Throughline

Looksmaxxing, weight loss, and muscle building have fueled a massive craze for injectable peptides. Some natural and some synthetic. These injectables have unleashed a multi-billion-dollar gray-market industry online and a high-stakes frontier for the pharmaceutical industry. Today, we reach back to the quest to manufacture the first peptide-based medicine: Insulin.Guests:Alison Li, historian of science and medicine, author of J. B. Collip and the Development of Medical Research in Canada: Extracts and EnterpriseGrant Maltman, curator of Banting House National Historic SiteSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide the amendment's boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? In this hour, the shifting definition of cruel and unusual punishment. This episode was originally published in January 2025. Guests:John Bessler, law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, and adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Author of The Death Penalty's Denial of Fundamental Human Rights.Carol Steiker, law professor at Harvard Law School and author of Courting Death: the Supreme Court and Capital Punishment.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

NPR’s Anas Baba is one of the last remaining journalists in Gaza working full-time for an American news organization. A year into the ceasefire, more than 1400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, nearly 5,000 injured. And those numbers rise nearly every day. What has the last year looked and felt like on the ground? In this episode, Baba takes us through four seasons of ceasefire—as both a resident trying to survive and a reporter trying to document reality.Guests:Anas Baba, NPR Gaza reporterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. All seven astronauts onboard died. Brian Russell, an engineer who worked on the shuttle, had spent months warning NASA that freezing temperatures could cause a critical seal to fail. In this episode, Brian Russell takes us to the intense meeting where NASA had to decide whether to launch and the 40-year weight of a tragedy he tried to prevent.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Today on the show, the balance of Congressional power is up for grabs in this midterm election. It could be determined by a small number of voters in a few battleground states. Blueprints from the past could be the guide for big wins. The GOP has embraced a block-the-vote strategy set in motion in Arizona in the 1960s. And the Democrats are embracing a grassroots power base set up in Michigan in the 1970s.Guests:John A. Jenkins, author of The Partisan: The Life of William RehnquistTova Wang, Director of Research Projects in Democratic Practice at the Ash Center at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans' Right to Vote.Ismael Ahmed, co-founder of the Arab American Center for Economic and Social Services.Sally Howell, Professor of History with a focus on Arab American studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.Correction: An earlier version of this episode incorrectly said that Michigan voters could send the first Arab American to the Senate. South Dakotan James Abourezk became the first Arab American U.S. senator in 1973.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

From impoverishment to global superpower, China’s supremacy happened at a breakneck speed thanks to the visionary strategy of the man who took power in 1978. Over the next decade, under leader Deng Xiaoping’s firm leadership, China flirted with capitalism and transformed its socio-economic and political systems, effectively becoming the world’s factory.Guests:Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London and author of several books, including Xi: A Study in PowerDan Wang, a writer specializing in contemporary China and author of Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the FutureSupport shows like Throughline with NPR+. Sign up today at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy