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DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar featuring Karen Miga, PhD (UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute) (November 13, 2024 4:00pm)

Event Begins: Wednesday, November 13, 2024 4:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series


Abstract: The initial Human Genome Project was a landmark achievement, serving as an essential resource for basic and clinical science, as well as for understanding human history, for over two decades. However, it needs an upgrade due to missing data, inaccurately assembled regions, and its inability to fully represent and identify sequence variants equitably. A single reference map, regardless of its completeness, cannot encapsulate the variation across the human population, leading to biases and ultimately inequity in genomic studies. Recognizing this limitation, the new initiative known as the Human Pangenome Project aims to deliver hundreds of highly accurate and complete genomes. This effort intends to define all bases of each chromosome from telomere to telomere (T2T), ensuring a broader representation of common variants across the human species. Achieving these goals will require the rise of new tools and technology standards for complete genome assemblies and pangenomics, which will have broad and lasting impact on genomic research.

Short bio: Throughout her career, she has developed innovative computational and experimental approaches to advance understanding of centromeric and pericentromeric DNAs. She works at the forefront of genome technologies as part of the T2T and Pangenome initiative to construct genetic and epigenetic maps to expand our understanding of their structure and function. As a group leader, she prioritizes fostering a creative and scientifically rigorous environment that supports inclusivity and diversity within our scientific team. She also prioritizes training that operates at the intersection of science, justice, and equity.




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Center for Emerging Democracies (@umichDemocracy) Roundtable. Immigration, Authoritarianism, and Democracy (November 13, 2024 4:00pm)

Event Begins: Wednesday, November 13, 2024 4:00pm
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: Center for Emerging Democracies


Immigration has become a polarizing issue across democratic, authoritarian, and transitioning contexts. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has become part of the standard playbook for authoritarian populists. Immigration policies in ostensibly democratic countries are becoming more restrictive, all while political conflict, war, pandemics, and intensifying climate change are leading to greater numbers of people migrating in search of safety and a better life. With immigration discourse taking up much of the oxygen in politics across the world, understanding the interconnections among immigration, democracy, and authoritarianism has become more important than ever. This roundtable brings together distinguished scholars to discuss how controversies surrounding immigration and immigrants have become critical for sustaining or upending democracy.

Moderator: Nandini Dey, Research Fellow, Center for Emerging Democracies.

Speakers:

Rebecca Wai
Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science Department, Freedom House Emerging Democracies Fellow, University of Michigan

Erin Chung
Professor of Political Science, Charles D. Miller Chair in East Asian Politics, Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University

Alexandra Filindra
Professor of Political Science & Psychology, University of Illinois-Chicago

Silvia Pedraza
Professor of Sociology and American Culture, University of Michigan

Zoom webinar link
Short URL link: https://myumi.ch/5yEEx

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.




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Dialogues & Democracy: An Exploration into Global Democracy (November 13, 2024 8:00am)

Event Begins: Wednesday, November 13, 2024 8:00am
Location: Shapiro Library
Organized By: University Library


This exhibit highlights U-M Press books (https://myumi.ch/N682p) relevant to the practices of democracy in five arenas:

* Ancient Athens
* The Iroquois Confederacy
* The Roman Republic
* South Korea in the 21st Century
* the U.S. in the 21st Century

The exhibit displays were developed and designed by student organization Michigan Advertising and Marketing in partnership with U-M Press.




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Attempting to Recreate the Magic of the Love N’ Haight Sandwich at Home

The closure of the San Francisco vegetarian sandwich staple is forcing long-time patrons to try and make them at home.




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A Bay Area Creamery Gives Kamala Harris Its Highest Honor: An Ice Cream Flavor

The co-founders of Koolfi Creamery say they resonate with Harris’ mixed-Indian heritage and support of gay marriage—including their own.




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How can we improve global crop mapping? IFPRI’s Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM)

How can we improve global crop mapping? IFPRI’s Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM)

Accessibility to consistent, subnational, spatial information on crops globally will be hugely beneficial to  researchers and policy makers. Researchers need this data to evaluate the benefits and costs of adopting new crop and livestock technologies, estimate the impact of climate change on agriculture calculate yield gaps, and analyze the historical evolution of farming systems. Policymakers, […]

The post How can we improve global crop mapping? IFPRI’s Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM) appeared first on IFPRI.




