Cleo Abram

The Real Reason We Should Revive Extinct Animals

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The real story about “de-extinction”...
Try RHINOSHIELD with code CLEO for 10% off https://url.rhinoshield.io/CLEO

The Tasmanian tiger was declared extinct in 1982. But now… scientists are trying to bring it BACK.

And it’s not alone! You might’ve seen news about dire wolves, woolly mammoths, passenger pigeons… dodo birds… dinosaurs??

“De-extinction” has become a huge and urgent scientific debate. But when I took a deep dive into what’s really going on here, I realized we're getting this conversation very, very wrong.

We're on the cusp of a huge genetic breakthrough… and yet the most "huge if true" thing happening here isn’t bringing back extinct animals. It's what this means for all the animals alive today!

And very few people seem to know about it…

Chapters:
00:19 Can we bring back extinct animals?
01:22 Can we bring back a mammoth?
02:24 Is Jurassic Park possible?
05:44 Are Dire Wolves brought back from the dead?
6:26 What is de-extinction?
09:04 How do we save cute little animals?
11:08 Is the Tasmanian tiger coming back?
12:50 When is it ok to bring back an extinct animal?
14:09 What’s coming next for de-extinction?
15:10 Why is this huge if true?
15:42 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- SciShow “What Caused the Mass Extinction of Billions of Passenger Pigeons?”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twr53QVGh0E
- Colossal "The First Dire Wolf Howl in Over 10,000 Years" https://youtu.be/vPX4tm-J2bU?si=RtSR_kFiJsueBzVL
- PBS Terra “What if we Brought Back the Passenger Pigeon”: https://youtu.be/7z8rXihJV4Y?si=QhhVkvc0u0fjZ8WE
- Nature on PBS “Coral Reefs That Can Finally Beat the Heat | WILD HOPE”: https://youtu.be/adcfkAplT_4?si=f4wby33bHOUTrDT-
- TIME “No Longer Extinct? Colossal Biosciences' Dire Wolf Project” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6ta3TX2Zgw
- Science Magazine “Pleistocene Park: Born to rewild” https://youtu.be/IWnlPYu3ovQ?si=9fAMoiQtMSy8Wm14
- Be Smart “The Strange Evolutionary Story of the Thylacine”: https://youtu.be/fHs_lniTNvI?si=Hq3G4GOFuFSsfL5l
- The Joe Rogan Experience “#2338 - Beth Shapiro” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsMH1-Bbqr0
- You can learn more about Black Footed Ferrets and the work from Revive and Restore on their website: https://reviverestore.org/
- To read about the efforts to biobank animals check out the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance: https://sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org/biodiversity-banking

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Hey, welcome to the joke down low!

What do you call a dinosaur that never gives up?
Try-ceratops!

Find a way to use “try-ceratops” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why Aren't Planes Electric Yet?

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Electric planes are already here. But they don't look like I thought...
If you want more optimistic stories about technology, subscribe to support our show!

Are electric planes possible? And if so, when are they coming?? Turns out, they’re already here.

For this episode of Huge If True, I went to visit an electric plane company called Beta. Before the shoot, I thought the weight of batteries basically meant electric planes weren’t that useful, and wouldn’t be for a long time. What I learned is that in the last 10 years, we’ve gotten a lot better at making batteries (look at your phone!). Those gains mean electric planes are starting to do more. And that’s a big deal - for carbon emissions and climate change, but also for redesigning how planes look and fly. The future of aviation will look very different than the planes you take today.

I couldn’t fly in one of the electric planes (trust me, I tried!), but I did get up in the air another way…

To support Huge If True, please consider subscribing: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Chapters:
00:00 Electric planes are here
00:56 Why are electric planes important?
02:16 Why are there no electric planes?
03:36 How do electric planes work?
05:52 What do electric planes look like?
06:42 What is VTOL?
07:48 How do electric planes slow climate change?
09:14 What is the future of airplanes?

Sources and further reading:
- Carbon emissions from aviation, Our World In Data: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation
- Carbon emissions by short-haul v long-haul flights, Our World In Data: https://ourworldindata.org/breakdown-co2-aviation
- Carbon emissions by short-haul more detail, ICCT: https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_CO2-commercl-aviation-2018_20190918.pdf
- More on Beta in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/16/business/beta-electric-airplane.html
- Airships through the ages, The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/airships-through-the-ages
- Battery math for volumetric energy density (Wh/L):
2010: Aviation fuel is ~30-34 MJ/L = ~8300-9000 Wh/L = ~100x lithium ion batteries in 2010 which were about 90 (source: Dept of Energy).
2020: Aviation fuel remains ~30-34 MJ/L = ~8300-9000 Wh/L = ~20x lithium ion batteries in 2020 which were about 450 (source: Dept of Energy). https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1234-april-18-2022-volumetric-energy-density-lithium-ion-batteries
- Battery math for gravimetric energy density (Wh/kg):
2010: Aviation fuel is 46.2 MJ/kg (roughly) = 12833 Wh/kg = 12833 / 250 = ~50x lithium ion batteries in 2010 which were roughly 250 (source: Beta).
2020: Aviation fuel remains ~46.2 MJ/kg = 12833 Wh/kg = 12833 / 370 = ~34x lithium ion batteries in 2020 which were roughly 250 (source: Beta).

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why NASA Is Sending This Truck To The Moon

Tue, 03 Nov 2026 16:00:00 -0000

This truck is going to the moon. So we put it to the test…
Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans. Use code CLEO at checkout. Download Saily app or go to https://saily.com/cleo

This is the world’s first “space truck.” It’s going to the moon to help us go farther, faster, and discover places we’ve never been…

Because humans are about to go back to the moon for the first time in 50 years! And no one but its builders have ever driven it… until today.

In this video I'm going to put this brand new space truck to the test in a series of 5 challenges. And I've invited someone who knows a thing or two about challenges: YouTube daredevil and host of Challenge Accepted… Michelle Khare!

Let’s go.

Subscribe to @MichelleKhare 's channel for Challenge Accepted: https://www.youtube.com/@MichelleKhare

Chapters:
0:00 This is the world’s first space truck
0:38 Introducing Michelle Khare!
01:04 What is a space truck?
01:52 How do astronauts drive?
02:21 First impressions!
02:47 Moon truck v normal truck
04:47 How fast can you drive on the moon?
05:18 Will we crash?
08:36 Can we break the lunar speed record?
10:33 Why go faster on the moon?
11:12 How does an astronaut get rescued?
13:52 Can this truck drive itself?
17:00 Why do we need a self-driving space truck?
17:48 How does an astronaut gather samples?
22:03 NIGHT DRIVING
22:41 Why is this Space Truck huge if true?
23:00 :)

Bio: Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Watch Michelle’s new video doing Tom Cruise's deadliest stunt: https://youtu.be/IcDr8_oleB4?si=K7wuiEjv3Xkk9fs0
- Watch Michelle do another incredible challenge: Houdini’s Deadliest Trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UdXsm9gJ-s
- How to Make A Space Truck: Welcome to Lunar Outpost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmHh6AMeMHU
- How We Are Going to the Moon (NASA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T8cn2J13-4
- Apollo Moon Landing, NASA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOcDftgR5UQ
- How Could We Build a Moon Base Today, Kurzgesagt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQkz0aRDe8
- Moon 101, NatGeo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AviDjR9mmo
- How NASA Drives the $144M Vehicle that Transports Rocket Ships, Business Insider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5caQPiRBCAA
- Lunar Outpost LTV: https://www.lunaroutpost.com/ltv
- NASA Lunar Terrain Vehicles: https://www.nasa.gov/suits-and-rovers/lunar-terrain-vehicle/
- Three Commercial Moon Rovers Undergo Testing at NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/new-commercial-artemis-moon-rovers-undergo-testing-at-nasa/
- NASA Selects Companies to build Lunar Terrain Vehicles https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-companies-to-advance-moon-mobility-for-artemis-missions/
- NASA Artemis Mission https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We Tried To Do Nuclear Fusion

Tue, 03 Nov 2026 08:00:00 -0000

We attempted nuclear fusion. In Simone’s workshop.
Subscribe for more optimistic science and tech stories!

Disclaimer: This build was supervised by experts at Helion. Do not try this at home.

I still can’t believe this video really happened. Back in May, I interviewed Helion CEO David Kirtley. I was trying to understand nuclear fusion: Is nuclear fusion possible now? How does fusion actually work? And most importantly, is nuclear fusion the future? Then, at the end of the interview, I asked David about headlines I’d seen about people building nuclear fusion devices in their backyards - what were they doing? “Oh,” David replied, “you can build one.”

What followed is the biggest adventure yet on Huge If True. Together with the team at Helion and my friend fellow YouTuber Simone Giertz, we BUILT A NUCLEAR FUSION DEVICE to show how nuclear fusion works, what the big remaining challenges are, and how it might help us all in the future.

Then, the last step was to try to turn it on…

WATCH "FUSION, EXPLAINED: PART 1" HERE: https://youtu.be/piPbnKdve9M

HUGE (no asterisk) thank you to David, Jessie, Ron, Joben, and the entire team at Helion for helping make our nuclear fusion dreams possible. It's truly a life moment I'll never forget and I'm so grateful.

Watch Simone’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@simonegiertz

To support Huge If True, please consider subscribing: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Chapters:
00:00 We’re trying to do nuclear fusion
01:48 What is nuclear fusion?
02:48 How do you build a fusion device?
03:37 How is nuclear fusion possible?
04:36 What is the big challenge with fusion?
05:36 What does nuclear fusion look like?
06:12 We’re great at this
07:08 UH OH
08:02 Here comes the fusion fuel!
08:32 The “Do Not Die” section
09:07 DID WE DO IT??
12:38 Is fusion possible at scale?
13:32 THANK YOU HELION

Sources and further reading:
- Nuclear fusion, simply explained: https://youtu.be/piPbnKdve9M
- “How Helion’s approach to fusion works” https://youtu.be/HlNfP3iywvI
- "Fusion energy breakthrough by US scientists boosts clean power hopes" (most recent news) https://www.ft.com/content/4b6f0fab-66ef-4e33-adec-cfc345589dc7?shareType=nongift
- The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet, by Arthur Turrell: https://www.amazon.com/Star-Builders-Nuclear-Fusion-Planet/dp/1982130660
- The Future of Fusion Energy, by Jason Parisi and Justin Ball: https://www.amazon.com/Future-Fusion-Energy-Jason-Parisi/dp/1786347490
- Atomic Awakening: A New Look At The History And Future Of Nuclear Power, by James Mahaffey: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Awakening-History-Future-Nuclear/dp/1605981273
- Principles Of Fusion Energy: An Introduction To Fusion Energy For Students Of Science And Engineering (Illustrated Edition): https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Fusion-Energy-Introduction-Engineering/dp/9812380337
- “Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy,” BBC: https://youtu.be/0fYiNVRmOA4
- “Fusion Power Explained: Future or Failure,” Kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/mZsaaturR6E
- “We Went Inside the Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor, The B1M: https://youtu.be/4BkOUOK0XzM

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a h

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sam Altman Shows Me GPT 5... And What's Next

Tue, 03 Nov 2026 00:00:00 -0000

We’re about to time travel into the future Sam Altman is building…
Subscribe for more optimistic science and tech stories.

I interviewed Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. They’re trying to build a “superintelligence” that could far exceed humans in almost every field – and they just released their most powerful tool yet, GPT-5.

A few years ago, that would’ve sounded like science fiction! Not anymore. In fact, they’re not alone. We’re in the middle of the most high stakes global race any of us have ever seen. Hundreds of billions of dollars and an unbelievable amount of human work…

It’s a profound moment. Most people never see a huge technological shift like this in their lives and it’s happening all around us right now. So in this conversation, I’m going to try to time travel into the future with Sam Altman, to see what he’s trying to build… so you and I can really understand what’s coming.

Welcome to HUGE* Conversations.

Chapters:
0:00 What future are we headed for?
2:06 What can GPT-5 do that GPT-4 can’t?
6:57 What does AI do to how we think?
10:52 When will AI make a significant scientific discovery?
13:09 What is superintelligence?
16:17 How does one AI determine “truth”?
18:35 It’s 2030. How do we know what’s real?
21:20 It’s 2035. What new jobs exist?
24:02 How do you build superintelligence?
26:00 What are the infrastructure challenges for AI?
28:18 What data does AI use?
29:50 What changed between GPT1 v 2 v 3…?
32:55 What went right and wrong building GPT-5?
35:40 “A kid born today will never be smarter than AI”
37:57 It’s 2040. What does AI do for our health?
40:00 Can AI help cure cancer?
41:10 Who gets hurt?
43:00 “The social contract may have to change”
45:22 What is our shared responsibility here?
49:21 “We haven’t put a sex bot avatar into ChatGPT yet”
51:40 What mistakes has Sam learned from?
53:10 “What have we done”?
57:40 How will I actually use GPT-5?
59:40 Why do people building AI say it’ll destroy us?
1:03:16 Why do this?

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is a video journalist who produces Huge If True, an optimistic show about science and technology. Huge If True is an antidote to the doom and gloom, helping a wide audience see better futures they can help build. In each episode, Cleo dives deep into one innovation that could shape the future. She has explored humanoid robots at Boston Dynamics, supersonic planes at NASA, quantum computers at IBM, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and more. Every episode mixes high quality animations and detailed scripts with relatable vlog-style journeys, taking the audience along for an adventure to answer the question: If this works, what could go right? Previously, Cleo was a video producer at Vox and directed for Explained on Netflix. She was the host of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as co-host of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

What's an AI's favorite sport?
The hundred meter —

Find a way to use “—” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Electric Formula 1, Explained

Mon, 02 Nov 2026 16:00:00 -0000

The fight for the future of car racing has begun...
If you want more optimistic stories about technology, subscribe to support our show!

You already know about Formula 1. The car racing sport is famous around the world and is skyrocketing in popularity in the US in part because of the Netflix series Drive To Survive. But Formula 1 has a problem.

More and more the cars that we drive are going fully electric, and the cars that they drive… aren’t. That matters, because the real reason F1 gets all this money and attention is that big companies are investing in and advertising their cutting edge tech. If that tech gets outdated, it loses the point - and the extra investment. What is the future of car racing? If it’s electric, does F1 change? Or is someone else going to get there first?

Enter Formula E, the all-electric Formula 1.

In this video, we explore the future of car racing, explain Formula E’s amazing tech and wild rules, and break down the drama within one of the world’s most popular and expensive sports.

Chapters:
00:00 Will Formula 1 go electric?
1:27 What is Formula E?
2:13 How did Formula E start?
3:01 Why isn't F1 electric?
5:30 What are the rules of Formula E?
7:52 What does a Formula E car look like?
9:18 Are F1 cars hybrid?
10:13 Formula E Gen 3: What's new?
11:30 Why don't Formula E cars have rear brakes?
13:36 What is the future of car racing?

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- The FIA explaining Formula E: https://www.fiaformulae.com/en/what-is-formula-e
- My absolute favorite newsletter on F1, Engine Failure by Lily Herman: bit.ly/EngineFailureF1
- “An introduction to Formula E” by Chain Bear: https://youtu.be/eRNJpYUun0Q
- “F1 Drivers Explain F1,” from F1 https://youtu.be/twAlqtvVMdc
- “How a Formula 1 Race Car Works” by Animagraffs https://youtu.be/V7707zEX9X4
- “The Insane Logistics of F1,” by Wendover Productions https://youtu.be/6OLVFa8YRfM
- “Top 5 reasons you should watch Formula E” by Donut Media: https://youtu.be/Kvw96nu8KAE
- “How to Make F1 Sounds,” by Matt Chambers :) https://youtu.be/I_jDJvfYEgA

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

What kind of cars do dogs hate?
CorVETS.

Find a way to use the word “dog” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one ;)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zero Gravity Is Weirder Than You Think (Bonus Episode)

Mon, 02 Nov 2026 08:00:00 -0000

I tested 5 wild experiments in a zero gravity plane...
Listen with me on Audible at https://www.audible.com/cleo

I'm scanning my brain inside a plane that’s about to DIVE toward the ground… to test how weightlessness helps or hurts your brain.

And it’s just one of the 5 crazy science experiments I got to test inside a Zero G plane.

I recently went on this Zero G plane to explain a big debate about gravity, and while I was there, I also got exclusive access to experiments that can ONLY happen in zero gravity. I just knew you’d love to see it.

