Social media ads for egg freezing. A craigslist-like site for breast milk. Fertility fairs featuring IVF clinics alongside shamanic nutritionists. Surrogacy contracts offering a discount for multiple embryos. The rapidly-growing global fertility industry promises hope, fulfillment, and control, as long as you can afford it. Participating in this industry can be empowering. All parts of reproduction are commodified these days, so why not use your free will to take advantage of that, whether through selling breast milk or freezing your eggs? But the global fertility industry is also blatantly exploitative, preying on those who are desperate and vulnerable in order to maximize profits. In Cash Cow: How the Maternal Body Became a Global Commodity - and the Hidden Costs for Women, author and journalist Alev Scott explores that blurred line between empowerment and exploitation in this globally varied industry. Her reporting takes her through the underbelly of the breast milk market, the complicated world of fertility tourism, and the legal and emotional turmoil of surrogacy. As she describes, the morality, legality, and expenses of different procedures are a moving target across the globe, reflecting the struggle to attach moral judgment when science and circumstances change so rapidly. Tune in for a truly fascinating conversation.

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In keeping with last week’s theme of “bodily excretions that are kinda gross that you don’t really think about but are actually really important”, we’re devoting this episode to earwax, aka cerumen. In one hour, we somehow manage to weave together stories of earwax impaction, misadventures in ear candling, glimpses of earwax in art history, and a whale of a tale as revealed by cetacean cerumen. The biology and history of earwax proves to be surprisingly rich and revealing and will have you second-guessing yourself as you reach for that cotton swab. Armed with this week’s episode on earwax and last week’s on boogers, you’ll be ready to take on even the most daunting office icebreaker.

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Hard and crusty. Green and gloopy. Clear and watery. Boogers come in a veritable rainbow of colors and a full spectrum of textures from liquid to solid. They’re really quite impressive if you think about it. Which, of course, few of us do, besides adding tissues to our shopping list or cursing the dagger-like boogers that emerge during a trip to a particularly dry locale. But boogers deserve a lot more credit, and this episode is our attempt at righting that wrong. What are boogers, and what purpose do they serve? How long have handkerchiefs been around, and when did mucus evolve? How many of us are nose-pickers, and how do other species deal with their boogers? More stuffed with snot facts than a nose during flu season, this episode has all the best tidbits to share at your next dinner party.

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