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Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Connecting the Dots Across Systems

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Connecting the Dots Across Systems

South Asia grapples with escalating levels of malnutrition in various forms, including undernutrition, overweight and obesity, and micronutrient deficiencies, alongside increasing incidence of diet-related non-communicable diseases. Malnutrition results from a complex interplay of factors incorporating household and individual decision-making, agriculture and food systems, healthcare services, education, and socio-ecological systems that determine access to services and […]

The post Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Connecting the Dots Across Systems appeared first on IFPRI.




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Malawi faces a food crisis: why plans to avert hunger aren’t realistic and what can be done (The Conversation)

The Conversation Africa has published an oped by Joachim De Weerdt and Jan Duchoslav analyzing the food security situation in Malawi, which has been put at severe risk by the drought brought on by the El Niño weather pattern. 




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The timing of the Red Sea attacks could not be worse for Democrats (Politico)

The timing of the Red Sea attacks could not be worse for Democrats (Politico)

Senior research fellow Joseph Glauber is quoted in a Politico story about how the growing military conflict in a key trade corridor is threatening to unleash economic havoc on the global economy ahead of November. “If energy prices go up and remain high, you’d see food inflation persisting,” said Joe Glauber. He added that potential […]

The post The timing of the Red Sea attacks could not be worse for Democrats (Politico) appeared first on IFPRI.





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Sudan is now confronting its most severe food security crisis on record (The Conversation Africa)

Sudan is now confronting its most severe food security crisis on record (The Conversation Africa)

An op-ed by IFPRI’s Khalid Siddig and Rob Vos analyses Sudan’s ongoing severe food crisis: “After 14 months of escalating internal conflict, Sudan is now confronting its most severe food security crisis on record. The latest situation report, released on 27 June, reveals a grim picture: more than half the population of 47.2 million is […]

The post Sudan is now confronting its most severe food security crisis on record (The Conversation Africa) appeared first on IFPRI.















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Cleaning Crews Near the Finish Line for ‘Refresh & Renew’ 2024

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) today announced the rail stations that will receive repairs and improvements in fall 2024 as part of its ongoing, cyclical station improvement program Refresh & Renew.




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Avoid Spooky Traffic and Let CTA Be Your Broomstick to the Hot Chocolate Race and Fun Events Across the Region

Choose CTA as the best transit option to get around the city. Customers can save money by purchasing an unlimited rides pass, either the 1-Day ($5) – far more economical and convenient than the price of gas and parking - or the 3-Day ($15) pass – a real budget-saving move.




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Updated Dates Alley Entrance Relocation & Daily Short-term Street Closures Crane Staging & Material Deliver

Updated Dates Alley Entrance Relocation & Daily Short-term Street Closures Crane Staging & Material Deliver






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SUMMER SCHOOL 6: Crypto & Commencement

In the last class of Planet Money Summer School Season 2, we cover one more important market — cryptocurrency. If you're thinking about investing in crypto, do you know exactly what it is that you're buying? Or how it should (if at all) fit alongside the rest of your investments? | Watch this Tik Tok to learn more and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here. | Don't forget to take the Summer School Final Quiz.

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A locked door, a secret meeting and the birth of the Fed (Classic)

The story of the back-room dealings that created America's central bank. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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Peanuts and Cracker Jack (Classic)

Ballpark vendors share their strategies and other secrets to selling the most hot dogs at baseball games. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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Investing in mediocrity

Is the key to success in financial markets a matter of luck or skill? One former bond manager shares his strategy: Win big by avoiding winning. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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The NRA's Secret Tapes

Soon after the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, leaders of the National Rifle Association held a conference call to craft their response. Secret tapes from this call obtained by NPR's Investigations team reveal how the NRA developed what would become their standard response after decades of school shootings. | Listen to the original Up First episode: n.pr/nratapes

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Suitcases, secret lists, and Citizens United

On today's show: the Watergate scandal you haven't heard about – that led directly to Citizens United and multi-billion dollar elections. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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We Buy a Superhero 8: Micro-Face: The Musical

This episode, Micro-Face: The Musical. A full concert recording of a one-of-a-kind Planet Money superhero musical, taped during our recent live show at the Roulette Theater in Brooklyn, New York.

Here's more from our project We Buy A Superhero.

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Sam Bankman-Fried and the fall of a crypto empire

Sam Bankman-Fried built a reputation as the one reliable crypto bro. But within the span of days, his empire came crashing down. What the rise and fall of crypto's 30-year-old elder statesman says about the story of crypto so far.

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The ice cream conspiracy

Take a look in any supermarket ice cream freezer section and you may see a mystery. There are big containers of the typical ice cream brands: Breyers, Turkey Hill, and Edy's. And there are specialty brands that make gelato, low-fat and vegan ice creams. And then there are the fancy pints: which is mostly Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs.

Häagen-Dazs has flavors like vanilla, chocolate, pistachio—the sort of flavors that run smooth. And then Ben & Jerry's specializes in chunky flavors: Cherry Garcia, The Tonight Dough, Chunky Monkey, etc. The two hardly ever cross into the other's turf. Why?

It's possible they are experiencing something common to natural competition—they are specializing in what works best for them. But, as Christopher Sullivan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison suspects, the two companies may be engaging in what is known as "tacit collusion," where two parties silently agree to... stick to their own territory.

We try to get to the creamy core of what makes up a conspiracy, and how the consumer eventually loses out in this cold, cold war.

Today's episode was produced by Willa Rubin and Alyssa Jeong Perry. It was engineered by Josh Newell and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was edited by Jess Jiang.

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The quest to save macroeconomics from itself

When it comes to big questions about the economy, we're still kind of in the dark ages. Why do some economies grow so much faster than others? How long is the next recession going to last? How do we stop inflation without wrecking the rest of the economy? These questions are the domain of macroeconomics. But even some macroeconomists themselves admit: While we have many theories about how the economy works, we have very few satisfying answers.

Emi Nakamura wants to change all that. She's a superstar economist who is a pioneer in the field of "empirical macroeconomics." She finds clever ways of using data to untangle some of the oldest mysteries in macroeconomics, about the invisible hand, the consequences of government spending, and the inner workings of inflation.

Recently we called her up to ask her why the economy is so difficult to understand in first place, and how she's trying to find answers anyway. She gets into all of that, and how Jeff Goldblum shaped her career as an economist, in this episode.

This show was hosted by Jeff Guo and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Dave Blanchard with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was engineered by Josephine Nyounai and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Keith Romer edited the show. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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The secret entrance that sidesteps Hollywood picket lines

Across Hollywood right now, writers and actors are picketing in front of studio lots. They're walking back and forth, holding up signs demanding concessions on things like pay, how many writers work on projects, and the use of AI in TV and movies.

But, on some of these lots, there are these strange alternate entrances where there are no picketers. Here drivers can come and go as they please without ever encountering any sign of a strike.

Behold the neutral gate. An entrance intended for people who work at these lots but don't work for production companies that are involved with these particular strikes. (Usually that means things like game shows or TV commercials.)

But, as one group of picketers recently experienced, it's hard to know if these entrances are, in fact, only being used by neutral parties or if the entrances might be being abused.

On today's episode, the question of whether one Hollywood production was taking advantage of the neutral gate, and what the fight over a driveway can teach us about the broader labor battles in Hollywood and across the country.

This episode was hosted by Dave Blanchard and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, with reporting from Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed and engineered by James Willetts. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Keith Romer. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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Is economists' favorite tool to crush inflation broken?

When economists and policymakers talk about getting inflation under control, there's an assumption they often make: bringing inflation down will probably result in some degree of layoffs and job loss. But that is not the way things have played out since inflation spiked last year. Instead, so far, inflation has come down, and unemployment has stayed low.

So where does the idea of this tradeoff – between inflation and unemployment – come from?

That story starts in the 1940s, with a soft-spoken electrical engineer-turned-crocodile hunter-turned-economist named Bill Phillips. Phillips was consumed by the notion that there are underlying forces at work in the economy. He thought that if macroeconomists could only understand how those forces work, they could keep the economy stable.

On today's show, how the Phillips Curve was born, why it went mainstream, and why universal truths remain elusive in macroeconomics.

This episode was hosted by Willa Rubin and Nick Fountain, and produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Molly Messick, and engineered by Maggie Luthar. Sierra Juarez checked the facts.

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A black market, a currency crisis, and a tango competition in Argentina

The Nobel-prize winning economist Simon Kuznets once analyzed the world's economies this way — he said there are four kinds of countries: developed, underdeveloped, Japan... and Argentina.

If you want to understand what happens when inflation really goes off the rails, go to Argentina. Annual inflation there, over the past year, was 124 percent. Argentina's currency, the peso, is collapsing, its poverty rate is above 40 percent, and the country may be on the verge of electing a far right Libertarian president who promises to replace the peso with the dollar. Even in a country that is already deeply familiar with economic chaos, this is dramatic.

In this episode, we travel to Argentina to try to understand: what is it like to live in an economy that's on the edge? With the help of our tango dancer guide, we meet all kinds of people who are living through record inflation and political upheaval. Because even as Argentina's economy tanks, its annual Mundial de Tango – the biggest tango competition in the world – that show is still on.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Erika Beras. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from James Sneed. It was engineered by Maggie Luthar, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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China's real estate crisis, explained

China's economic growth for the past few decades has been extraordinary. And much of that growth was fueled by real estate – it was like this miraculous economic engine for the country. But recently, that engine seems to have stopped working. And that has raised all kinds of questions not just for China but also for the global economy.

Today on the show, we look at what's happening inside China's real estate market. And we try to answer the question: how did we get here?

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So you want to sell marijuana across state lines

In the state of Oregon, there is a glut of grass. A wealth of weed. A crisis of chronic.

And, jokes aside, it's a real problem for people who work in the cannabis industry like Matt Ochoa. Ochoa runs the Jefferson Packing House in Medford, Oregon, which provides marijuana growers with services like drying, trimming and packing their product. He has seen literal tons of usable weed being left in marijuana fields all over the state of Oregon. Because, Ochoa says, there aren't enough buyers.

There are just over four million people in Oregon, and so far this year, farmers have grown 8.8 million pounds of weed. Which means there's nearly a pound of dried, smokable weed for every single person in the state of Oregon. As a result, the sales price for legal marijuana in the last couple of years has plummeted.

Economics has a straightforward solution for Oregon's overabundance problem: trade! But, Oregon's marijuana can only be sold in Oregon. No one in any state can legally sell weed across state lines, because marijuana is still illegal under federal law. On today's episode, how a product that is simultaneously legal and illegal can create some... sticky business problems.

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The secret world behind school fundraisers

Fundraising is a staple of the school experience in the U.S. There's an assembly showing off all the prizes kids can win by selling enough wrapping paper or chocolate to their neighbors. But it's pretty weird, right?

Why do schools turn kids into little salespeople? And why do we let companies come in and dangle prizes in front of students?

We spend a year with one elementary school, following their fundraising efforts, to see how much they raise, and what the money goes to.

The school – Villacorta Elementary in La Puente, California – has one big goal: To raise enough money to send every single student on one field trip. The whole school hasn't been able to go on one in three years.

We find out what the companies who run school fundraisers do to try to win a school's business. And we find that this bizarre tradition is ... surprisingly tactical. That's on today's episode.

Today's show was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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Grocery prices, credit card debt, and your 401K (Two Indicators)

What's going on with consumers? This is one of the trickiest puzzles of this weird economic moment we're in. We've covered a version of this before under the term "vibecession," but it's safe to say, the struggle is in fact real. It is not just in our heads. Sure, sure, some data is looking great. But not all of it.