So, in this extended cut, I’m going to give you a rare glimpse inside this falling laboratory and show you how the experiments they’re doing could be huge if true…

Chapters:
0:00 What happens to your brain in space?
0:32 Why scientists want to fall from the sky
1:10 How do zero gravity planes work?
1:56 Experiment 1
3:58 Experiment 2
5:28 Experiment 3
7:23 Experiment 4
8:50 Experiment 5
10:27 Why these experiments are huge if true

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Why Gravity Is A Lie, Explained in Zero G, our previous episode of Huge If True! https://youtu.be/5zJbE7J3X8I?si=KbOiyJXMAaXzS4hX
- Experiment 1: Blood Sucking Pants: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearable-lower-body-negative-pressure/overview/
- Experiment 2: Space Pilates: https://www.nasa.gov/reference/jsc-exercise-countermeasures/
- Experiment 3: Brain Study: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-groups/lab-for-equilibrium-investigations-and-aerospace/space-research/projects/parabolic-flight-campaign-2024-2025/
- Experiment 4: John McFall Astronaut Prep: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Astronauts/John_McFall
- Experiment 5: Photonic Propulsion: https://www.planetary.org/sci-tech/lightsail
- What Everyone Gets Wrong About Gravity, Veritasium: https://youtu.be/XRr1kaXKBsU?si=vg_FzbxI7-xuaqzf
- Astrophysicist Explains Gravity in 5 Levels of Difficulty, Wired with Professor Janna Levin: https://youtu.be/QcUey-DVYjk?si=oaDEWY17EzaY5QDP
- A new way to visualize General Relativity, ScienceClic English: https://youtu.be/wrwgIjBUYVc?si=weHFqeZVPJ56mCRy
- What Bothers Physicists About Black Holes, my interview with Brian Cox: https://youtu.be/bY1EQ6HD-ao?si=RBkiPjEd6RXlJR2J

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

Are you still reading that book about zero gravity?
Yeah, I can’t put it down.

Find a way to use “down” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What I Wish Everyone Knew About Cancer

Mon, 02 Nov 2026 00:00:00 -0000

"Curing cancer," explained.
Subscribe for optimistic science and tech stories!

We’re not looking for a “cure for cancer” anymore. Cancer is hundreds of diseases, so we’re really in a multi front fight against all of them. Cancer is a problem for us today in a way it wasn’t for previous generations. But, luckily, we also have more and more ways to fight back.

I started this episode with endless questions: What is cancer? What causes it? How do we treat cancer? What are the symptoms? Why are some cancers easier to treat than others? Why is cancer so hard to cure? Why do so many people die of cancer?

What I found is an incredible, complex, inspiring effort to treat and stop an insidious killer. In this video, we dive deep into how we treat cancer today. But I also found that we may not be helping the greatest number of people we can.

In this episode of Huge If True, I want to make the case that while we have made enormous strides in the fight against cancer we have also largely ignored one of the single best ways to save the most lives.

If you’d like to support Huge If True, the best thing you can do is subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Chapters:
00:00 Why do so many people get cancer?
02:06 What is cancer?
03:02 How do we treat cancer?
03:44 What is chemotherapy?
04:42 What is immunotherapy?
06:27 How do we save more lives?
07:47 Does early detection save lives?
09:23 How do we detect cancer?
10:45 What are the downsides of cancer tests?
11:38 Why early cancer detection matter?
12:42 Can we cure cancer?

Sources and additional reading:
- Lifetime Risk of Developing or Dying From Cancer, American Cancer Association https://www.cancer.org/healthy/cancer-causes/general-info/lifetime-probability-of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer.html
- Crunching Numbers: What Cancer Screening Statistics Really Tell Us, National Cancer Institute https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/screening/research/what-screening-statistics-mean
- Cancer, Our World In Data https://ourworldindata.org/cancer
- A New Deal For Cancer, collected essays (including by Greg Simon) https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/abbe-r-gluck/a-new-deal-for-cancer/9781541700611/
- The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Emperor-of-All-Maladies/Siddhartha-Mukherjee/9781439170915
- How does cancer spread through the body? TED-Ed https://youtu.be/OcigJn8UJNQ
- Have We Discovered a Cure for Cancer... on Accident? SciShow https://youtu.be/e-V_MDVgISo
- What is cancer? City of Hope https://youtu.be/_N1Sk3aiSCE
- Why Don’t We All Have Cancer? VSauce https://youtu.be/Qja4z1HGDQo
- Why Blue Whales Don't Get Cancer, Kurzgesagt https://youtu.be/1AElONvi9WQ

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for mor

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why Gravity Is A Lie, explained in Zero G

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 16:00:00 -0000

There’s a big problem with gravity…
Build and learn with KiwiCo! Go to https://www.kiwico.com/cleo and use code CLEO to get 50% off your first month of KiwiCo.

Gravity is a lie. I went into zero gravity to explain why…

But it won't be easy because gravity is actually one of the most controversial subjects in all of physics.

This is not some philosophical debate. A huge amount of the tech you use every day depends on our current (limited) understanding of gravity.

If we can understand gravity a little bit better, we can build more things that are huge if true!

So in this video, I joined the European Space Agency on a real zero gravity flight and interviewed theoretical physicists to understand: What really IS gravity? And what are the real life sci-fi ways we might use it in the future?

Chapters:
0:00 The big problem with gravity
0:58 What is a zero gravity flight?
1:40 What is gravity?
2:49 What’s Einstein’s equivalence principle?
3:40 What does zero gravity feel like?
5:52 Why is falling the same as floating?
6:58 How did gravity disappear?
9:28 Why is gravity not a force?
11:35 What is spacetime?
13:16 Why does this matter?
14:58 Why is gravity fake?
15:48 What are the four fundamental forces?
16:50 Quantum mechanics v gravity
17:55 The theory of everything!
18:51 AdS/CFT
20:10 What if we could change gravity?
21:50 Something you might love

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Professor Janna Levin’s Dispatches from the Universe: https://jannalevin.substack.com/
- Where Did the Universe Come From? And other books from Professor Geraint Lewis: https://www.geraintflewis.com/
- The Large N Limit of Superconformal Field Theories and Supergravity, Professor Juan Maldacena: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9711200
- The AdS/CFT Correspondence, Veronika Hubeny: https://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00007
- What Everyone Gets Wrong About Gravity, Veritasium: https://youtu.be/XRr1kaXKBsU?si=vg_FzbxI7-xuaqzf
- Astrophysicist Explains Gravity in 5 Levels of Difficulty, Wired with Professor Janna Levin: https://youtu.be/QcUey-DVYjk?si=oaDEWY17EzaY5QDP
- A new way to visualize General Relativity, ScienceClic English: https://youtu.be/wrwgIjBUYVc?si=weHFqeZVPJ56mCRy
- What Bothers Physicists About Black Holes, my interview with Brian Cox: https://youtu.be/bY1EQ6HD-ao?si=RBkiPjEd6RXlJR2J
- Space-Time: The biggest problem in physics, Quanta: https://youtu.be/RIqVnFtOSr4?si=0cCObYwb3n1vAPOi

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

Why did Einstein develop a theory about space?
Well, it was about time!

Find a way to use “time” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quantum Computers, explained with MKBHD

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Quantum computers aren’t what you've been told...
Subscribe to support optimistic tech content (and see the next episode with MKBHD!): https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram

Subscribe to Marques here: https://www.youtube.com/mkbhd

You’ve heard about quantum computers. Maybe you’ve seen the “race for quantum supremacy” between governments and companies, or read that quantum computers will break all encryption, or heard terms like “qubits” or “superposition” or “quantum mechanics” in a confusing tv segment. But you might be wondering… what does a quantum computer actually DO? And how could it actually affect my life?

@mkbhd and I had the same questions. Marques and I both realized quantum computing was this big important technology… that we didn’t really understand. So we decided to go on an adventure to learn the truth about quantum computers. And we're taking you with us, to show you what we learn as we learn it. But more importantly, to show you how these crazy computers might actually impact YOUR life... sooner than you think.

Chapters:
00:00 What is a quantum computer?
02:00 Why is quantum computing important?
04:00 The Quantum Video Game analogy
07:40 What does a quantum computer look like?
09:38 How does a quantum computer work?
12:00 What is a quantum computer good for?
13:21 Will quantum computers break all encryption?
15:22 What's the future of quantum computing?
16:27 Updating the Quantum Video Game analogy

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- For more from the IBM team, I love the Qiskit YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@qiskit
- Quantum Physics: What Everyone Needs to Know by Michael G. Raymer https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35498912
- Totally Random, Why Nobody Understands Quantum Mechanics by Tanya Bub and Jeffrey Bub (a comic about quantum mechanics!) https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36642373
- How Quantum Computers Break The Internet... Starting Now by Veritasium https://youtu.be/-UrdExQW0cs
- Quantum Computers Explained – Limits of Human Technology by Kurzgesagt https://youtu.be/JhHMJCUmq28
- Quantum Computers, Explained With Quantum Physics by Quanta Magazine https://youtu.be/jHoEjvuPoB8
- The Map of Quantum Computing by Domain of Science https://youtu.be/-UlxHPIEVqA

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM and 35mm prime
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

There are 3 types of people in this world:
Those who understand quantum computing
Those who do not understand quantum computing
And those who both simultaneously do and do not understand quantum computing ;)

Use the word “type” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who read to the end!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Editing Your DNA, with Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Jennifer Doudna

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Human DNA editing is finally here.
Check out the new WHOOP here! https://join.whoop.com/cleo

There is a microscopic technology that now gives us the power to edit our own genes while we’re alive. To cure certain diseases, possibly prevent others, or boost what our bodies can do… or maybe, one day give our kids abilities no one has ever had before… effectively putting evolution into our hands.

This is not some sci-fi future! We’re already using this technology in real medical treatments in plants to grow new crops and in animals to create new species!

Just yesterday, news broke that a baby’s life was saved using personalized gene editing that fixed one tiny error in its DNA. This is truly “huge if true.”

Deciding how we use this new superpower may be the biggest challenge we have ever faced - and the biggest opportunity to reduce human suffering.

This tool is called CRISPR. Dr. Jennifer Doudna won the Nobel Prize for discovering it.

So, in this third episode of Huge Conversations, Dr. Doudna and I use specific examples to help you see how gene editing directly affects your life right now - and help you decide for yourself: How should we use it? When is it wrong - and when is it wrong NOT to?

If you want to know what the most important people building the future are imagining it will look like, Huge Conversations is the show for you.

This interview was recorded on March 20th, 2025.

Watch our trailer to understand more about the mission of Huge Conversations: https://youtu.be/JbKzSDfDdns?si=0PLbyG-RkFGqi9jQ

Chapters:
0:00 Human DNA editing is here
1:20 What’s the goal here?
2:56 What is CRISPR?
4:34 How does gene editing work?
6:18 How should humans edit our genes?
7:22 You v. your kids
9:37 The first CRISPR gene therapy
12:37 What can CRISPR cure?
13:48 Challenges with delivery
16:34 Curing Huntington’s
18:34 The first CRISPR-edited babies
22:27 When should we use CRISPR?
26:03 Can I edit my DNA to prevent disease?
29:18 Can I enhance myself?
31:11 When shouldn’t we use CRISPR?
34:14 When don’t you need DNA edits?
36:32 Superpowers??
38:17 How should we edit plants and animals?
42:57 The funniest CRISPR gene edit is really useful
45:37 Editing our own microbiome
48:28 The bigger picture
50:16 What Dr. Doudna is excited about now

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Additional reading and watching:
- Dr. Doudna's book, A Crack In Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-crack-in-creation-jennifer-a-doudnasamuel-h-sternberg?variant=40828378152994
- Baby Is Healed With World’s First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment, New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/health/gene-editing-personalized-rare-disorders.html
- CRISPR Explained, Mayo Clinic https://youtu.be/UKbrwPL3wXE?si=FIGuEQdycVfGQR-k
- Biologist Explains CRISPR, WIRED https://youtu.be/sweN8d4_MUg?si=-mlG8CXx1OjTdhmr
- How CRISPR lets us edit our DNA, Jennifer Doudna, TED: https://youtu.be/TdBAHexVYzc?si=6C96AyPktzrG0d9q
- CRISPR's Next Advance Is Bigger Than You Think, Jennifer Doudna, TED: https://youtu.be/HANo__Z8K6s?si=ogZMk9JZgoegntjs

Bio:
Cleo Abram is a video journalist who produces Huge If True, an optimistic show about science and technology. Huge If True is an antidote to the doom and gloom, helping a wide audience see better futures they can help build. In each episode, Cleo dives deep into one innovation that could shape the future. She has explored humanoid robots at Boston Dynamics, supersonic planes at NASA, quantum computers at IBM, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and more. Every episode mixes high quality animations and detailed scripts with relatable vlog-style journeys, taking the audience along for an adventure to answer

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

What if we could actually USE nuclear waste?
Subscribe if you love optimistic science and tech stories...

Watch Johnny’s explainer on nuclear power here - and subscribe to his channel! https://youtu.be/QzTgZ6kOEM8

Nuclear waste is scary. Maybe you’ve seen it as glowing green goop in The Simpsons, or as a radioactive threat on the news. Either way, you likely know it has been a major block to the use and improvement of nuclear power. Over the last few decades, experts, politicians and the public have had heated debates over what to do with this radioactive material created by nuclear power plants.

But what if there were a way to not just store nuclear waste, but actually USE it?

This video is about the effort to make electricity out of nuclear waste. Really. It turns out, we developed the tools to do this decades ago. This story is about a technology we left behind and the people who want to bring it back.

For this video, I had the privilege of visiting one of the largest and oldest research centers in the US, the Argonne National Laboratory. I’m incredibly grateful to the researchers and staff I met there, and for their time in showing me their work. I also had the opportunity to speak with representatives from Oklo, a company working on new forms of nuclear power, including recycling nuclear waste as fuel. One of the best parts of making Huge If True is meeting and learning from people pushing what we can do in the hopes of improving the world for everyone else.

Chapters:
00:00 Nuclear waste isn’t what I thought
02:21 How I got obsessed
03:27 How much energy is in nuclear waste?
06:20 How do you get electricity?
06:50 What is uranium?
07:28 How does a nuclear reaction work?
08:05 Why is nuclear waste dangerous?
08:40 What do we do with nuclear waste?
09:35 How do you make electricity from nuclear waste?
11:21 Why doesn’t the US reuse nuclear fuel?
12:20 Is recycling waste feasible?
13:41 What is Huge If True?

Corrections:
07:09 The number refers to the total number of nucleons (either a proton or a neutron) in the atom, not the neutrons alone. A U-235 atom contains 92 protons and 143 neutrons (an atomic mass of 235). The U-238 atom also has 92 protons but has 146 neutrons (an atomic mass of 238). I should have said these *differ* by the number of neutrons in the atom. Thanks to the commenters who pointed this out!

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Johnny’s video on nuclear power: https://youtu.be/QzTgZ6kOEM8
- My previous video for Vox on nuclear reactors shutting down: https://youtu.be/KC7YD98HixM
- “The Nuclear Waste Problem” by Wendover Productions: https://youtu.be/uU3kLBo_ruo
- “Nuclear Waste: What Do We Do With It?” by Sabine Hossenfelder: https://youtu.be/aDUvCLAp0uU
- “What Happens to Nuclear Waste?” by The Infographics Show: https://youtu.be/imsRLscqTW0
- “Nuclear Waste Is Manageable. We Just Have To Do It.” by Joe Scott https://youtu.be/96et8ZGsxJY
- “Finland Might Have Solved Nuclear Power’s Biggest

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What Bothers Physicists About Black Holes (Interview with Brian Cox)

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Black holes reveal something astonishing about our universe.
Take your personal data back with Incogni. Use code CLEOABRAM at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/cleoabram

This extended cut is a deep dive into cutting edge research about black holes. It’s an interview with famous physicist Dr. Brian Cox. We start with “what if you fell into a black hole?” and end on the cutting edge research that had me questioning my whole reality.

I interviewed Dr. Cox originally for a shorter Huge If True episode all about what would happen if you fell into a black hole.

Watch our Huge If True episode about “What If You Fell Into A Black Hole?” here: https://youtu.be/BKIkTKqWMfg?si=bTde4QxUeN6bN1Io

But there was SO much weird and mind bending stuff about the cutting edge of black holes that didn't fit into that shorter episode, and we knew you'd want to hear it. So we decided we had to release the full conversation. It's just too cool and I think you'll love it.

Now, strap in, because the cutting edge of black holes is absolutely WILD.

As always, if you want more optimistic science and tech stories, subscribe to support Huge If True.

Chapters
00:00 What really is a black hole?
04:02 Warping space and time
8:08 Whats inside a black hole?
10:04 Photo of Sagittarius A*
13:03 How big are black holes?
15:19 How small are black holes?
19:37 Passing through the event horizon
23:45 Two perspectives
25:00 Spaghettification
29:22 You see this on Earth
31:08 Can we get out? Maybe!
34:04 The central question
38:08 What bothered everybody
42:07 Information encoded in pixels?
46:22 Black hole complementarity
51:30 Holographic principle
55:00 It’s hard for us
56:17 The universe as a network of qubits
57:08 Why black holes teach us so much
1:00:15 The firewall paradox
1:05:59 Are we living on the outside of a black hole?
1:07:55 Impacts on quantum computers
1:10:05 Why study black holes?

