced algorithms should do when they confront a situation they don’t have an answer for. For programs like Chat GPT, that could mean providing a confidently wrong answer, what’s often called a “hallucination”; for others, as with self-driving cars, there could be much more serious consequences. But what if AIs could be taught to recognize what they don’t understand and adjust accordingly? Usama Fayyad, the executive director for the Institute for Experiential Artificial Intelligence at Northeastern University thinks this could be the algorithmic answer to making future AIs better at what they do, by doing something too few humans can: recognizing their own limits.



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 





Further reading:

How Did Companies Use Generative AI in 2023? Here’s a Look at Five Early Adopters. 

Your Medical Devices Are Getting Smarter. Can the FDA Keep Them Safe? 

Artificial: The OpenAI Story 



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Why AI Should Be Taught to Know Its Limits

Sail-powered cargo ships are making waves on the seas. High-tech versions of old tools are being installed on existing cargo ships in order to reduce fuel costs and help decarbonize the industry, which currently generates 3% of all human-created greenhouse gasses. Retrofitting cargo ships with sails could make maritime shipping greener and cheaper, and even change how the complicated shipping industry works. WSJ host Danny Lewis reports.



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Further reading:

Old-School Wind Power Is Back for Cargo Shipping 

Shipping Regulator to Steer Clear of Stricter Rules on Carbon Emissions 

Fertilizer Companies Are Betting on Ammonia as a Low-Carbon Fuel 



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Are Sailboats the Future of Shipping? The New, Old Tech Making Waves.

Breast milk imparts a number of long-term health benefits to babies, including a lower risk of asthma, obesity, Type 1 diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But for a variety of reasons, many parents turn to formula. Now, several startups such as BIOMILQ and Helaina are working on new kinds of infant nutrition products that promise to better mimic parts of human breast milk—and may lead to advances in adult nutrition along the way. But to bring artificial breast milk to market, they’ll need to do some tough science and overcome regulatory and ethical hurdles. 



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

The ‘Arms Race’ to Build a Better Baby Formula 

Baby-Formula Shortage Worsened by Drop in Breast-Feeding Rates 

Baby-Formula Makers Face FTC Investigation for Collusion

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The Future of Baby Formula May Be Artificial Breast Milk

The next generation of nuclear power plants could be tiny, and that could mean big things for carbon-free electricity. Several companies including NuScale Power and Bill Gates’ TerraPower are developing small modular reactors that promise to be more adaptable than the towering conventional nuclear power plants. After years of development and growing investment, the first of these next-generation reactors could go online by 2030. But will their promises to provide safe and plentiful energy live up to the hype, and overcome the economic challenges of their predecessors? WSJ’s Danny Lewis looks at what small reactors could mean for the business of nuclear power and how you get your electricity. 



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

A Futuristic Plan to Make Steel With Nuclear Fusion 

Nuclear Power Is Staging a Comeback, but Is It Affordable and Safe? 

OpenAI’s Sam Altman Is Taking a Nuclear-Energy Startup Public 

Nuclear Power Is Poised for a Comeback. The Problem Is Building the Reactors. 

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A Nuclear Power Plant in Your Backyard? Future Reactors Are Going Small

There may come a day when everyone will be wearing hearing aids. That’s because today’s hearing aids can do much more than clarify and amplify sound. Companies like Starkey are adding features like cognitive activity tracking and exercise monitoring. They’re developing tech that aims to warn users before they might fall and predict aspects of mental health too. If barriers like high cost and social stigma are addressed, hearing aids could become a vital accessory, whether or not you’re one of the 55 million Americans projected to have hearing loss by 2030.



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

Wait, Are Hearing Aids Cool Now? Ask Millennials 

​​Apple AirPods Could Help You Hear Better 

Buying Help for Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids—Whether You Spend $250 or $2,500 

Cheaper Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids Are Coming. Here’s How to Comparison Shop.  

Cures for Hearing Loss May Be Found in New Drugs 

Using Teeth to Help Restore Hearing

Better Hearing Can Lead to Better Thinking

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Hearing Aid Tech Isn’t Just for Listening Anymore

What if there were a way to generate clean solar electricity from space and send it directly to Earth? It sounds like science-fiction, but Caltech engineers are working on ways to collect solar energy on orbiting satellites and wirelessly beam that power back to stations on the ground. The results of their experiments suggest that space-based solar power may have a bright future. But while they’ve been able to show it’s possible on a demonstration satellite, getting power from orbit to Earth is a big challenge. WSJ’s Danny Lewis talks with science journalist Corey S. Powell about what it will take to wirelessly transmit solar energy and how it could transform the future of the grid.



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

Beaming Solar Energy From Space Gets a Step Closer 

The Next Bets for Renewable Energy 

Solar Boom Spreads to Timberlands and Self-Storage Rooftops 

Investments in Solar Power Eclipse Oil for First Time 

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Beaming Solar Energy From Space Takes a Big Step Forward

Want to go electric? We might need to dig a little deeper… into the Earth’s crust. Researchers and startups are testing new technology and drilling techniques to harness geothermal energy – heat from the Earth that can be used to generate electricity. It’s a renewable energy source that has been billed as a way to boost energy independence while reducing carbon emissions. But because of technical limitations, geothermal made up just 0.4% of all electricity generated in the U.S last year. The Biden Administration and energy giants such as Chevron are investing in geothermal, with the aim that your lights, your cell phone and your electric car might be powered by geothermal in the future. WSJ’s Alex Ossola explores what it will take for geothermal energy to scale. 



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts  or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

Can the Oil-and-Gas Industry Crack Geothermal Energy?

‘Deep Geothermal’ Promises to Let Drillers Go Deeper, Faster and Hotter 

The Next Bets for Renewable Energy 

Fracking for Geothermal Energy? Not So Fast 

The Race to Drill America’s Longest Oil and Gas Wells 

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Going Electric? Why Future Power Could Come From Hot Rocks

Is there life on planets other than Earth? For generations, scientists have puzzled over the question, searching for planets that might have the right conditions both inside and outside the Milky Way. There are thousands of exoplanets – those beyond our solar system – ranging from gas giants, to balls of rock, to possible ocean worlds and so-called “super Earths.” But even as new technology has given scientists a glimpse at these distant worlds, one lingering question is whether any of them can support life and what forms it might take. WSJ’s Danny Lewis speaks to University of Arizona astronomer Chris Impey about what makes a planet habitable and how learning about exoplanets can teach us more about our own world.



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

​​A Moon of Saturn Has All the Ingredients Needed for Life 

Jupiter Mission Launches on Journey to Explore Icy Worlds 

Astronomers Catch a Star Swallowing a Planet 

These Scientists Want to Send Space Aliens a Cosmic Road Map to Earth

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What Planets Outside Our Solar System Can Tell Us About Life on Earth

AI-generated or manipulated images are quickly becoming a lot more realistic. Soon, it may be impossible to tell the difference. That could create an opportunity for people to spread misinformation, and make it difficult to know what’s real. Tech companies like Adobe, Microsoft and Google, academics and government agencies are coming up with frameworks to verify images and, in some cases, show how they’ve been altered. But, these techniques may come with security risks of their own. WSJ’s Alex Ossola and Charlotte Gartenberg explore the new technology solutions that will identify fake images online and the potential issues getting them in front of users.



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

AI-Created Images Are So Good Even AI Has Trouble Spotting Some 

Ask an AI Art Generator for Any Image. The Results Are Amazing—and Terrifying 

Paparazzi Photos Were the Scourge of Celebrities. Now, It’s AI 

AI, Art and the Future of Looking at a Painting 

Some of the Thorniest Questions About AI Will Be Answered in Court 

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Real or AI? The Tech Giants Racing to Stop the Spread of Fake Images

The great American road trip has long been powered by gasoline. Gas stations are everywhere, making it easy to fill-up when your gas tank nears empty. But what if you’re trying to travel long-distance in an electric car and can’t find a charger? WSJ’s Danny Lewis speaks to WSJ tech columnist Christopher Mims about his recent road trip in an ultralong-range Lucid Motors EV. The car aims to eliminate range anxiety by traveling an Environmental Protection Agency-estimated range of more than 500 miles without needing to recharge. 



What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 



Further reading: 

Ultralong-Range Electric Cars Are Arriving. Say Goodbye to Charging Stops 

Why America Isn’t Ready for the EV Takeover

The Key to Widespread Adoption of EVs: Less Range 

Big Automakers Plan Thousands of EV Chargers in $1 Billion U.S. Push Ford Venture Gets Record $9.2 Billion Government Loan for EV Batteries

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No More Charging Stops? We Take a Road Trip in an Ultralong-Range EV

When you think of a robot, what comes to mind? A big metal arm in a car factory? A shiny android like C3PO from “Star Wars”? What about a robot that’s soft, floppy and looks a little more like the hot dog fingers from “Everything Everywhere, All at Once”? Soft robots are engineered for more delicate tasks that used to require a human touch – like handling food or conducting tests inside our bodies. But for now, they’re isolated to specific fields, like manufacturing and medicine, and haven’t really made their way into the daily lives of most people. WSJ’s Alex Ossola looks into what it will take to bring soft robots out of the factory and hospital and into our homes. 



Further reading: 

Robots Are Learning to Handle With Care  

Robots Are Looking to Bring a Human Touch to Warehouses 

What Picking Up an Apple Tells You About the Future of Robotics  

First Autonomous, Entirely Soft Robot Developed 

Amid the Labor Shortage, Robots Step in to Make the French Fries 

The Quest for a Robot With a Sense of Touch 

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Meet the Soft Robots Doing the Hard Jobs of the Future

Farmers across the U.S. are facing challenges from extreme weather. From intense heat and drought roasting crops to rain-delayed harvests, many who grow the food we rely on are having to find new ways to adapt. For some, that means going high-tech, using sensors that can tell them when their plants need more water or fertilizer. WSJ’s Jala Everett looks into how modern sensors are changing the world of farming and how some sensors the size of “bandages” could deliver even more precise data from individual plants.



Further reading: 

Five Farming Technologies Tackle Climate Change Threats 

Widespread Drought Creates Winners and Losers in U.S Agriculture 

Harvesting Crews Hustle to Bring In Wheat Crop Hit by Drought, Late Rains 

The Environmental Upside of Modern Farming 

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