What's interesting, is exactly why the bad feels so much worse than the good feels good. Today on the show, we look into a few theories on why feelings are just not matching up with data. We'll break down some numbers and how to think about them. Then we look at grocery prices in particular, and an effort to combat unfair pricing using a mostly forgotten 1930's law. Will it actually help?

Today's episode is adapted from episodes for Planet Money's daily show, The Indicator. Subscribe here.

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How the FBI's fake cell phone company put criminals into real jail cells

There is a constant arms race between law enforcement and criminals, especially when it comes to technology. For years, law enforcement has been frustrated with encrypted messaging apps, like Signal and Telegram. And law enforcement has been even more frustrated by encrypted phones, specifically designed to thwart authorities from snooping.

But in 2018, in a story that seems like it's straight out of a spy novel, the FBI was approached with an offer: Would they like to get into the encrypted cell phone business? What if they could convince criminals to use their phones to plan and document their crimes — all while the FBI was secretly watching? It could be an unprecedented peek into the criminal underground.

To pull off this massive sting operation, the FBI needed to design a cell phone that criminals wanted to use and adopt. Their mission: to make a tech platform for the criminal underworld. And in many ways, the FBI's journey was filled with all the hallmarks of many Silicon Valley start-ups.

On this show, we talk with journalist Joseph Cox, who wrote a new book about the FBI's cell phone business, called Dark Wire. And we hear from the federal prosecutor who became an unlikely tech company founder.

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The Subscription Trap

Over the past two decades, there's been a sort of tectonic economic shift happening under our feet. More and more companies have switched from selling goods one by one to selling services, available as a subscription. These days everything from razor blades to meal kits to car washes have become subscriptions. But all that convenience has also come with a dark side – some companies have designed their offerings to be as easy as possible to sign up for and also as difficult as possible to cancel. Many consumers are now paying for way more subscriptions than they even know about.

On today's show, we discover how we all fell into this subscription trap – who is winning and who is losing in this brave new subscription based world – and what both the government and the free market are doing to try and fix it.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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Romance on the screen and on the page: Two Indicators

On today's show, we have two stories from The Indicator, Planet Money's daily podcast. They just launched Love Week, a weeklong series exploring the business and economic side of romance.

First, hosts Wailin Wong and Adrian Ma fire up the gas logs and pour a mug of cocoa to discuss the made-for-TV rom-com machine, and how television executives learned to mass produce seasonal romance.

Then, Wailin and host Darian Woods discuss another romance medium: the romance novel. Once relegated to supermarket aisles, these books are now mainstream. And authors, an often-maligned group within publishing, have found greater commercial success than many writers in other genres. We find out how romance novelists rode the e-book wave and networked with each other to achieve their happily-for-now status in the industry.

This episode is hosted by Erika Beras, Wailin Wong, Adrian Ma, and Darian Woods. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Julia Ritchey and engineered by Kwesi Lee. They were fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator's Editor.

You can listen to the rest of the series at
The Indicator's feed, or at npr.org/love

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The strange way the world's fastest microchips are made

This is the story behind one of the most valuable — and perhaps, most improbable — technologies humanity has ever created. It's a breakthrough called extreme ultraviolet lithography, and it's how the most advanced microchips in the world are made. The kind of chips powering the latest AI models. The kind of chips that the U.S. is desperately trying to keep out of the hands of China.

For years, few thought this technology was even possible. It still sounds like science fiction: A laser strong enough to blast holes in a bank vault hits a droplet of molten tin. The droplet explodes into a burst of extreme ultraviolet light. That precious light is funneled onto a wafer of silicon, where it etches circuits as fine as a strand of DNA. Only one company in the world that can make these advanced microchip etching machines: a Dutch firm called ASML.

Today on the show, how this breakthrough in advanced chipmaking happened — and how it almost didn't. How the long-shot idea was incubated in U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and nurtured by U.S. tech giants. And, why a Dutch company now controls it.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Sally Helm. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Dania Suleman, and engineered by Patrick Murray. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Sense of Place: The Bawdies are faithful craftsmen of the art of rock music

The Japanese band's discography is heavily inspired by the American rock of the '60s, but with their own distinctive twist.

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