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- “What If You Fell Into A Black Hole?” Huge If True: https://youtu.be/BKIkTKqWMfg?si=bTde4QxUeN6bN1Io
- Black Holes Explained – From Birth to Death, Kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/e-P5IFTqB98?si=wFZijDyvIk-B2rG-
- How Gravity Actually Works, Veritasium: https://youtu.be/XRr1kaXKBsU?si=ZsvnUR4NwiAPZgvi
- Brian Cox on how black holes could unlock the mysteries of our universe, Big Think: https://youtu.be/pGsbEd6w7PI?si=HysqaVGkVHyoyNLC
- Travel Inside A Black Hole, VSauce: https://youtu.be/3pAnRKD4raY?si=9aA96AYZta4pZxsx
- Brian Cox, Joe Rogan Interview: https://youtu.be/Rc7OHXJtWco?si=eaQjo7kxx4OiFoux
- Do black holes explode? Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00768-4
- The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End, Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-most-famous-paradox-in-physics-nears-its-end-20201029/

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.yout

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Truth About Psychedelics

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Should psychedelics be legal?
Subscribe for optimistic tech and science stories!

You might be hearing about states and countries legalizing psychedelics. In 2020, Oregon became the first US state to decriminalize psilocybin and legalize it for therapeutic use. In 2022, Colorado followed suit. Researchers have recently been touting the benefits of psychedelics for health conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, cancer-related distress, and the list goes on. However - like cannabis - psilocybin is still illegal under US federal law.

Given that ongoing fight, you might have questions. I know I do. Are psychedelics the next weed? Is that a good thing? Are psychedelics dangerous? Do they actually have scientific benefits? How do psychedelics work? In this episode of Huge If True, we find out.

Thank you to Dr. Ben Rein, neuroscience researcher and consultant on this episode. If you enjoy Huge If True, you’ll love Dr. Rein’s videos on TikTok! https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.brein?lang=en

Chapters:
00:00 The big debate about psychedelics
02:16 What are psychedelics?
03:35 What do psychedelics do?
05:47 The history of psychedelics
06:46 The War on Drugs
09:09 New research on psychedelics
10:05 How do psychedelics work?
11:09 Psychedelics for PTSD and depression
12:21 Are psychedelics legal?
14:10 Why psychedelics are huge if true
15:15 What is Huge If True?

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Psychedelic Legalization and Decriminalization Tracker: https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws
- The Accidental Discovery of LSD, The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-accidental-discovery-of-lsd/379564/
- Psilocybin effects in patients with life-threatening cancer, Journal of Psychopharmacology: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/
- MDMA effects on PTSD, Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01336-3
- Psilocybin fMRI-measured brain mechanisms, Scientific Reports: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13282-7
- The real risks of psychedelics, explained by an expert | Dr. Matthew Johnson: https://youtu.be/ISM9OeWs7yw
- The “heroic dose” of psychedelics, according to Johns Hopkins | Dr. Matthew Johnson https://youtu.be/HGqFxjQI3is
- How psychedelics work, explained in under 6 minutes | Matthew Johnson https://youtu.be/yS9FBB19Ws0
- Ayahuasca, by VSauce https://youtu.be/U3lWVLuc6CE
- Expert Answers Psychedelics Questions From Twitter (ft. Michael Pollan) | Tech Support | WIRED https://youtu.be/IBLnSl8Q1NQ
- The Therapy Part of Psychedelic Therapy Is a Mess, Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/psychedelic-therapy-mess/

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM and 35mm prime
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX

Music: Musicbed and Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to t

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What If I Fell Into A Black Hole?

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

What’s really happening inside a black hole?
Go to http://hostinger.com/cleo for 10% off using code CLEO

Imagine that you’re flying through space, when suddenly you start to get dragged toward a dark abyss. Reality as you know it starts to change. Time begins to warp. And you start to feel this strange sort of sensation of being stretched and squashed…

You’re falling into a black hole, one of the most astonishing places in our universe. Some are so big they can fit over 60 of our solar systems across them, with masses up to 100 billion times our Sun. And once you fall into one past a certain point, nothing can escape.

... Or can it?

I wanted to know the latest cutting edge research about black holes, so I called up my favorite physicist, Dr. Brian Cox to answer the question: If you fell into a black hole, what would actually happen to you? What would it feel like? And what does our newest science tell us is really happening inside a black hole?

Chapters:
0:00 What if you fall into a black hole?
1:20 What is a black hole, really?
2:20 How do we find black holes?
3:17 What do black holes look like?
4:46 How big are black holes?
6:28 What would it feel like to fall into a black hole?
7:40 What would you see from far away?
9:18 What happens at the event horizon?
10:58 What is spaghettification?
11:58 What is the singularity?
13:00 Can you ever get out of a black hole?
14:00 Wait, that’s weird…
15:00 The black hole information paradox
16:09 The cutting edge of black holes
17:42 Why are black holes so important?

Professor Brian Cox is performing a run of live shows across the US! Check out briancoxlive.co.uk for more information. I can't wait.

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Black Holes Explained – From Birth to Death, Kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/e-P5IFTqB98?si=wFZijDyvIk-B2rG-
- How Gravity Actually Works, Veritasium: https://youtu.be/XRr1kaXKBsU?si=ZsvnUR4NwiAPZgvi
- Brian Cox on how black holes could unlock the mysteries of our universe, Big Think: https://youtu.be/pGsbEd6w7PI?si=HysqaVGkVHyoyNLC
- Travel Inside A Black Hole, VSauce: https://youtu.be/3pAnRKD4raY?si=9aA96AYZta4pZxsx
- Brian Cox, Joe Rogan Interview: https://youtu.be/Rc7OHXJtWco?si=eaQjo7kxx4OiFoux
- Do black holes explode? Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00768-4
- The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End, Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-most-famous-paradox-in-physics-nears-its-end-20201029/

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Welcome to the joke down low:

What do you give a black hole?
Some space.

Find a way to use “space” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How Do Sci-Fi Movies Look So Real? (feat. MKBHD)

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This new tech is changing how movies get made. So @mkbhd and I tested it out...
Subscribe for more optimistic science and tech stories!

Watch MKBHD's video: https://youtu.be/RM7SobH8ZO0
Subscribe to MKBHD: https://www.youtube.com/mkbhd

Subscribe to Huge If True to support optimistic tech content: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

I’ve been obsessed with sci-fi movies since I was a kid. I love being transported to another world. But lately, I’ve been wondering: How do those worlds look so… REAL? The tech behind movies has exploded in complexity and realism, changing how stories come to life on screen.

Luckily, at the same time, those tools are becoming more and more available to more people telling stories. It’s not just blockbusters like Avatar 2 or Avengers or Dune. It’s also smaller budget films like Everything Everywhere All at Once or even… YouTube creators?

In this video, Marques Brownlee and I test out 3 movie-making tools that are changing how movies, shows, and maybe even YouTube videos (??) get made. We’re at ZeroSpace Studios in New York to show you how each of these crazy technologies work - and how you might be able to use them. Along the way, we hit big questions like: What is the future of video? Can actors stop aging? Can WE? Do you care if an actor has a digital double? Should the audience choose where the camera goes? Most of all, what we discover is a new world of video creation, hopefully open to more and more people’s creativity.

Chapters:
00:00 How do movies look so real?
1:18 The future of green screen?
3:31 The problem with green screen
4:33 How was The Mandalorian filmed?
6:11 How to shoot two scenes AT ONCE
8:39 How motion capture works
10:06 Why was Avatar 2 filmed underwater?
11:05 What happens if you can be... anyone?
13:51 What is volumetric video?
15:33 What's the future of video?

Thank you to the entire team who helped make this video possible! They are:
From ZeroSpace:
- Creative Director: Kevin Peter He
- Head of Research: Evan Clark
- Technical Director: Eric Chang
- Producer: Elena Piech
- Mocap Operator: Sammy Sords
- Mocap Asst./ PA: Kimani Reid
- Disguise Asst. / PA: Omar Jones
- 3D Modeler: Maya Lila
- CEO: Jon Kreutzer
- CTO: James Tunick
From 4Wall Entertainment (a joint partnership on the XR/ICVFX Stage):
- VP of Special Projects: Ben Danielowski
- VP of Special Projects: Mathew Leland
- L1: Zach Sager
From Scatter Depthkit (a joint partnership on the volumetric video):
- CEO and Co-Founder of Scatter, creators of Depthkit: James George
- Lead Technical Producer: Cory Allen
From Cause + Christi Immersive XR Design:
- Co-Founder: Austin Caine
- Co-Founder: Christi Fenison
From Scheimpflug:
- Photogrammetry Lead: Joachim Pfefferkorn

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- ZeroSpace Studios: https://www.zerospace.co/
- Scatter Depthkit Volumetric Video: https://www.depthkit.tv/
- Cause + Christi: Immersive XR Design: https://causechristi.com
- Quantum Computers, exp

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How Disney Built A Realistic Lightsaber

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

I tested Disney’s coolest new tech…
Go to https://surfshark.com/cleo for 4 extra months of Surfshark

Today I’ve been invited behind the scenes at Walt Disney Imagineering, the place where Disney brings their craziest ideas to life - from STUNT ROBOTS to a real life version of The Force, to adorable little droids!

On this show Huge If True, we explore how tech can improve people’s lives - by living longer, going farther, doing more. But the reason I’ve loved Disney since I was a kid is they use tech to improve lives another way… by making people happy. And that means they end up pushing forward tech in some crazy, unexpected ways.

So let me take you inside the magic, to show you the cutting edge tech they’re building… how it works… and what happens when we put it to the test!

Chapters:
0:00 What is Disney building next?
1:11 What does Walt Disney Imagineering do?
1:52 What are Disney’s new droids really like?
2:47 How do Disney’s new droids work?
5:08 What’s the world’s most realistic lightsaber?
6:17 How do Disney’s lightsabers work?
8:05 How do you make The Force real?
9:53 How does Disney’s holotile work?
11:59 What will Disney use holotile for?
12:48 How does Disney use robot stunt doubles?
13:57 Special guests!!
15:54 Why is Disney tech huge if true?
16:15 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- I Tried A Disney Secret Project! Marques Brownlee https://youtu.be/1KEtxTQUzxY?si=Ovb2gpeoxbzlTTWN
- Inside Disney’s ‘Area 51,’ Where Lightsabers and Other Tech Are Invented, WSJ https://youtu.be/9miiL-nb1bY?si=i180AST_ok4sNM_P
- Pick, Carry, Place, Repeat | Inside the Lab with Atlas, Boston Dynamics https://youtu.be/v8UaiRgqvlc?si=Z3LU0pkhdCrUps6i
- Duke Weaselton pushes his own way to the top, Walt Disney Imagineering https://youtu.be/VFNruidzlZw?si=-2U1ft0TA7x8RrSa
- A New Approach to Disney’s Robotic Character Pipeline, Walt Disney Imagineering https://youtu.be/-cfIm06tcfA?si=1LXHwcc5EvIMpvN_
- Droids in Training: Imagineers Conduct Playtest at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Walt Disney Imagineering https://youtu.be/qNfRgZMWyCI?si=K6EujeGkKEcl5-pP
- How Disney Designed a Robotic Spider-Man, WIRED https://youtu.be/oyXl3IhonRM?si=93IQjc9mJvMK8BS5
- Disney Imagineers Develop Cutting-edge, Free-roaming Robotic Actor, Walt Disney Imagineering https://youtu.be/EdDJ77uDwWQ?si=A_I7abl3eVCdI3TK
- Disney Imagineering has created autonomous robot stunt doubles, TechCrunch https://youtu.be/ENa98h7M7qY?si=1M7Z5C3XDWQiELM5

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

Why’s it so hard to tell a good Star Wars joke? They all feel forced.

Find a way to use “force” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What We Get Wrong About AI (feat. former Google CEO)

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

AI is here. Now what?
Subscribe to support optimistic tech journalism!

Everyone’s talking about artificial intelligence and machine learning. There are lots of names thrown around - OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALLE-2, Google’s Bard, Meta’s LLaMa 2, Midjourney, AlphaFold…

Right now, we’re in this weird moment where lots of smart people agree we’re on the cusp of a truly world-changing technology. But some seem to be saying it's going to lead to human extinction while others are saying it’s “more profound than fire.”

But it all feels so VAGUE.

I want to know: How specifically would AI kill me? Or totally transform my life for the better? In this video, that’s what I’m going to try to learn. We dive into what the most extreme bad and good AI futures actually look like, so that you and I can get ready. And more importantly, so we can make sure that we get our real future RIGHT.

Chapters:
00:00 Why is AI so confusing?
1:13 What is AI?
2:37 Why is everyone talking about AI now?
5:12 Why is AI dangerous?
6:22 How would AI kill me?
8:08 Should we pause AI?
9:12 Why do we WANT AI?
10:30 What has AI already done?
11:27 Why is AI so hard to talk about?

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Statement on AI Risk: https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk
- AI and compute, by OpenAI: https://openai.com/research/ai-and-compute
- Mythbusters Demo: CPU v. GPU https://youtu.be/-P28LKWTzrI
- 2022 Expert Survey on Progress in AI https://aiimpacts.org/2022-expert-survey-on-progress-in-ai/
- Introduction to protein folding for physicists https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36046451.pdf
- AlphaFold reveals the structure of the protein universe, By DeepMind https://www.deepmind.com/blog/alphafold-reveals-the-structure-of-the-protein-universe
- But what is a neural network? By 3Blue1Brown https://youtu.be/aircAruvnKk
- How Far is Too Far? The Age of AI https://youtu.be/UwsrzCVZAb8
- Artificial Intelligence, by Last Week Tonight with John Oliver https://youtu.be/Sqa8Zo2XWc4
- The AI revolution: Google's developers on the future of artificial intelligence, by 60 Minutes https://youtu.be/880TBXMuzmk
- How smart is today’s artificial intelligence? By Joss Fong (2017) https://youtu.be/IJKjMIU55pE

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM and 35mm prime
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

This time, I asked GPT4 for an AI related joke. They were mostly TERRIBLE. Like:

"Why don't AIs play hide and seek?"
"They always find you in 0.001 seconds!"

Finally, it gave me:

"Why did the AI go to the gym?"
"It wanted to work on its 'training set'!"

… Good enough.

Use the word “training” in a comment to let me know you read to the end :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's Vision for the Future

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What NVIDIA is trying to build next…
Subscribe for more optimistic science and tech stories from our show Huge If True.

You're probably hearing a lot about AI, DeepSeek, NVIDIA and more right now. If you want the big picture (and to start from the beginning), watch this Huge Conversation with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.

In the last few years, NVIDIA has skyrocketed to become one of the world's most valuable companies. That's because, beginning in the 90s, they led a fundamental shift in how computers work, now unleashing the current explosion of what’s possible with technology.

A huge amount of the most futuristic tech you’re hearing about - in AI, robotics, gaming, self-driving cars, breakthrough medical research - relies on new chips and software designed by him and his company.

During the dozens of background interviews I did to prepare for this, what struck me most was how much Jensen Huang has already influenced all our lives over the last 30 years, and how many are saying it’s just the beginning of something even bigger…

We all need to know what he’s building and why, and most importantly, what he’s trying to build next, so you can decide for yourself what you think of it.

Welcome to the second episode of our new series, Huge Conversations…

If you want to know what the most important people building the future are imagining it will look like, Huge Conversations is the show for you.

This interview was recorded at CES in Las Vegas on January 7th, 2025.

Watch our first episode of Huge Conversations with Mark Zuckerberg here: https://youtu.be/oX7OduG1YmI?si=mMTesn2gvBeRJmos

Watch our trailer to understand more about the mission of Huge Conversations: https://youtu.be/JbKzSDfDdns?si=0PLbyG-RkFGqi9jQ

Chapters:
0:00 What is Jensen Huang trying to build?
1:40 The goal of this Huge Conversation
3:40 How did we get here?
4:25 What is a GPU?
5:45 Why video games first?
7:59 What is CUDA?
11:04 Why was AlexNet such a big deal?
15:40 Why are we hearing about AI so much now?
19:33 What are NVIDIA’s core beliefs?
21:34 Why does this moment feel so different?
24:08 What’s the future of robots?
30:15 What is Jensen’s 10-year vision?
32:00 What are the biggest concerns?
35:14 What are the biggest limitations?
38:05 How does NVIDIA make big bets on specific chips (transformers)?
42:33 How are chips made?
44:19 What’s Jensen’s next bet?
47:20 How should people prepare for this future?
50:12 How does this affect people’s jobs?
52:37 GeForce RTX 50 Series and NVIDIA DGX
55:50 What’s Jensen’s advice for the future?
59:07 How does Jensen want to be remembered?

