Which Type of Vanilla Should I Use?

What's Real About Reality Show Cooking?

It’s our Friday menagerie of misfit news. GBH’s Paris Alston & Jeremy Siegel join us to talk about the Nantucket school committee meeting gone awry, the enduring Allston snow pile, and if we’re being wimps about a little weekend rain. Then: Next week, the world will learn whether Rubato Chef Laurence Louie wins season 23 of Bravo’s Top Chef. He knows, of course, because filming wrapped month ago. We’ll ask: what’s it like behind the scenes of a major reality TV cooking competition?  And finally, Milton resident Maritta Cronin was recently recognized for a staggering 65 years of perfect town meeting attendance. She joins to talk about her town, alongside Milton Town Clerk Susan Galvin.

How Tiny Can A Robot Get?

It's The Glitch Report, with Joan Donovan from the Critical Internet Studies Institute. We cover former reality star Spencer Pratt using Trump’s social media playbook in his L.A. mayoral bid, Europe’s push to become less reliant on U.S. tech, and more.  Then: With a swipe of a magnet, microscopic “magno-bots” can perform complex maneuvers. Edgar meets MIT researchers Rachel Sun and Andrew Chento talk about their research and where this futuristic tech can take us.  And we end the show answering a couple listener-submitted curiosity questions about the origins of the alphabet, why barns are red, and whether dogs can get Alpha-Gal.

Who's Got The Best Ice Cream in New England?

250 years ago,  Americans weren’t just fighting the British – they also had smallpox to contend with. Edgar talks with GBH’s Jennifer Moore and Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai from the Mass. Historical Society to talk smallpox in the time of the American revolution. Then: What makes New England ice cream stands the cream of the crop? (Sorry.) Edgar meets Elijah & Kendra Richards, co-creators of the TikTok ice cream review channel MooEngland Diaries & fields calls from listeners.  And Mass Audubon director of bird conservation John Herbert takes us on a tour of Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary.

Will A.I. Cyborgs Outlast Us All?

Edgar kicks us off with  another round of our A.I. news & ethics panel with Nir Eisikovits & J Hughes from the podcast Prosthetic Gods, and Harvard A.I. researcher Elena Glassman.  Then, GBH’s Gal Tziperman-Lotan returns with Four Things To Know for June 2nd, 2026. And ending our show, it’s the June edition of Stargazer’s Guide with astrophysicist Anjali Tripathi.

How Do I Start A Start-Up?

On Saturday, a meteor crashed into the ocean off the coast of Cape Cod. Sky & Telescope senior editor Kelly Beatty joins to explain what we know (and don’t) about what exactly happened, how rare this is, and other pressing meteor questions.  Then: Whoop has become a darling in the landscape of Boston tech startups, with a pre-IPO valuation of over 10 billion. How rare is their story, and how does a tech startup make it to the big-leagues? We’ll talk with Boston Globe tech business reporter Aaron Pressman, and Jeffrey Bussgang from Harvard Business School.  And we end by exploring the so-called “gamification" of sleep, with apps that track & measure health data. Are these apps & tools making us any healthier? Edgar talks with Tony Cunningham, who directs the Center for Sleep and Cognition [https://www.bidmc.org/research/research-by-department/psychiatry/center-for-sleep-and-cognition/personnel] at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.