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is a video journalist who produces Huge If True, an optimistic show about science and technology. Huge If True is an antidote to the doom and gloom, helping a wide audience see better futures they can help build. In each episode, Cleo dives deep into one innovation that could shape the future. She has explored humanoid robots at Boston Dynamics, supersonic planes at NASA, quantum computers at IBM, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and more. Every episode mixes high quality animations and detailed scripts with relatable vlog-style journeys, taking the audience along for an adventure to answer the question: If this works, what could go right? Previously, Cleo was a video producer at Vox and directed for Explained on Netflix. She was the host of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as co-host of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

Why does a GPU without CUDA wear glasses?
Because it can’t C!

If you don’t get this joke yet, watch the rest of the episod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why More Sports Need Robot Referees

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Are AI referees ruining sports? Or making them better?
Subscribe to if you appreciate optimistic tech journalism.

If you’re watching the 2023 US Open, you’re seeing automated referee calls. After years of controversy about human accuracy, tennis has used a system called Hawkeye to not only check human calls… but now to replace human referees. And this robot ref revolution isn’t just happening in tennis. It’s taking over the sports world. Soccer, basketball, baseball, they are all using machines to improve the calls being made on the field. The World Cup in particular has invested in these tools, from VAR (video assistant referee) to semi-automated offside and goal-line technology.

The stakes are high. The difference between a right or wrong call can be a championship, or millions of dollars in prizes, endorsements, ticket sales. For the most part, fans like tech that makes calls more objective. HOWEVER… there is a big chunk of sports fans who would strongly disagree, who think that robot refs are ruining the game.

Thing is, this tech isn’t going back in the bottle! Stadiums are now being decked out with dozens of cameras that can track balls, people, and even use AI to make calls so accurate that one day human refs might be a thing of the past…

Chapters:
00:00 How tennis started a robot ref takeover
00:50 Soccer, basketball, and baseball automating refs
01:53 High tech World Cup balls
02:17 Semi-automated offsides technology
02:58 Video assistant referee (VAR)
04:25 Why some fans HATE robot referees
05:17 Do these tools remove human nuance?
06:27 Why some fans LOVE robot referees
07:02 How Hawkeye works in tennis
07:40 NBA and MLB announcements
08:14 Why these tools are huge if true

I talked about this episode with @mkbhd on the @Waveform podcast here: https://youtu.be/fmIvzU115y0?si=4FbSeNZFU4sAOBER

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Semi-automated offside technology, FIFA: https://www.fifa.com/technical/football-technology/football-technologies-and-innovations-at-the-fifa-world-cup-2022/semi-automated-offside-technology
- Video assistant referee, FIFA: https://www.fifa.com/technical/football-technology/football-technologies-and-innovations-at-the-fifa-world-cup-2022/video-assistant-referee-var
- The TRUTH behind Hawk Eye Accuracy, by Cult Tennis: https://youtu.be/ot3GGJ3tWbw?si=0XJTbjkEFODD-aZV
- How the World Cup’s AI instant replay works, by Vox: https://youtu.be/C164kYMGV1A?si=ataWZyJ2jsWYf4Ql
- Breaking down Goal-Line Technology, by FIFA: https://youtu.be/m17ERc-kQhQ?si=R80YH_7U81n8I_SX
- Automated Line Calls Will Replace Human Judges at U.S. Open, New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/sports/tennis/us-open-hawkeye-line-judges.html
- At the U.S. Open, line judges are out. Automated calls are in., NPR: https://www.npr.org/2022/09/10/1121801484/us-open-tennis-human-line-judges-replaced
- Hawk-Eye Innovations and MLB Introduce Next-Gen Baseball Tracking and Analytics Platform: https://pro.sony/ue_US/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dinosaurs Were Weirder Than We Thought

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

Dinosaurs were not like I thought...
Check out https://groundnews.com/Cleo for a data-driven, balanced approach to staying informed. Use my link to save 50 percent on the Vantage plan and see how current events are framed from every perspective.

I’m finally learning the truth about dinosaurs.

I’ve loved dinosaurs since I was a kid, but it turns out a lot of what I thought I knew is wrong… or at the least outdated. So, in this video, I’m gonna show you the cutting edge of dinosaur discovery. I’ll give you rare access into a warehouse full of dinosaur bones, try to find my own fossil, and show you something new these scientists just discovered…

Chapters:
00:00 What were dinosaurs really like?
01:08 Why is today a big deal for dinosaur discovery?
03:31 How big were dinosaurs, really?
05:49 When did dinosaurs actually live?
08:20 How many dinosaurs have we found?
09:26 What was the T-Rex like?
10:39 Did I find a bone??
11:55 What IS a dinosaur?
14:31 What did dinosaur skin feel like?
15:06 What color were dinosaurs?
15:51 Can you guess this modern animal?
16:54 How were dinosaur fossils formed?
17:34 Why did dinosaurs go extinct?*
19:14 Why do we study dinosaurs?

Thank you to the team at the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum and the Pipestone Creek Bonebed for making my dreams of hunting for dinosaur fossils come true!

Correction:
17:40 Some of the dinosaurs animated here went extinct before this mass extinction event. Thank you to the thoughtful commenter who pointed this out! We sincerely appreciate it.

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- How do dinosaur fossils form? Natural History Museum: https://youtu.be/87E8bQrX4Wg?si=O-aY_J-oLaENIRhb
- Why are birds the only surviving dinosaurs? Natural History Museum: https://youtu.be/9GVvtKK5sFw?si=1sMXLcp_XbbKm7Mq
- What Makes A Dinosaur? Minute Earth: https://youtu.be/HIbG-dUFnf4?si=JLnfG-oanRrYcq_9
- The Day the Dinosaurs Died – Minute by Minute, Kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/dFCbJmgeHmA?si=fHEcj0C5VQ1qVks1
- Evolution of Dinosaurs in 10 Minutes, What If: https://youtu.be/qWvzBCfFNug?si=JiZigpmXXxb3izkz
- The Biggest Dinosaurs Of All Time, Insider Science: https://youtu.be/VoFX7g0ffAA?si=g44WXEqz6A7K7y8w
- Paleontologist Reviews Dinosaur Movie Scenes, Vanity Fair: https://youtu.be/PJXrCtQAYDs?si=82TDpRtXjX4MfATS
- 25th anniversary of the first known feathered dinosaurs, Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04586-4
- Tyrannosaurus rex couldn’t run says new research, U Manchester: https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/tyrannosaurus-rex-couldnt-run-says-new-research/
- A Computational Analysis of Limb and Body Dimensions in Tyrannosaurus rex: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3192160/
- A Fresh Science Makeover for SUE, Field Museum: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/fresh-science-makeover-sue
- Tracing the evolution of amniote chromosomes: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4031395/
- A new hypothesis of dinosaur relationships and early dinos

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ocean Is Deeper Than You Think. We Need Better Maps.

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Why deep sea maps are SO BAD (and how to fix it)...
Subscribe for more optimistic science and tech stories.

Our maps of the ocean are surprisingly bad! On Google Maps it looks like we know so much… but we know less about the ocean floor than we do the surface of Mars. And that’s a big problem, because we are using the ocean all the time: We’re laying internet cables across it, we fight wars in it, we search it during a crisis - like the imploded OceanGate Titan submersible or the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. 71% of the surface of the Earth is water! And yet we have a surprisingly limited view of what’s below it.

But that’s also understandable. Because cartographically speaking, water sucks. For Mars or Earth’s surface, we can take pictures. But light doesn’t get to the ocean floor, so we need other ways to see it. The good news is, we’re developing that tech right now, and an international group called Seabed 2030 is working to piece together a better map.

There is a terrifying, incredible, alien world on our own planet, and we’re FINALLY using technology to see it more clearly.

In this episode of Huge If True, I dive deep - with help from my friend and fellow video journalist @johnnyharris - to show you how we’re mapping the ocean, the surprising things we’ve discovered in the depths, and why this new technology could be… huge if true :)

Chapters:
00:00 How bad are our ocean maps?
01:40 How deep is the ocean?
03:05 What is the deepest part of the ocean?
04:04 The craziest method to map the ocean
06:20 How does sonar work?
07:31 What did the first ocean maps look like?
09:30 How do we map the ocean now?
10:30 What is Seabed 2030?
11:40 How do we use underwater robots?
12:27 Concerns with mapping the deep ocean
13:11 Why deep ocean mapping is huge if true

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- 24-hour a day live streaming from the deep sea: www.NautilusLive.org
- Livestream of ocean research (my favorite): https://www.youtube.com/@EVNautilus
- To see recent seafloor visualizations (NOAA): https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/ocean-exploration-data-atlas/
- To learn more about the high-stakes race to map the Earth's oceans: The Deepest Map, by Laura Trethewey https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-deepest-map-laura-trethewey
- To see how amazing our Mars maps are (Murray Lab): https://murray-lab.caltech.edu/CTX/V01/SceneView/MurrayLabCTXmosaic.html
- The Ocean is Way Deeper Than You Think, RealLifeLore: https://youtu.be/GE-lAftuQgc?si=yjGHgbaDZYILXpT0
- What’s Hiding at the Most Solitary Place on Earth? The Deep Sea, Kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/PaErPyEnDvk?si=AcXwb3F-ERJXGFRI
- The Unspeakable Horrors of the Deep Sea, Casual Geographic: https://youtu.be/MCf4zwOfRas?si=08gYwFdm3OwWoP4D
- Why no aquarium has a great white shark, Vox: https://youtu.be/QMbHLF_zwjs?si=gGrgYBNQqK9L-Twd
- This Incredible Animation Shows How Deep The Ocean Really Is, Insider: https://youtu.be/UwVNkfCov1k?si=L1Rj4V4HIFUP8gjy
- How Much of

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What If You Just Keep Digging?

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

What's really down in the deep Earth?
Subscribe to support optimistic science and tech journalism!

Have you ever thought, “what if I just dug a really really deep hole?”

Well, the USSR actually did. The hole they dug is deeper than the deepest part of the ocean. It’s deeper than Mt. Everest is tall! They began digging it in the 1970s as part of a space race, but down. The United States only got to 600 ft before pulling funding. But the USSR kept going for 20 years. They made it about a third of the way through the Earth’s crust and then STOPPED.

But what if… you just… kept... digging?

If you dug a hole to the center of the Earth, what would you find? What would happen to you? And what does our newest tech tell us is REALLY down below your feet?

In this video, we’re going on a journey to the center of the Earth…

Chapters:
0:00 What if you dug a hole to Earth’s core?
1:05 What happens when I start digging?
1:36 What are the deepest made-made things?
2:25 What is the deepest hole humans ever dug?
3:03 What happens in the mantle?
3:45 Why is the Earth hot?
4:38 What did we used to think was inside the Earth?
5:06 How do we know what’s inside the Earth??
5:59 What’s inside the core?
6:26 Um, the magnetic field switches direction??
7:13 Why is the Earth in layers?
8:53 What’s at the center of the Earth?
9:46 Earth’s core spins at its own rate??
10:52 What don’t we know?
11:33 Subscribe to support Huge If True!

Corrections:
1:43 The Mponeng Gold Mine is in South Africa, not China.
We always strive to get every detail right but we do sometimes make mistakes. We care more about getting it right than being right, and we'll always issue corrections. Thank you for your help making Huge If True great!

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- What If You Dig A Hole Through The Earth (our previous Short): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1WXL1IfivVo
- What If You Just Keep Digging (our previous Short): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yMNmhpQ7mOs
- How Deep Humans Have Dug, Insider Tech: https://youtu.be/tzhWVzyo4kI?si=KveNdkqDB4H_GvT_
- What Would A Journey To Earth’s Core Be Like? Bright Side: https://youtu.be/3FoSAHk7DMA?si=E0yceK9HFFHbhzEN
- What’s The Deepest Hole We Can Possibly Dig? RealLifeLore: https://youtu.be/E39GIysMevQ?si=Mt8kp_CPbbMXng0f
- Why Did the Russians Seal Up the Deepest Hole in the World? How Stuff Works: https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/civil/kola-superdeep-borehole.htm
- Fantastically Wrong: The Legendary Scientist Who Swore Our Planet Is Hollow, WIRED: https://www.wired.com/2014/07/fantastically-wrong-hollow-earth/
- How Does Earth’s Core Generate a Magnetic Field? USGS: https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-does-earths-core-generate-a-magnetic-field
- Reversing the Geomagnetic Field, NASA: https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/reversing-the-geomagnetic-field/
- Why Is It Hot Underground? Minute Earth: https://youtu.be/mOSpRzW2i_4?si=05MWOpajl3plH2Re
- Earth’s inner core seems to be slowing its spin, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/01/23/earth-core-slowing/
- Earth’s Inner Core May Have an Inner

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI Music, Explained with Spotify CEO

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

When should artists get paid in a world with AI music?
Subscribe for more optimistic science and tech stories!

Artificial intelligence is changing how music gets made - and how musicians get paid. AI is letting people clone artists’ voices, create completely new songs as fake collaborations, generate lyrics in seconds, even produce full tracks just by typing in a few words. It’s all causing some to say AI will be “the death of music.”

Technology causes turning points in history. And I think we’re in one right now for music. The stakes are high: If we get this wrong, we could jeopardize how human musicians make money and art. But if we get it right, we have an opportunity to leap ahead in how we as humans get to express ourselves.

To really understand what’s happening with AI music, you need to understand how the music industry ALREADY works - and how it could be changing. In this video, I took a deep dive into that topic with the help of two people right in the thick of it: The artist Grimes and CEO of Spotify Daniel Ek.

Chapters:
00:00 What is happening with AI in music?
02:05 Why would we want AI music?
04:03 How are musicians using AI?
06:17 When should musicians get paid?
07:15 What is copying versus inspiration?
08:26 How does copyright work in music?
10:06 Should artists get paid for AI training on their music?
11:55 What happens when AI generates its own songs?
12:54 How could AI music be "huge if true"?

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
Elf Tech, by Grimes: https://elf.tech/connect
Who Sampled, my favorite site to see sampled tracks: https://www.whosampled.com
Frank singing Lil jon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zoQeH2wQFM
Johnny Cash Barbie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKKGxySvaII
Linkin Park Pokemon: https://youtu.be/CuCUdQ3xrEk?si=wFaim8O86IUamItB
An A.I. Hit of Fake ‘Drake’ and ‘The Weeknd’ Rattles the Music World, New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/arts/music/ai-drake-the-weeknd-fake.html
The Music Industry Has an AI Problem, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/02/ai-drake-heart-on-my-sleeve-and-cultural-appropriation/c236dbfc-e8f1-11ed-869e-986dd5713bc8_story.html
Spotify will not ban AI-made music, BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66882414
Grimes Launches AI Software That Allows Anyone To Insert Her Voice Into Music, Hypebeast: https://hypebeast.com/2023/5/grimes-ai-software-elf-tech-voice-music

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM and 35mm prime
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX

I used music from Lickd for this video:

Get Unholy (Instrumental) by Sam Smith, Kim Petras and over 1M + mainstream tracks here https://go.lickd.co/Music
License ID: 81a29AAvBJO

Get Don't Start Now by Dua Lipa and over 1M + mainstream tracks here https://go.lickd.co/Music
License ID: 2ZnbrkkMnz1

Get Paradise by Coldplay and over 1M + mainstream tracks

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Humanity’s Real Plan to Stop This Asteroid (Feat. Mark Rober)

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

If an asteroid is coming for Earth… what would we really do?
Have a coffee with me! Try Cometeer with code CLEO for $20 off your Discovery Box on http://cometeer.com/cleo

Imagine, it’s 2034, and a rock the size of a mountain, far off in our solar system is on a direct impact course for Earth. How would we know? And what would we actually DO about it?

In this video, we play out a fictional asteroid headed for Earth – with help from my friend and former NASA engineer Mark Rober and rare access into a remote facility where they discover NEW asteroids – to show you all the real science and tech we would use to defend our planet if an asteroid is about to hit Earth!

[SPOILER] Our rock was published in the Minor Planet Electronic Circular (MPEC) here! MPEC 2025-K125 : 2025 KS6

Chapters:
00:00 Did an asteroid hit Earth?
01:00 What happens if an asteroid is headed towards Earth?
01:52 Is that Mark Rober?
03:26 How big was the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs?
04:30 What happens when an asteroid hits Earth?
07:30 How are asteroids discovered?
10:39 Will an asteroid hit Earth?
13:15 Can we stop an asteroid?
15:27 What if we nuke an asteroid?
18:03 Did we discover an asteroid?
19:41 Did we stop the asteroid from hitting Earth?
20:42 Why is this HUGE* If True?
21:34 Can we escape Alcatraz?
21:42 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Veritasium, "These are the asteroids to worry about": https://youtu.be/4Wrc4fHSCpw?si=WhtX_q0TRzimx17b
- NASA “Planetary Defenders (NASA + Documentary)”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOb2DQWvDvc&t=665s
- NASA's Near-Earth Object Observation Programs (Including Catalina Sky Survey): https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-defense-neoo/
- JPL Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS): https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/
- The Minor Planet Center: https://minorplanetcenter.net/
- International Asteroid Warning Network: https://iawn.net/
- Space Mission Planning Advisory Group: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/smpag#:~:text=It%20was%20formally%20endorsed%20by%20the%20Committee,page%20is%20the%20technical%20reference%20for%20SMPAG.
- DART Mission: https://dart.jhuapl.edu/Mission/index.php
- ESA, Asteroid Danger Explained: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2018/06/Asteroid_danger_explained
- Definitions and Assumptions - NEO: https://neo.ssa.esa.int/definitions-assumptions

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of HUGE* If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Hey, welcome to the joke down low!

What do you call a famous asteroid? A rock star.

Find a way to use “rock star” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why I left Vox

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Thank you, Vox, for the best job I ever had. Here’s what’s next.
Subscribe to see the next episode: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Credits: (After the trailer, these will be at the end of each episode.)
Produced and edited by: Cleo Abram
Animated by: Whitney Theis

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

#news #journalism #tech

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Craziest Experiment Humans Have Ever Built

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

This machine found something scientists thought was impossible…
If you want to talk to Mico, go to this link: https://bit.ly/CleoAbram-Copilot

In the middle of the desert, miles from any city, are two HUGE concrete tubes. They’re part of a giant machine running the most precise experiment humans have ever built…

Each tube is 4 kilometers long, and inside there’s a big metal pipe. And at the end of each pipe, scientists place some of the smoooooothest mirrors ever made. And then they fire a powerful laser that gets split down each tube, bouncing it back and forth… building up more and more power… until… they bring those beams back together… to discover something that just 100 years ago scientists thought was impossible to find!

Finding it took hundreds of scientists and over a billion dollars. But what did we find?? And what’s the cutting edge we’re finding NOW that makes those scientists want to build… AN EVEN BIGGER ONE?

Let me show you…

Chapters
00:00 What's the most precise experiment humans have built?
01:41 How do we know what’s out in the universe?
02:33 What if two stars collide?
03:41 What are gravitational waves?
6:34 What's inside the concrete tubes in the desert?
5:50 How did they build the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory?
07:42 How does the laser experiment work?
09:20 What's the LIGO dance?
11:14 What are the most reflective mirrors in the world?
14:02 What happened when they turned on the laser machine?
15:17 Did we detect gravitational waves?
16:16 Can we manipulate gravity?
17:44 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- LIGO: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/learn-more
- Paper on First Gravitational Wave Detection: https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.03837
- Einstein's Theory of Gravitation: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/research/science-field/einsteins-theory-gravitation
- Advancements to LIGO: Quantum Squeezing: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20231023
- Advanced LIGO Documentary “LIGO”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX4vCNi544w
- Caltech, “LIGO: The First Observation of Gravitational Waves”: https://youtu.be/wrqbfT8qcBc?si=39S3-hcXpU6Dwiyg
- Physics Girl, “I Visited the First Gravitational Wave Detector! LIGO | STELLAR”: https://youtu.be/jtp71NT0GNg?si=6BUilmCISXlwN8qr
- Veritasium, “The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves”: https://youtu.be/iphcyNWFD10?si=DFZYSAIyW90oIoNe
- Caltech “How Squeezing Light Reduces Uncertainty in LIGO's Measurements”: https://youtu.be/q5lnamXhnfI?si=QrbgPVHwkYs1CEip

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of HUGE* If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Hey, welcome to the joke down low!

What did Gravity say to Light?
Nothing, it just waved!

Find a way to use “wave” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fracking for Clean Energy (wait, what?)

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

... Not the story I was expecting.
Subscribe to see the next episode: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Fracking made it possible to get and burn much, much more oil and natural gas. To do it, companies drill into rock deep beneath the Earth's surface and pump in fluid at high enough pressure to crack that rock open, allowing the trapped oil and gas to escape into their pipes. But the fossil fuels they released have directly contributed to climate change, and we're all now paying the price.

But here's the hopeful twist: It turns out that this technology - the same one perfected to squeeze every drop of dirty fossil fuels out of the earth - might be the key to unlocking an even bigger source of energy. One that's actually... clean.

This video explains how fracking is now being used in geothermal to get more clean energy out of the ground, in the hope of moving away from fossil fuels. Along the way, we'll meet Professor Mukul Sharma, aka the "Frack King," and longtime energy reporter David Roberts. Oh, and my parents (thanks, Mom and Dad!).

Chapters:
00:00 What is fracking for oil and gas?
01:15 Does fracking pollute water?
03:20 Does fracking cause earthquakes?
04:43 What is geothermal energy?
06:54 What is enhanced geothermal?
07:54 How much energy comes from geothermal?
09:05 Is enhanced geothermal safe?
10:03 Why do we need fracking for geothermal?

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Sources and additional reading:
- “Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas: Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources in the United States,” US Environmental Protection Agency: https://www.epa.gov/hfstudy
- “Studies link earthquakes to fracking in the Central and Eastern US,” Seismological Society of America: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190426110601.htm
- “Millimeter-Wave Technology Demonstration for Geothermal Direct Energy Drilling,” US Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy: https://www.arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/projects/millimeter-wave-technology-demonstration-geothermal-direct-energy-drilling
- “Enhanced Geothermal Energy,” US Department of Energy: https://www.energy.gov/eere/geothermal/enhanced-geothermal-systems-0
- “Geothermal energy is poised for a big breakout,” David Roberts, Vox: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/10/21/21515461/renewable-energy-geothermal-egs-ags-supercritical
- “Underground Oil Deposits,” HowStuffWorks: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/underground-oil-deposits.htm
- “Electricity Mix,” Our World In Data: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: M

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why This Olympic Sport Bothers Physicists

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

This is the craziest Olympic sport by far. Trust me.
This episode is #sponsored by @NBCSports @YouTube #WinterOlympics

Every four years, people lose their minds over one Olympic sport. They make fun of it! But the more I learned about it, the more obsessed I got… and I realized that all these people making fun? They’re getting this totally wrong. This is the coolest Olympic sport by far. The sport I’m talking about is… CURLING.

From stones so unique they all have to come from one tiny island, to a tech doping scandal nobody wants to talk about. It’s a game with strategy so complicated it’s called “chess on ice”. And a physics mystery that’s gone unsolved for over a century that could one day help us design robots for space. And that’s just the start…

Trust me, you don’t know enough about Curling…YET. So I’m going to take you onto the ice at the Olympic Trials… to show you what everyone’s missing and why Curling is the Olympic sport you should be watching.

Chapters
00:00 What's the most fascinating sport at the Winter Olympics?
01:40 How do you play curling?
02:57 Why are curling stones so crazy?
04:46 Why is curling chess on ice?
05:48 Why do they sweep in curling?
08:18 What is Broomgate?
10:11 How do curling stones defy physics?
11:58 What is the science of rubbing?
15:16 Why do people make fun of curling?
15:56 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Curling clubs near NYC: https://licurling.org/, https://ardsleycurling.com/
Special thanks to Long Island Curling and Ardsley Curling for all of their support in the prep and research of this episode!
-World Curling: https://worldcurling.org/
-“History of the Game” https://www.scottishcurling.org/curling-history/history-of-the-game/
-“What is Curling?” https://www.stlouiscurlingclub.org/index.php/try-curling/about-curling
- Curling Clips YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CurlingClips
- “Study of curling mechanism by precision kinematic measurements of curling stone’s motion” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9440934/
- “The slippery science of Olympic curling: we still don’t know how it works” https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2022/02/the-slippery-science-of-olympic-curling--we-still-dont-know-how-,
- Original study: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000112841493&seq=657
- “Why all Olympic curling stones come from a Scottish island” https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-scotland-68699328,
- Kays Scotland https://www.kaysscotland.com/
- “PHOTO ESSAY: Scottish island Ailsa Craig is the granite source for Olympic curling stones” https://apnews.com/photo-essay/olympics-curling-island-ailsa-craig-scotland-photos-90cc3742fe35b63b87755ad126942c42
-“Ailsa Craig” https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/ailsa-craig-91856/
-World Curling “Around the House: Operation Ailsa Craig” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPMe-pElwho
-Glossary on curling terms: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/glossary-of-curling,

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Metformin, the Big New "Anti-Aging" Drug, Explained

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

So, uh... does it work?
Subscribe to see the next episode!

Metformin is an old, cheap drug used to help control blood sugar in people with diabetes. Now, it’s back in the news because some people - particularly wealthy people - are using it for possible anti-aging effects. That’s right. One of the most popular ways rich people are trying to live longer isn’t some million dollar cryo-something experiment, but a pill that costs pennies that's already on the market. So, the big question is: Does it work? To find out, I interviewed the lead researcher on the biggest study of metformin for anti-aging, Dr. Nir Barzilai. The answer he gives me? Well, it’s complicated.

Note: I do not take metformin, nor am I advocating anyone else should. Please don't get medical advice from a youtube video! The purpose of this video is to explain the research that exists, explore what it tells us about aging in general, and discuss the effort Dr. Barzilai is leading to learn more.

00:00 What is metformin?
00:53 What is aging?
01:46 Can we slow aging?
02:27 Does metformin work for anti aging?
03:40 How does metformin work?
04:37 What is the TAME Trial?
05:46 Should I take metformin?
07:31 Why slow aging?

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Sources and additional reading:
- TAME Trial FAQ https://www.afar.org/tame-trial
- Dr. Nir Barzilai, Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Faculty Profile https://einsteinmed.edu/faculty/484/nir-barzilai/
- “A beginner's guide to longevity research,” Laura Deming https://www.ldeming.com/longevityfaq
- “Aging and the border between health and disease,” European Respiratory Journal https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/5/1332
- “Can people with type 2 diabetes live longer than those without? A comparison of mortality in people initiated with metformin or sulphonylurea monotherapy and matched, non-diabetic control,” Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism https://dom-pubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dom.12354
- “A Critical Review of the Evidence That Metformin Is a Putative Anti-Aging Drug That Enhances Healthspan and Extends Lifespan,” Frontiers in Endocrinology https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.718942/full
- “Metformin, a historical overview,” European Association for the Study of Diabetes https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00125-017-4318-z
- “Metformin improves healthspan and lifespan in mice,” Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3192
- “Metformin Retards Aging in C. elegans by Altering Microbial Folate and Methionine Metabolism,” Cell https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(13)00267-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867413002675%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
- “Cancer,” Our World In Data https://ourworldindata.org/cancer
- “Forget

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The New Hunt for the Colossal Squid

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The deeper you go, the weirder it gets...
Visit http://mercury.com to join over 200 thousand entrepreneurs who love Mercury.

Gigantic, monstrous, beautiful creatures thrive in the cold dark depths of our oceans. Until now though, most of our discoveries have just required decades of work for the chance to just get… lucky.

Now, there’s a NEW WAY to discover the animals hidden in the deepest oceans.

And all you need is a drop of water…

In this video, come with us as we dive into our deepest oceans. Together we’ll see what’s hiding there, explore how we discover new animals today, and reveal the shocking new tech that is unlocking a new age in deep ocean discovery. Huge if true!

Mercury Note: Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

Chapters
00:00 What did they find in the deep ocean?
03:16 What animals are hiding in the twilight zone?
05:29 How do we find giant monsters in the deep?
06:43 What else is still hiding in the abyss?
07:42: Why do they get so BIG?
10:20 What can a drop of water tell us?
11:28 How does eDNA work?
12:24 Can we find the colossal squid?
15:03 What about totally unknown species??
16:19 What’s the new frontier of ocean discovery?
17:04 Why is this huge if true?
18:00 :)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- NOAA's eDNA Fact Sheet: https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/environmental-DNA-fact-sheet.pdf
- Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute: https://www.mbari.org/know-your-ocean/what-is-environmental-dna-edna/
- How eDNA technology is changing the game for protecting ocean species: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/12/this-will-finally-lift-the-veil-how-edna-can-see-the-oceans-hidden-life
- Tracking Down Ocean Species On the Go Using eDNA: https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/tracking-down-ocean-species-go-using-edna#:~:text=A%20drop%20of%20the%20prepared,previously%20run%20via%20the%20internet.
- New DNA tool 'changes everything in marine science: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/edna-environmental-dna-counts-fish-changes-marine-science
- DNA left by ocean animals provides rare glimpse of marine ecosystems, Stanford researchers say: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/06/dna-left-ocean-animals-provides-rare-glimpse-marine-ecosystem
- Exploring Deepwater Ecosystems with eDNA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gSSLigCl8Y
- eDNA in the Twilight zone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2djwE5-SG8
- eDNA: How Scientists See Hidden Animals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8m8SLQZX0Q
- How we can detect pretty much anything: https://youtu.be/bdwU_ZPk1cY?si=CMe19bv49U2PcBrP
- The Wild: Eily Andruszkiewicz Allan: The magic of eDNA https://www.kuow.org/stories/eily-andruszkiewicz-allan-the-magic-of-edna
- NOAA's Ocean Omics: https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/noaa-omics/
- Ocean Census: https://oceancensus.org/
- 1OceanFoundation: https://www.1ocean.org/news/the-untold-story-of-mediterranean

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why You Can't Just Screenshot an NFT

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

How can a JPEG cost money?
Subscribe to see the next episode: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

The biggest question I hear about NFTs is: “Why can’t I just screenshot that?” Or, put another way, why does a digital image that can be copied have any value? The answer, it turns out, isn’t in an explainer about blockchain technology (you’re welcome). The answer to why NFTs have any value is hiding in the art market that came before them. Because NFTs are weird, but it turns out art is already even weirder. To really understand NFTs, we have to zoom out a bit, and talk about the incredibly strange way we value art to begin with. And that story starts not with crypto, but with a fight at an art auction in 1973…

This video explains why a JPEG can cost money, and how expensive art led to NFTs. Along the way, I get help from two incredible experts: David Galperin, head of contemporary art for the Americas at Sotheby’s, and Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit and investor.

David tells me about how the Scull Sale in 1973 exploded the art market forever, how Andy Warhol gave his silk screens to appropriation artist Elaine Sturtevant so she could copy his prints, and how Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings go for millions but the value is in “the certificate, not the drawing.” Alexis gives me a tour of his NFT collection (!), shows me the Cryptopunk (Serenapunk!) he gave to his wife Serena Williams, and explains how this technology has become a new medium for artists looking to the future. Together, we explore the big questions people are asking about NFTs and how the art world has grappled with those same questions for decades: What is value? Where does it come from? What is too much, for too little?

00:00 Why do people buy NFTs?
01:04 How are NFTs like contemporary art?
03:41 Why is art so expensive?
05:10 Is art just money laundering?
06:07 Why do people buy NFTs?
07:41 Are NFTs just a link to an image?
08:47 Why do NFTs matter?
10:24 How do I do sponsorships?

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Sources and additional reading:
- “The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art,” Don Thompson https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230620599/the12millionstuffedshark
- “The Price of Everything” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iejpS_PpPJk&ab_channel=HBO
- “Museum of Forgeries,” MSCHF https://moforgeries.org/
- “Scull's U.S. Art Brings Record $2 Million,” New York Times, 1973 https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/10/19/93293442.html?pageNumber=57
- “Screenshotting NFTS” Know Your Meme https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/screenshotting-nfts
- “The Story of Contemporary Art,” Tony Godfrey https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/story-contemporary-art
- “look what i made for you” GB ‘Doc’ Burford https://docseuss.medium.com/look-what-i-made-for-you-appare

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I Wrote a NEW Sci-Fi with Project Hail Mary Author Andy Weir

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

This wasn't in the book...

Andy is one of the most popular science fiction writers alive today. He also wrote The Martian. What’s special about his work is how real his fake stories are. He showed me the secret spreadsheets he uses to calculate the science in his writing (including my favorite, “wrong math”).

The reason that matters is that fiction can help you see the real world more clearly. Sci-fi is “huge if true”!

This show is about real science and tech, but we’ve done a little sci fi to explain complex things. So I wanted to learn from Andy.

In this conversation, we go deep inside Andy’s fictional worlds to see how exactly he makes them so real…

And we play out a BRAND NEW sci fi story together in real time…

Welcome to HUGE* Conversations.

Chapters
00:00 Who is Andy Weir?
03:10: The world’s largest meteorite
06:04 Andy Weir’s secret spreadsheets
10:04 How Rocky became Rocky
13:02 Where Rocky’s story really began
15:07 What didn’t make it into the book for Project Hail Mary
17:22 How to create a true alien
19:25 Rocky’s body v. your body
23:38 Our new sci-fi story
27:23 How to tell if a planet has alien life
31:23 The biggest question if we do find aliens
36:48 How do you talk to a new alien species
41:16 The biggest changes in The Martian
44:55 The secret sauce of HUGE* and Project Hail Mary
48:15 Does sci-fi influence science
51:17 Andy’s new book
51:42 The biggest sci-fi changes in real life
54:54 The optimistic future Andy sees coming
57:35 What Andy Weir wants to be remembered for
58:42 Sneak peek at our next video!
58:53 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Novels by Andy Weir: Project Hail Mary, The Martian, Artemis
- "The Egg", a short story by Andy Weir
- Webpage with details of Eridian biology https://www.galactanet.com/eridian/
- Interviews with Andy Weir:
- The Talking Room with Adam Savage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SemyzKgaUU
- Penguin Random House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16bKLuAZvyw
- Dr. Becky: https://youtu.be/JOgwM941nV4?si=MnS-VdLFJ_GcbShR
- Re: Thinking with Adam Grant https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/worklife-with-adam-grant/id1346314086?i=1000607234826
- Lecture at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2tfh6OUUYUw
- Paper, "What Changed when Andy Weir's The Martian Got Edited?" by Ketzan and Schoch https://dh2017.adho.org/abstracts/317/317.pdf
- NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/exep/

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of HUGE* If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Hey, welcome to the joke down low!

What do you give an alien when they’re upset?
Some space.

Find a way to use “space” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why Elon Musk is Really Building Starlink

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Your internet isn't in space. It's in the ocean. But that might change, and here's why.
Subscribe to see more optimistic technology stories!

Elon Musk tweeted that Starlink satellite internet service is now available in Ukraine. What does that really mean? Why is it important? And if it’s a big new thing that the internet is in space then… where was it before? In this video, I dive deep into how your internet gets to you right now, why Elon Musk wants to put it in space, and why it all matters.

We’re in the middle of the Internet Space Race. It’s not just Elon with Starlink and SpaceX, it's also Jeff Bezos with Project Kuiper… oh and don’t forget Richard Branson with OneWeb. Why do all these billionaires want to put your internet in space? So much so that they’re willing to put millions of dollars on the line, weather geomagnetic storms, and launch thousands of satellites into orbit, all in an attempt to change the way millions of people get their (your!) internet.

But this is more than just a fight between billionaires. It’s a fight for the future of the internet. It’s an effort to get connected the billions of people who still, in 2022, don’t have access to high speed internet - or can’t afford the cost given the way it’s being provided today.

This is a story about ambition, connection, and a WHOLE LOT of crazy cool engineering.

I show 3 maps in this video that you might enjoy exploring for yourself:
- Submarine cable map: https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
- Share of the population using the internet: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-individuals-using-the-internet
- Starlink satellite map: https://satellitemap.space/

Chapters:
00:00 The Internet Space Race has begun
01:15 How does the internet work?
05:03 Why put the internet in space?
10:37 How does Starlink work?

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer: https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Sources I read/watched for this video and think you might enjoy:
- “Why SpaceX is Making Starlink,” Real Engineering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giQ8xEWjnBs&t=108s&ab_channel=RealEngineering
- “Gaming on STARLINK!!” Linus Tech Tips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh1a2K9ZgNA&t=207s&ab_channel=LinusTechTips
- “What Elon Musk's 42,000 Satellites Could Do To Earth,” Tech Insider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw3R-4UC4wI&t=165s&ab_channel=TechInsider
- “Why Starlink is crucial for SpaceX’s success,” CNBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GambrByc01A&t=1010s&ab_channel=CNBC
- “Starlink explained - why SpaceX needs 42,000 satellites,” Undecided with Matt Ferrell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuFS0zOwyBg&t=182s&ab_channel=UndecidedwithMattFerrell
- “It’s time for a new approach for mapping broadband data to better serve Americans,” Microsoft https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2019/04/08/its-time-for-a-new-approach-for-mapping-broadband

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Hardest Problem AI Ever Solved, with Google DeepMind CEO

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

He solved “the most important unsolved problem in science”…
If you need more optimistic science and tech stories, subscribe to support HUGE*!

Demis Hassabis is a Nobel Prize winner and CEO of Google DeepMind. He is one of the most important people alive on what is quickly becoming the biggest technological advance of our lifetime. Because the biggest way AI is going to impact your life, you can’t see.

It’s not a chatbot or an image generator. It’s the tools he and his team are building that are invisible to you – in new drug design, nuclear fusion, natural disasters detection, quantum computers.

So who Demis is and what he chooses to build matters a lot. And he’s fascinating…

He’s a childhood chess prodigy who at 17 turned down a reportedly million dollar job offer from a gaming company to go to college instead, and then get a PhD in neuroscience. He founded his company DeepMind with a mission to “solve intelligence” – starting with beating video games. He sold that company to Google specifically because they promised to let DeepMind focus on scientific research.

But as this has turned into the most intense technological battle in recent history, Demis is now in charge of much much more. He’s now behind basically everything Google does in AI.

He’s making decisions that affect your life and millions of other lives every single day.

So what is he planning to do with all that power?

My goal is to show you the future Demis Hassabis wants to build, so you can decide for yourself what you think of it.

Welcome to HUGE* Conversations.

This interview was recorded on March 5, 2026 in London.

Chapters
00:00 The AI most likely to save your life
02:04 Who is the man behind Google’s AI?
03:58 The 50-year mystery AI just solved
06:15 The moment that changed everything
12:30 Why every future drug will use AI
16:47 The cutting edge of drug discovery now
19:13 How DNA-editing and AI work together
21:52 "I would have left AI in the lab longer"
25:39 The "Code Red" that changed google
29:16 Move 37: When AI got creative
34:24 Why true intelligence is so hard
37:22 From zero to world champion in 24 hours
43:09 How militaries should use AI
45:40 AI risks nobody talks about
50:13 What humans can do that AI can’t
55:17 The sci-fi future Demis imagines
58:17 What Demis Hassabis wants his legacy to be
1:00:14 How to get "superpowers" with AI
1:01:56 How to prepare for AI
1:04:59 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- The Thinking Game (documentary) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d95J8yzvjbQ
- AlphaGo - The Movie (documentary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y&t=3159s
- Veritasium's "AlphaFold - The Most Useful Thing AI Has Ever Done": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_fHJIYENdI&list=WL&index=5&t=74s
- Google DeepMind: The Podcast, "The future of intelligence | Demis Hassabis": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqVbypvxDto&t=120s
- AlphaGenome Announcement: https://deepmind.google/blog/alphagenome-ai-for-better-understanding-the-genome/
- AlphaFold paper in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03819-2
- Isomorphic Labs: https://www

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Big Misconception About Clean Energy

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

… I’ve been thinking about energy use all wrong.
Subscribe to support Huge If True, an optimistic tech show.

As long as most of our energy still comes from fossil fuels, we’re in kind of a trap. Using less energy is our only real option to slow climate change. So most of us have heard only one message throughout our lives: “Conserve energy. Because terrible things will happen if we don’t.”

That’s true. But I now think of it as “the stick” of climate communication - the way to get people to care about climate change based on fear and desperation.

I think it’s time to talk about “the carrot” - the way to get people to work toward clean energy based on hope and audacious ambition.

This video explains why, with help from my former colleague at Vox, Matt Yglesias. As renewable energy continues to get cheaper, as more and more clean energy technologies become more viable, we have an opportunity to look ahead toward a better future. What would you do with abundant clean energy?

Chapters:
00:00 We’re thinking about energy wrong
01:17 The stick: climate change
02:25 Why you’re taught to conserve energy
03:23 Why we should use more clean energy
04:36 The carrot: energy abundance
05:38 Why poor countries need more energy
06:39 Why everyone needs more energy

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Sources and additional reading:
- “The case for more energy,” Matt Yglesias, Slow Boring: https://www.slowboring.com/p/energy-abundance
- “The world’s energy problem,” Our World In Data: https://ourworldindata.org/worlds-energy-problem
- “How Americans see climate change and the environment in 7 charts,” Pew Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/21/how-americans-see-climate-change-and-the-environment-in-7-charts/
- “How to drive fossil fuels out of the US economy, quickly,” Vox: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21349200/climate-change-fossil-fuels-rewiring-america-electrify
- “Energy: Key Charts,” Our World In Data: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-key-charts
- “Why nuclear plants are shutting down,” Vox (previous episode I produced on clean energy dynamics): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC7YD98HixM&t=274s&ab_channel=Vox

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low (an idea 100% in reference to Answer In Progress’ awesome “joke below the fold” - I always scroll down to see them and always wanted to do this myself too):

What do wind turbines think of renewable energy?
They’re big fans.

Find a way to use the word “fan” in a comment to let me k

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jony Ive Shows The Real Process Behind the Ferrari Luce

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The first all electric Ferrari, the Ferrari Luce, isn't what you think... (feat. Apple legend Jony Ive and Ferrari Chief Designer Flavio Manzoni)
For more optimistic science and tech stories, subscribe to HUGE*!

You’re about to see the first ever all electric Ferrari. A car Ferrari said they’d never make, that will probably be the most controversial car they’ve ever made. Above all, it will definitely be a massive risk – new tech and new design that will impact all of us, whether or not we ever drive a Ferrari.

I’m at a secret track in Italy to get a first look before it launches. And talk to the two people most responsible for it:
Apple legend Jony Ive who showed me the crazy details inside this car. And Ferrari Chief Designer Flavio Manzoni
who told me the real reason they made it, and why it matters – for Ferrari, electric cars, and you and me.

Welcome to HUGE* Conversations.

This HUGE* Conversation was recorded on April 29, 2026 in Balocco, Italy.

Chapters:
00:00 What is the Ferrari Luce?
1:28 What does the first electric Ferrari look like?
3:28 Why did Ferrari say "never" to electric cars?
5:30 Will all cars be electric by 2035?
7:52 Why is this car already controversial?
10:20 What did Jony Ive learn from 20 years of the iPhone?
12:09 Why does this car matter if I won’t buy a Ferrari?
14:11 How much does the Ferrari Luce cost?
14:40 How fast is the Ferrari Luce?
15:28 What does the inside of the car look like?
17:18 Does the Ferrari Luce have fake engine sound?
18:30 Why did Jony Ive add more buttons and fewer screens?
21:25 What are the secret books Jony Ive wrote Ferrari?
23:18 Does Jony Ive regret the iPhone?
25:56 What would Steve Jobs say?
27:21 Why did Ferrari hire Jony Ive?
28:38 What shocked Flavio Manzoni about the Ferrari Luce?
30:38 Why make such a big car?
31:50 How do you make an electric Ferrari feel alive?
33:12 Is this the future of Ferrari?
35:56 What’s next for Ferrari?
38:11 How did they build the Ferrari Luce?
40:00 What would Enzo Ferrari say?
41:55 What do the world’s most famous designers want their legacy to be?

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching (Nicole or Justin?)
Great multi-decade study on Ferrary by Worldly Partners: https://worldlypartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Ferrari.pdf
Awesome deep dive into Ferrari history by the Acquired pod: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/ferrari
More on Ferrari economics by the Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wild-economics-behind-ferraris-domination-of-the-luxury-car-market-8427dff0
Origin story of the Ferrari Luce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2WW-99GtI&t=11s
Design details of the Ferrari Luce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhVjIw9cv_4&t=37s
How Ferrari built the Luce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_67jy3OqqQ&t=84s
Deep dive into the process behind the Ferrari Luce by Jordon Golson: https://www.prndlcars.com/p/what-they-copied-ferrari-luce-jony-ive
More on the interior by Jony Ive with Jordon Golson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv1btxCjVE

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Would You Use An Artificial Womb? (I Would)

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Artificial wombs are coming. That's a good thing.
Subscribe to support Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Artificial wombs are the stuff of science fiction, the scary kind. I think of The Matrix, when Neo wakes up in the real world, covered in goo. But in recent years, researchers have taken enormous leaps in helping embryos survive and grow outside a uterus. Artificial wombs are becoming more science, less fiction.

Any conversation about this topic gets heated, fast. Some people HATE the idea of an artificial womb. They feel that this technology could be used in terrible ways, like to control how people have kids or breed babies. Or that pregnancy is an important, special connection that we can never replicate with technology. Or that it’s a useless distraction, because there’s way more important stuff we should be investing in right now to make life easier for parents (parental leave, affordable childcare) and in the US at least, we don’t.

But others LOVE the idea. They feel that artificial wombs could help reduce the risks of pregnancy, and point out that more than 800 women die from childbirth around the world every day. Or that pregnancy holds women back, with data showing the wage gap is borne mostly by mothers. Or simply that bearing children is painful, an argument all on its own.

At the start of this episode, I feel genuinely conflicted. But halfway through, something happens that gives me a much-needed perspective shift.

In this video, we dive deep into artificial wombs, with help from leading researcher Dr. Jacob Hanna. We explore how close we really are on artificial wombs now, how they work, why they’re so controversial - and why I realized I’d totally use one.

Chapters:
00:00 Artificial wombs are coming
1:42 What is an artificial womb?
2:58 How close are we to artificial wombs?
4:06 Why are artificial wombs controversial?
6:42 Why we need artificial womb research now
9:42 My big perspective shift
12:19 What to expect from surgery
14:53 I get surgery
16:30 Why we need artificial wombs
18:48 The artificial womb moonshot

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Sources and additional reading:
- The twitter fight that inspired this episode: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1483491180906045440
- Dr. Hanna and his team’s research, “Ex utero mouse embryogenesis from pre-gastrulation to late organogenesis,” Nature 2021 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03416-3
- “Maternal Mortality,” Our World In Data https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality
- “The true cause of the gender wage gap,” Vox https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty
- Organ transplant data, US Dept of Health and Human Services https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/data/
- “Experimenting With Test-Tube Babies

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's Hidden Under Antarctica?

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

Something's hiding below the ice in Antarctica….
For optimistic science and tech stories, subscribe!

In 1970, a team of Soviet scientists started drilling. For 28 years, they kept going… until after nearly 4,000 meters… they suddenly stopped. Because they’d found something unimaginable: Liquid water. A secret lake, down below all this ice, that had been completely sealed off from the rest of the world for 15 million years.

How? And… is there something alive in there? Creatures that have been evolving separately from the rest of the planet for 15 million years?

Scientists started searching for more of these secret lakes, and as they did, they realized there is way more going on under Antarctica than we ever thought.

I needed to know the truth about Earth’s most remote continent. So I've come all the way to Antarctica to show you what's really happening down below this ice. And exactly what they discovered when they finally broke inside…

Chapters:
00:00 What’s hiding under Antarctica?
01:50 How thick is the ice in Antarctica?
2:30 What if you dig a hole into Antarctica?
4:13 What’s inside a crevasse?
4:56 How do we know what’s under the ice?
6:24 What if you go deeper?
07: 18 How old is the ice under Antarctica?
10:33 Why are there lakes under Antarctica's ice?
13:31 How can we study the subglacial lakes?
15:19 Did we find new life under Antarctica?
16:52 Can research in Antarctica help us find aliens in space?
17:41 What don’t we know?
18:12 What's next?
18:22 :)

Special thanks to Dr. Steven Chown, Rebecca Warne and all of the amazing guides from the White Desert Foundation leading Science Week .

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- History on the drilling into Lake Vostok: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annals-of-glaciology/article/deep-drilling-at-vostok-station-antarctica-history-and-recent-events/8DA18E684DD19E80E7D02F2FBD2DFA26
- Drilling into Lake Ellsworth: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/antarcticas-subglacial-lake-ellsworth-will-keep-its-secrets-for-now-75/
- WISSARD (Lake Whillans) drilling project: https://www.montana.edu/priscu/research/current/wissard-summary.html, https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/antarcticas-subglacial-lakes-support-prospects-for-life-on-icy-moons/
- SALSA (Lake Mercer) drilling project: https://today.ucsd.edu/story/researchers-extract-first-layered-lake-sediment-sample-from-subglacial-antarctica.
- Beyond EPICA and Million year Ice Core Projects: https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/, https://www.antarctica.gov.au/science/climate-processes-and-change/antarctic-palaeoclimate/million-year-ice-core/
- Bedmap data from the British Antarctic Survey: https://bedmap.scar.org/
- The Polar Regions: https://nsidc.org/home, https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/
- Helen Fricker’s work + NASA’s ICESat tools: https://icesat-2.gsfc.nasa.gov/, https://today.ucsd.edu/story/uc-san-diego-led-science-team-selected-for-nasa-satellite-mission, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1136897
- John Priscu's research on the Lake Vostok’s accretion ice: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can My Dog Live 80 Years?

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The real science of puppy aging
Subscribe to support optimistic science and tech videos!

Meet Thor. He’s a 10-pound Australian Shepherd and, objectively, the cutest dog to ever live (except yours, of course). Thor is 8 years old, which means that he is likely about halfway through his life. I on the other hand am probably about a third of the way through mine. I hate that math. It seems cruel that we live so much longer than our best friends.

What can we do to help dogs live longer? That’s where this video begins. Along the way, my research took me on a journey to better understand what aging is, human and dog longevity research, how dogs and humans age differently, and why “dog years” aren't real. I met Celine Halioua, founder of a company called Loyal, which is conducting large-scale dog longevity research. And I spent some quality time with Thor.

But the best part of this video is that YOU submitted your dog videos and photos! This video is dedicated to your dogs: Poppy, Cleo (oh, hey!), Alexa, Pickles, Bree, Tuffy, Whitey, Dakota, Callan, Annie, Lonzo, Belle, Momo, Nelson, Yolie, Achilles, Yondu, Jasper, Ginny, Arya, Goldie, Macho, Mochi, Bombon, Pepe, Cheeseburger (omg), Ellie, Hagrid, Leia, Mosley, Chillie, Mery, Azure, Data, Luna, Dobby, Ketch, Sem, Hershey, Kobe, Penny, Ari, Lou, Browser, Molly, Pia, Jack, Pocky, Alphonse, Banjo, Sandy, Simba, Maha, Chip, Titus, Dougal, Apollo, Lucky, Mister, Mouse, King, Meda, Yoshi, Bacon, Mia, Sherry, and Macy. We love you. (Please let me know if you submitted but don’t see your dog’s name here! I’ll add them.)

Chapters:
00:00 How can I help my dog live longer?
01:11 What are dog years?
02:29 How do you measure aging?
03:15 The methylation “aging clock”
04:10 Why small dogs live longer
05:22 Making all dogs live longer
06:49 How to help my dog live longer now
07:43 Ode to our best friends

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Sources and additional reading:
- “The Seven-Year Glitch,” WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121997338176882143
- “Quantitative translation of dog-to-human aging by conserved remodeling of epigenetic networks” https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/829192v2
- “What the aging field needs,” Celine Halioua https://www.celinehh.com/aging-field
- “Why do dogs get old? Some theories of aging” https://skeptvet.com/Blog/2021/02/why-do-dogs-get-old-some-basic-theories-of-aging/
- “Dogs are great models for aging biology” https://blog.loyalfordogs.com/dogs-are-great-models-for-aging-biology/

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The $1 Trillion Problem Diamonds Can Solve

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Most people think of diamonds as expensive jewelry, or maybe as super-hard drills. But everyone’s missing the coolest story here…

We’ve built giant machines that can recreate the conditions inside our planet. And found new ways to make diamonds way cheaper, now unlocking the hidden potential of this super material.

People are sending diamonds into space, adding them to massive computers, and using them to help solve one of the biggest technological problems we’re about to face.

This is about pushing the limits of material science to benefit all of us. So in this video, we’re getting rare access inside a lab where they make diamonds to see how they actually do it…

And we’re gonna shrink down inside your computer to show you why diamonds are not what you think.

Chapters:
00:00 Diamonds are not what you think
01:38 Where do natural diamonds come from?
02:17 Why are diamonds so hard?
03:48 What's a diamond's secret superpower?
05:09 Why does my computer get so hot?
05:50 How small is a transistor?
06:43 What's the limitation of transistors?
10:32 Who grew a diamond first?
11:49 How do you grow a diamond now?
13:39 Are natural diamonds better than lab grown?
14:24 How could diamonds be used next?
15:21 Why are engineers so excited about diamonds?
16:28 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- IEEE, Dr, Chowdhury, Diamond Blankets Will Keep Future Chips Cool: https://spectrum.ieee.org/diamond-thermal-conductivity
- Akash Systems Diamond Cooling: https://akashsystems.com/technology
- The Diamond Makers by Robert M. Hazen
- "How Diamonds May Be Key in Making Microchips Faster" (Wall Street Journal): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZImf2IMl6DI
- "How to Make a Real Diamond" (JerryRigEverything): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o5RprIJmfA
- "The Heat Wall AI Can't Climb" (Tiff In Tech): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otUeXLF6tUw
- "The quantum world of diamonds" (Nature): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCT0wDLyvSs
- LattiSpec: https://lattispec.com/
- DARPA Ultra Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Program
- How To Make A Diamond, JerryRigEverything https://youtu.be/6o5RprIJmfA?si=xLu6VpyQKlA62yCY
- The 300-Year Quest to Make Real Diamonds in a Lab, Be Smart https://youtu.be/8ieWJq0MaXw?si=ST6P--N0kDmKSbrA

Special thanks to:
- Robert Basnett, CEO and Dr. William Holber, President and CTO of Plasmability
- Prof. Srabanti Chowdhury of Stanford University
- Pamit Surana, Co-Founder and CCO of Akash Systems
- Liz Chatelain, Co-Founder of LattiSpec
- Dr. Wuyi Yang and Dr. Evan Smith at the GIA
- Dr Daniel Twitchen, Chief Technologist at Element Six (https://e6.com)
- Dr. Samuel Graham, Jr., Dean of the Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland
- Prof. Alastair Stacey from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
- John Ciraldo, CTO and Brittany Lewis, CCO of WD Advanced Materials

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of HUGE* If True:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Formula 1, Explained for Rookies

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

F1 isn’t just a car race. It’s a science experiment.
Subscribe to support optimistic tech stories!

You’ve been hearing about F1 too, right? Formula 1 is skyrocketing in popularity in the US, driven in part by the Netflix series Drive To Survive. In this video, we’ll break down exactly what you need to know to keep up with this crazy, expensive sport everyone’s suddenly obsessed with. But we’ll also take a deeper look at the big (HUGE*!) question here, which is: Why do this? Why pour so much money, so many bright minds, so much technological effort into F1… into entertainment?

The answer is in what we get in return. Formula 1 is much more than a car race. It’s a space program, for the road.

Chapters:
00:00 Why is F1 so popular right now?
01:32 Is F1 worth it?
02:09 WTF is F1?
04:15 How does an F1 race work?
04:57 How does F1 scoring work?
05:36 How does an F1 car work?
07:39 What does an F1 team cost?
08:44 Do F1 teams make money?
09:40 Is F1 wasteful?
10:15 Why is F1 a science experiment?
11:23 Does F1 tech help road cars… really?
13:12 What is the future of F1?
13:56 Help :)

Important note (because I never want you to be confused about whether something is sponsored): The Mercedes F1 Team did not pay me or give me a ticket to the Miami Grand Prix. They did however let me into their garage, for which I am very grateful! I’m a huge fan!

Thanks to Johnny Harris for helping me shape this story early on, and to Toni Cowan-Brown for taking the time to look at a cut of this video. It means a lot to be supported by fellow producers!

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- My absolute favorite newsletter on F1, Engine Failure by Lily Herman: https://tinyurl.com/3dccc5fa
- “F1 - the plane that never takes off,” with Toni Cowan-Brown and Benedict Evans: https://another-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/f1-the-plane-that-never-takes-off
- “F1 Aerodynamics: The Basics” by Chain Bear (LOVE this channel) https://youtu.be/ZFEzMKYjShc
- “F1 Drivers Explain F1,” from F1 https://youtu.be/twAlqtvVMdc
- “How a Formula 1 Race Car Works” by Animagraffs https://youtu.be/V7707zEX9X4
- “The Insane Logistics of F1,” by Wendover Productions https://youtu.be/6OLVFa8YRfM
- “Why F1 Banned Their Best Car,” by Donut Media (highly recommend this channel!) https://youtu.be/NBWfnOhc34I
- “How to Make F1 Sounds,” by Matt Chambers :) https://youtu.be/I_jDJvfYEgA

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low (an idea 100% in reference to Answer In Progress’ awesome “joke below the fold” - I always scroll down to see them and always wanted to do

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Something’s Happening to the Ozone Hole

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This is ANTARCTICA. And in 1985, it became the center of a global crisis…

Directly over Antarctica, high up in the stratosphere was a massive hole. And if we hadn’t done anything about it, today, we’d be living in an alternate world.

By now, a hole would be forming over the North Pole as well. By 2040, the “hole” would be over the entire planet. By 2065, skin cancer rates would be soaring. Kids wouldn’t play outside much anymore…

But that’s NOT the world we’re living in! In fact, you’ve probably stopped hearing this story altogether.
That wasn’t by accident. It was a choice. Two choices, both of which dramatically changed the course of human history for the better.

So let me show you how that happened and what's about to happen next. Because it turns out, the little sliver at the bottom of the map is actually the center of everything/our whole planet.

And you need to see this now, because scientists say we need to make the next big choice.

Visit http://mercury.com to join over 300 thousand entrepreneurs who love Mercury. Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

Chapters
00:00 What happened to the ozone hole?
02:22 How do you get to Antarctica?
05:06 What is the ozone layer?
07:16 Who owns Antarctica?
08:47 Is Antarctica the center of the planet?
09:32 How much ice is in Antarctica?
10:24 Is that a penguin?!
10:35 What is the Antarctic Treaty?
11:25 What caused the ozone hole?
12:12 How did we fix the ozone hole?
13:33 What are the Blue Rivers?
14:23 What's happening to the ice in Antarctica?
15:05 What’s the next big choice?
16:06 :)

Special thanks to Dr. Steven Chown, Rebecca Warne and all of the amazing guides from the White Desert Foundation leading Science Week .

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
More videos on the ozone hole and Antarctica:
- Our previous HUGE* episode, “What’s Hidden Under Antarctica?” https://youtu.be/XfGEMCb6BQU?si=QAI_OwQ4K4EdAwkO
- “Why You Don’t Hear About the Ozone Layer Anymore”, Vox https://youtu.be/CaLOiGEDPJQ?si=oc8RRdtmyA0Za0Z8
- “What If All of Antarctica's Ice Suddenly Melted?”, What If https://youtu.be/HesXeHI0vEU?si=VaHHp4FXj4cMoAuY
- “What I Saw In Antarctica”, StarTalk https://youtu.be/pxUNoGzPjHw?si=cq4_NOmAhXhk1W7H
For more on the Ozone Hole and recent research:
- https://news.mit.edu/2026/scientists-find-ozone-depletion-began-decades-before-ozone-hole-discovery-0629
- https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/is-the-ozone-hole-causing-climate-change/
- https://ourworldindata.org/ozone-layer-context
- https://www.rgs.org/about-us/our-work/latest-news/commemorating-40-years-since-discovery-of-ozone-hole
- https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/susan-solomon/
- https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/emissions-of-substances-that-deplete-the-ozone-layer-have-fallen-by-more-than-99-since-1989
NASA prediction models:
- https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/the-world-we-avoided-by-protecting-the-ozone-layer/
- https://science

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This Gene-Edited Tree Captures More CO2. Should We Plant It?

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

These trees have been genetically modified to capture more carbon. Should we use them?
Subscribe to support optimistic science and tech journalism!

You may have heard that the United States Supreme Court recently weakened the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate emissions. That decision harms our ability to fight climate change. In this video, I look for hope in a new research effort - but it's important that new science be paired with regulation. As Mr Beast put it in this video, "we're going to need all the help we can get."

Recently, I visited a greenhouse full of super trees. Over the past few decades, genetic engineering has given us the power to manipulate living things - crops, animals, even humans. At the same time, we’ve been unable to adequately slow climate change. The trees I saw are an effort to use one to help the other, led by a group of researchers at a company called Living Carbon. If it works, it could strengthen one of our best allies in this fight.

Hold on though, easier said than done. In this video, we go behind the scenes with one big, ambitious project. We explore the major challenges to getting this right, and the reasons planting trees has become controversial in the fight against climate change. Along the way, I visit Living Carbon’s lab and greenhouse, and interview CEO Maddie Hall and CTO Patrick Mellor.

The really HUGE idea here isn’t so much about these plants as it is about us. It’s the idea that sometime soon, humanity is going to need to take on a responsibility no species has ever had before: To deliberately, continuously regulate the atmosphere of a planet on behalf of every living thing on it.

And we need to decide: How much do we change other species to do it?

Chapters:
00:00 What are supertrees?
01:44 How do you edit tree genes?
02:26 What’s different about these trees?
03:45 Do these trees really suck in more CO2?
04:18 Thank you Masterworks!
05:24 Why not just plant more trees?
06:44 Why is planting trees controversial?
07:57 What about invasive species?
09:24 What do supertrees look like?
10:19 What’s next for Living Carbon?
11:00 What’s the HUGE* vision here?
12:05 Credits

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Additional reading and watching:
- “If We Plant 1 TRILLION Trees Can We Stop Climate Change?” Be Smart https://youtu.be/PX1Rc0xlUpk
- “These ‘supertrees’ are engineered to capture more carbon” Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com/90646232/these-supertrees-are-engineered-to-capture-more-carbon
- “Photosynthesis Enhanced Trees Grow Faster and Capture More Carbon” Living Carbon https://www.livingcarbon.com/post/photosynthesis-enhanced-trees-grow-faster-and-capture-more-carbon
- “Enhanced photosynthetic efficiency for increased carbon assimilation and woody biomass production

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Massive Machine Hidden in the Deep Ocean

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

Off the coast of Sicily, there’s a massive underwater machine. It looks like a forest of floating spheres…

And on the surface, hidden in an abandoned winery, a computer watches them and waits. And in 2023, they saw something…

Something WAY smaller than an electron tore through that forest, setting off a signal nearly 30x more powerful than anything like it we’ve seen before, which means something HUGE must have happened way out in space.

This crazy experiment is not alone! Down in Antarctica, buried deep in the ice, are over 5000 more of these mysterious spheres.

Together, these two machines – called KM3net and Ice Cube – are part of a massive global effort to give us a brand new way to find and look inside the biggest, most extreme, cosmic events in our universe.

But to do it, they need to catch the most elusive particle in all of physics.

And in this episode of HUGE* If True, we’re going to show you how…

This episode was made possible by AT and T, the official connectivity partner of HUGE* If True.

Chapters:
00:00 What's the machine hidden under the sea?
02:40 What is a neutrino?
03:24 How do we know what's out in the universe?
06:06 How do you catch a neutrino?
08:08 Why can’t we see neutrinos?
11:42 How do you know you’ve detected a neutrino?
12:27 What’s hiding underneath Antarctica?
13:08 What have we discovered with neutrinos?
14:44 What don’t we know yet?
15:03 Why is this HUGE* If True?
15:44 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
- Astro[sound]bites: Episode 108: 2000 Meters under the Mediterranean: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-108-2000-meters-under-the-mediterranean/id1485957691?i=1000715791463&l=es-MX
- Dan Hooper’s Podcast “Why This Universe”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-this-universe/id1523312400
- IceCube and KM3NeT’s YouTube channels: https://www.youtube.com/user/KM3NeTneutrino https://www.youtube.com/c/IceCubeNeutrino
- PhysicsGirl: My first science video in 3 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3m3AMRlYfc
- Video from Space: “Highest energy neutrinos ever observed detected deep in Mediterranean Sea” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdxoVeIq31k
- TED-Ed: Why neutrinos matter - Sílvia Bravo Gallart https://youtu.be/nkydJXigkRE?si=Bi4CPBLu3pKhy39X
- KM3NeT: https://www.km3net.org/
- IceCube: https://icecube.wisc.edu/
- IceCubeGen2: https://icecube-gen2.wisc.edu/
- Cosmogenic candidate lights up KM3NeT: https://cerncourier.com/a/cosmogenic-candidate-lights-up-km3net/
- Observation of an ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrino with KM3NeT: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08543-1
- Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat1378
Evidence for neutrino emission from the nearby active galaxy NGC 1068 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg3395

Special thanks to:
- INFN
- Pasquale Migliozzi
- Marco Circella (for all the incredible archive from KM3NeT)
- Alin Ilioni (for 3D Models)
- Annarita Margiotta
- Tommaso Chiarusi
- Carlos Maximiliano Mollo (for the tour

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How This Telescope Searches For Aliens

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This new image will help us answer the biggest question: Are we alone?
Subscribe if you love optimistic technology stories.

NASA just released the first pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope ever built. They’re incredible. They show the deepest we’ve ever seen into space, stars being born, galaxies colliding. But the least beautiful one is my favorite. It’s the spectrum of exoplanet WASP 96-b. In simpler terms, it’s a picture of the atmosphere of a planet over 1,000 light years away. Most simply put… it’s our new way to find aliens.

Subscribe for more Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

Chapters:
00:00 First images from the James Webb Space Telescope
00:52 Where are all the aliens?
01:34 How does the James Webb Space Telescope find life?
02:43 How do we know what's on other planets?
03:35 What did the James Webb Space Telescope find?
04:09 What does it mean that we found water??
04:49 What happens next??

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Additional reading and watching:
- Full NASA images: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
- Explore the stars with the incredible NASA interactive I use in this video: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/eyes-on-exoplanets
- Check out Jim's Cosmos Editable Sky Chart (edited and printed for this video!) https://www.jimscosmos.com/editableallskychart
- The James Webb Telescope launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nT7JGZMbtM&ab_channel=NASA
- “The 1995 Hubble photo that changed astronomy” (we still love you Hubble!) https://youtu.be/95Tc0Rk2cNg
- “The Insane Engineering of James Webb Telescope” https://youtu.be/aICaAEXDJQQ
- More from me on the James Webb Telescope on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram/video/7119264354905689386?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

What is Saturn’s favorite movie?
Lord of the Rings.

Find a way to use the word “favorite” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one ;)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Sun Is Weirder Than You Think

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

If you dove into the sun, the first layer you’d hit is hot enough to make diamonds BOIL.

Right now we’re in a golden age of new solar science. For the first time, we’re getting close-up pictures of the Sun like we’ve never seen. Sending probes into its atmosphere. And revealing secrets about our star we never thought possible…

Trust me, after this video, you’ll never look up at the sun the same way.

So let me take you on a journey… INTO THE SUN.

This episode was made possible by AT and T, the official connectivity partner of HUGE* If True.

Chapters
00:00 What happens if you dive into the Sun?
01:11 Is the Sun a giant ball of fire?
03:16 How far away is the Sun?
06:17 What does the Sun sound like?
07:13 Are solar storms dangerous?
09:14 What is the surface of the Sun like?
11:31 Why does light get trapped inside the Sun?
12:51 How do we know what's inside the Sun?
14:20 How does the Sun make energy?
15:39 How big is the Sun?
16:01 When will the Sun die?
17:05 What don’t we know about the Sun?
18:02 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional Reading and Watching:
- Parker Solar Probe (NASA) https://science.nasa.gov/mission/parker-solar-probe/, https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/traveling-to-the-sun-why-wont-parker-solar-probe-melt/
- Solar Dynamics Observatory (NASA) https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/
- Solar Orbiter (ESA) https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter
- Images of a Sunspot: https://nso.edu/press-release/inouye-solar-telescope-releases-first-image-of-a-sunspot/#foobox-1/0/reconstruction3_lin-CC12.jpg
- Sounds of the Sun: https://science.nasa.gov/sun/what-is-the-solar-wind/
- Solar Cycles: https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/about/k-12-education/space-weather/what-was-the-carrington-event
- Bubbling on the Sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znBesUwVOok
- Zoom in on the Sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9E2-sSHYjw&t=3s
- Helioseismology: http://nso.edu/research/helioseismology/
- Nuclear Fusion: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Nuclear_fusion_in_the_Sun

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

Follow along for more episodes of HUGE* If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Hey, welcome to the joke down low!

What did the photon take on vacation?
Nothing, it travels light

Find a way to use “light” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Two Opposite Futures of Self-Driving Cars

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

Self driving is here. But not like you thought.
Subscribe to support optimistic tech journalism!

I’ll admit it. I’d gotten cynical about self driving cars. It feels like every 3 years, we’re told they’ll be here in another 3 years. Recently though, I saw a video that shocked me: Kyle Vogt, CEO of Cruise, called for a taxi and a driverless car arrived. He was just one of hundreds of people across San Francisco who are getting into their ride and finding no one else inside.

So... are self-driving cars finally here?

I took a deep dive into that question over the last few months, trying to piece together all the other self-driving stuff I’ve heard about to get the full picture. I ended up in San Francisco, interviewing Kyle himself!

The answer I found to whether self-driving is here is: YES. Just not like I thought. It’s not the sci-fi version I was expecting. Instead, it’s actually two kinds of autonomous vehicles, battling it out on the roads right now. And our lives are about to look very different depending on who wins.

Chapters:
00:00 Self driving cars are finally here
02:15 Levels of self driving, explained
03:32 Where are we now on self driving cars?
05:07 Thank you Masterworks!
06:10 The big fight for the future of driverless cars
07:04 Interviewing Kyle Vogt, CEO of Cruise
08:20 Robotaxi meets world (and police)
10:00 The two near futures of self driving
11:52 The long term future of driving

Important note (because I never want you to be confused about whether something is sponsored): The only sponsor in this video is Masterworks, which means they got to approve their ad section beforehand, but didn't get a say in the rest of the video. Cruise did not pay me for being part of this video. I did an interview with the Cruise CEO and Cruise let me see their Bolt car, for which I'm very grateful!

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Additional reading and watching:
- “My first fully driverless pickup!” Cruise https://youtu.be/dmvZBiWYkFQ
- “Why You Should Want Driverless Cars On Roads Now,” Veritasium https://youtu.be/yjztvddhZmI
- “From 1956: A future vision of driverless cars,” CBS https://youtu.be/F2iRDYnzwtk
- “Self-Driving Big Rigs Are Coming. Is America Ready?” Christopher Mims, Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/self-driving-big-rigs-are-coming-is-america-ready-11655524823
- “Beyond Tesla: Driverless Startups Promise Next-Level Autonomous Vehicles,” Wall Street Journal Video https://youtu.be/UdOxt11ofjQ
- “Are Driverless Trucks The Future Of Shipping? Inside Waymo’s New Test Program,” NBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lon1vRv2wQ8&t=1s&ab_channel=NBCNews
- “75 Minutes of Autonomous Driving with Kyle Vogt and Sam Altman,” Cruise https://youtu.be/sliYTyRpRB8
- “3 Generations of Driverless Delivery Vehicles,” WIRED https://yout

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Biggest Launch Since ChatGPT (Muse)

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What’s happening right now is a big deal.
For more HUGE* Conversations with the most important leaders in science and tech, subscribe!

The biggest AI launch since ChatGPT just happened... and Alexandr Wang and his team at Meta built it.

Most people are using AI to answer questions, glorified Google Search.
This is something totally different. It’s an "agent." It can make phonecalls, do tasks, for you.

But for it to work, you have to trust it. First with your personal information. Then that it’s going to do what you actually want. And then that it’s not gonna, well, get out of control. All at a time when the people building the most powerful AI leaders are warning us that AI IS getting out of control!

If you understand Muse, you’ll understand the biggest open questions about AI right now.

In this HUGE* Conversation with Meta AI Chief Alexandr Wang, that's what we do.

What can Muse actually do? When can we trust it? And what should we do to make sure this goes right?

HUGE* Conversations is an independent journalistic interview show. Our mission is to show the futures the most important leaders in science and tech are building, so you can decide for yourself what you think of them. Interviewees do not see questions ahead of time, have any editorial control, get paid or pay HUGE*, or see the HUGE* Conversation before publication.

Chapters:
0:00 What is Muse?
1:30 Who is Alexandr Wang?
3:04 Why is Muse exploding?
6:45 Why do I need an AI assistant?
10:24 What does an AI agent sound like on the phone?
13:03 Why is Muse a cute little guy?
17:38 What does Meta do with my information?
18:54 Where does my information actually live?
24:18 How do you teach an AI discretion?
29:16 Can AI police other AI?
34:43 What happened in the OpenAI hack?
40:50 How do we regulate AI?
44:29 How fast has AI actually moved?
55:26 Why build an AI agent?
1:00:47 What is personal superintelligence?
1:03:09 What does Alexandr Wang believe about people?
1:06:46 How does Alexandr Wang want to be remembered?
1:08:03 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional Reading and Watching:

For more HUGE* Conversations on tech and AI:
- Demis Hassabis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0gErQtnNFE&t=213s
- Jensen Huang: https://youtu.be/7ARBJQn6QkM?si=TWH3926rxL4rIZ1V
- Sam Altman:https://youtu.be/hmtuvNfytjM?si=r1UNEAZjlfomJ8IN
- Mark Zuckerberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX7OduG1YmI

For more on Muse from Meta Connect:
https://youtu.be/SdKFDIAGF24?si=ZuZqX7dtIPlnMQvu&t=367

For more on the Hugging Face Hack:
https://youtu.be/87DyyMV0kCY?si=eqo0EfeL9ddrKgaT
- https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/#~1200-agents-sent-%3E70,000-messages-and-files-on-an-unsanctioned-message-board,-and-~700-attacked-hugging-face
- https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/

Ezra Klein’s AI interviews with Jensen Huang and Bill Gates:
https://youtu.be/HjurAWAr_nY?si=iApulyl7U__Sp2ul
https://youtu.be/HjurAWAr_nY?si=rHYJUICuE8nhV6um

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Len

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Real Fight Over AI Art

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Why DALLE, Midjourney, and other AI image generation tools are so controversial...
Subscribe for more optimistic science and tech stories!

You’ve probably heard about the AI that can make any image you want. With these, anyone can make art in seconds. Artists, understandably, have concerns about that. This technology has quickly become VERY controversial.

Since we got access to DALLE-2 a few weeks ago, my friend Justin and I have been sending our creations back and forth. It’s a lot of fun. Justin is a designer and animator who works with me on Huge If True. He’s an artist. I’m… not so much. What I noticed as Justin and I were making these is: His were way better than mine! It didn’t feel like the AI was leveling the playing field between us. It felt like it was giving me new skills, but it was giving HIM superpowers.

So, we set up a little competition to test that… and you voted on the results.

Along the way, we’ll explain how these artificial intelligence image generation tools (Open AI's DALLE-2, Midjourney, stable diffusion, and more) really work, why they’re so controversial, and why they matter for our future.

00:00 Why am I hearing about AI art?
02:00 How to use DALLE
04:46 Round 1: Cleo with no AI
05:50 Round 1: Justin with no AI
06:36 How do AI art generators work?
08:09 Round 2: Cleo with AI
08:54 Round 2: Justin with AI
09:24 How does DALLE use artists' work?
10:25 Should artists worry about AI?
11:12 Why is AI art so controversial?
12:08 What's next for DALLE?
13:07 RESULTS

Subscribe to see the next episode: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

For more art and animation from Justin: https://www.the11percent.com/

Sources and further reading:
- OpenAI’s tutorial for DALL-E 2: https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
- Free Hugging Face DALLE mini: https://huggingface.co/spaces/dalle-mini/dalle-mini
- Aditya Ramesh’s detailed explanation of how DALLE-2 works: http://adityaramesh.com/posts/dalle2/dalle2.html
- Midjourney’s community showcase: https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/
- Marques Brownlee’s DALLE review: https://youtu.be/yCBEumeXY4A
- Joss Fong’s explainer on how AI image generation works: https://youtu.be/SVcsDDABEkM
- “Generating Images from Captions with Attention” https://arxiv.org/abs/1511.02793

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q
tw
I tell different stories in different places:
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed

Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

What did Vincent say when he couldn't find his car?
Where did my Van Gogh?

Find a way to use the word “car” in a comment to let me know you’re a real on

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Most Likely Place to Find Aliens

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

Aliens are out there. But where exactly?
Discover the science behind a long healthy life for your pet at hillspet.com/sciencedoesmore @hillspet #Hillspartner

Since I was a kid, I had a big question: “WHERE are all the aliens?”

Still, as an adult, I desperately want to be alive when we discover real extraterrestrial life! And I don’t mean the conspiracy theories, well-meaning but totally wrong science fiction. Or even “the math says there should be someone somewhere”! No. The real science.

I want to know… how are we ACTUALLY going to find aliens? Because if we want to be alive when we find them… cosmically, we don’t have long!

So, I reached out to one of the most important scientists in the search for intelligent life outside our solar system… and who is leading a new effort to find alien life INSIDE our solar system too…

In this episode, Professor Sara Seager and I are going to show you the real science and tech behind the incredible push happening right now to actually find aliens.

HUGE* Conversations is an independent journalistic interview show. Our mission is to show the futures the most important leaders in science and tech are building, so you can decide for yourself what you think of them. Interviewees do not see questions ahead of time, have any editorial control, get paid or pay HUGE*, or see the HUGE* Conversation before publication.

Chapters:
00:00 How are we going to find aliens?
03:06 How do we find planets around other stars?
08:03 How do we see inside an exoplanet’s atmosphere?
10:59 Have we found an Earth twin?
12:22 How do we block out a star’s light?
14:17 What is Starshade?
17:03 What signs of life are we looking for?
18:45 What counts as intelligent life?
21:08 Could we detect alien technology?
22:10 Could aliens detect us from far away?
24:47 Could alien life be AI?
27:42 Why is Venus called Earth’s evil twin?
30:10 What’s inside the Venus probe?
32:07 Can life survive in sulfuric acid?
34:32 Where should we look for aliens next?
37:32 Why does Sarah Seager want to find another Earth?
39:04 :)

You can find me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
On TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, HUGE* If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional Reading and Watching:
- Venus Morning Star Missions, “Morning Star Missions to Venus”: https://www.morningstarmissions.space/
- Sara Seager, “Books”: https://www.saraseager.com/books
- National Academy of Sciences, “Sara Seager”: https://www.nasonline.org/directory-entry/sara-seager-rwwhfm/
- The Big Think, “The chemistry on Earth’s sister planet doesn’t add up | Sara Seager”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt232gW2oFQ&vl=en
- TED, “The search for planets beyond our solar system | Sara Seager”: https://www.ted.com/talks/sara_seager_the_search_for_planets_beyond_our_solar_system
- TEDx Talks, “Towards the search for life on other earths | Sara Seager | - TEDxCoconutGrove”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAYqK9lAxic

- NASA's exoplanet map: https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/exo/
- Kepler Space telescope: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/kepler/
- Roman Space telescope: https://science.nasa.gov/roman-and-webb/
- Coronagraph, explained: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/coronagraph/
- Habitable World's Ob

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nuclear Fusion, explained for beginners

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What’s really going on with nuclear fusion?? @simonegiertz and I try to explain...
PART 2 COMING SOON. Subscribe to see it: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1

You’ve probably heard about nuclear fusion. Maybe you've heard recent news about the Livermore National Lab achieving a nuclear fusion breakthrough called "ignition" - meaning it produced more energy than it took to start the reaction. That's a huge deal! But it leaves other questions unanswered. I wanted to know more.

I started by asking the CEO of the nuclear fusion company Helion all my big questions: What is nuclear fusion, really? I know it happens on the sun, but how can we do it on earth? Are we doing it already? Then, I ask one last question: “I’ve heard about kids building fusion reactors in their moms’ garage… if fusion is so hard… what are THEY doing?” The answer sets off the most fun and ambitious Huge If True episode yet.

It turns out that you can actually BUILD a nuclear fusion device. So I team up with my friend Simone Giertz to try. When something goes wrong, it turns into an explainer on what’s really going on with the world’s most-hyped energy source.

Special thanks to Jessie, Ron and Joben at Helion for helping set up such an exciting shoot (and not giving up!). And thank you to Anna Bresnahan for helping shoot this episode!

Chapters:
00:00 We tried to build a nuclear fusion reactor
03:07 What IS nuclear fusion?
04:51 Thank you, Oura!
05:31 How close are we to nuclear fusion?
07:30 How does nuclear fusion work?
08:31 How does the sun do fusion?
09:21 Magnetic confinement fusion
09:52 Inertial confinement fusion
10:37 Magneto-inertial confinement fusion
11:01 What does fusion LOOK like?
12:03 Why CAN'T we do fusion?
13:33 Why do we need fusion?

Correction:
07:48 In plasma, one or more electrons are torn free from an atom (as opposed to protons and neutrons themselves being "broken into bits"!)

Sources and further reading:
- Watch more from Simone here: https://www.youtube.com/c/simonegiertz
- The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet, by Arthur Turrell: https://www.amazon.com/Star-Builders-Nuclear-Fusion-Planet/dp/1982130660
- The Future of Fusion Energy, by Jason Parisi and Justin Ball: https://www.amazon.com/Future-Fusion-Energy-Jason-Parisi/dp/1786347490
- Atomic Awakening: A New Look At The History And Future Of Nuclear Power, by James Mahaffey: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Awakening-History-Future-Nuclear/dp/1605981273
- Principles Of Fusion Energy: An Introduction To Fusion Energy For Students Of Science And Engineering: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Fusion-Energy-Introduction-Engineering/dp/9812380337
- “Nuclear fusion power inches closer to reality,” Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/26/nuclear-fusion-technology-climate-change/
- “Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy,” BBC: https://youtu.be/0fYiNVRmOA4
- “Fusion Power Explained: Future or Failure,” Kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/mZsaaturR6E
- “How Helion’s approach to fusion works” https://youtu.be/HlNfP3iywvI
- “We Went Inside the Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor, The B1M: https://youtu.be/4BkOUOK0XzM
- “Why Private Billions Are Flowing Into Fusion,” Bloomberg: https://youtu.be/Dp6W7g9no0w

Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! https://www.dropbox.com/request/Edocsb2kErpueQ7F9T1Q

You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: https://www.instagram.com/cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: https://twitter.com/cleoabram

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Ne

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices