Authors of Mass Destruction

Welcome to the episode number 38 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com Personal Update:After wrestling for the past two months, I’ve decided to put the podcast on hold for a while. I’m sorry to disappoint all of my regular listeners. There are several reasons. I’m not much in the mood to talk about mass destruction scenarios these days. I still not breaking even on the podcast, and finances are tight. I expect the podcast will come back sometime in 2021 because I enjoy it so much. This will be my second to last show for a while. Let’s get to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 38 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com Personal Update:After wrestling for the past two months, I’ve decided to put the podcast on hold for a while. I’m sorry to disappoint all of my regular listeners. There are several reasons. I’m not much in the mood to talk about mass destruction scenarios these days. I still not breaking even on the podcast, and finances are tight. I expect the podcast will come back sometime in 2021 because I enjoy it so much. This will be my second to last show for a while. Let’s get to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 37 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update:I’ve started my next novel – a dystopian science fiction novel set in 2044 Not reading much news except for COVID-19 related news Let’s get to the interview with Emily Lorditch. Authors get ideas for novels from the news headlines. I’ve asked Emily to come up with a list of top ten current news headlines for creating new stories based on science.No, cops aren’t using SiriusXM to find criminals  She installed a Ring camera for Peace of Mind, instead a hacker harassed her 8-year-old daughter When a DNA Test Says You’re a Younger Man, Who Lives 5,000 Miles Away Crooks passing off ‘movie money’: How you can spot it Preparing the next generation of GPS He Was Murdered in a Hate Crime. She Brought His Blood-Soaked Phone Back to Life A woman’s stalker used an app that allowed him to stop, start and track her car Woman Diagnosed with Breast Cancer After It Was Detected by Tourist Attraction’s Thermal Camera Brain Tissue Has Been Kept Alive and Functioning For Almost a Month The Major Awards Ranked By How Good They Would Be as Murder Weapons

Welcome to the episode number 37 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update:I’ve started my next novel – a dystopian science fiction novel set in 2044 Not reading much news except for COVID-19 related news Let’s get to the interview with Emily Lorditch. Authors get ideas for novels from the news headlines. I’ve asked Emily to come up with a list of top ten current news headlines for creating new stories based on science.No, cops aren’t using SiriusXM to find criminals  She installed a Ring camera for Peace of Mind, instead a hacker harassed her 8-year-old daughter When a DNA Test Says You’re a Younger Man, Who Lives 5,000 Miles Away Crooks passing off ‘movie money’: How you can spot it Preparing the next generation of GPS He Was Murdered in a Hate Crime. She Brought His Blood-Soaked Phone Back to Life A woman’s stalker used an app that allowed him to stop, start and track her car Woman Diagnosed with Breast Cancer After It Was Detected by Tourist Attraction’s Thermal Camera Brain Tissue Has Been Kept Alive and Functioning For Almost a Month The Major Awards Ranked By How Good They Would Be as Murder Weapons

Welcome to the episode number 36 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update:I released my last episode on March 15. I had the opportunity to interview Joe and Kimberly Holley and we talked about the pandemic, which was still in its early days in the United States. At the time, world tallies were around 124,000 cases and 4,600 deaths. That was the worldwide count. As of April 5, there are 1,225,360 cases and over 66,000 deaths. That’s less than month ago.  It feels like months have passed when it’s only been a few weeks. And many of us have spent those weeks mostly inside and staying away from other people.  Three weeks ago, I came to the difficult decision to postpone my Kickstarter campaign for American Doomsday. My goal as a creative is to help people cope with dramatic technological change through entertaining stories. In early March, I started to wrestle with whether I could ask people to worry about a bad scenario when we’re going through one in real-time. By mid-March, my answer was no. I don’t want to ask people to care about anything at the moment except getting through this with our loved ones and our country in one piece. I’m not sure when the time will be right for me to pursue that project. I fear it could be delayed by a year. In the meantime, I’ve shifted around my creative production schedule. I’ve just put my finishing touches on my latest novel about nuclear weapons and AI. If you’re interested in being a beta reader, shoot me a note on Twitter to @WMDgirl. Next week, I’m starting a dystopian science fiction novel set in 2044, 16 years after a second U.S. civil war. It will be a bit like Hunger Games meets George Orwell’s 1984. This week, I’d just like to highlight a few articles from my vast pandemic reading:“How to Counter China’s Coronavirus Disinformation Campaign.” This is a piece by myself and my colleague Christine Parthemore published in Defense One on March 29.This is about the political spin surrounding the coronavirus outbreak and how the U.S. should take back the narrative. “Modernizing biotechnology for the fight against COVID-19 and the future of pandemic response,” published on Medium on April 2 by Alexander Titus, Michelle Rozo and Diane DiEullis, another colleague of mine.Discusses various advances in biotechnology that can be leveraged to fight the pandemic “How the Coronavirus became an American Catastrophe,” published in the Atlantic on March 21.If you’re still wondering whatever happened with testing in the U.S. This article does a great job discussing the various failures. Let’s go to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 36 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update:I released my last episode on March 15. I had the opportunity to interview Joe and Kimberly Holley and we talked about the pandemic, which was still in its early days in the United States. At the time, world tallies were around 124,000 cases and 4,600 deaths. That was the worldwide count. As of April 5, there are 1,225,360 cases and over 66,000 deaths. That’s less than month ago.  It feels like months have passed when it’s only been a few weeks. And many of us have spent those weeks mostly inside and staying away from other people.  Three weeks ago, I came to the difficult decision to postpone my Kickstarter campaign for American Doomsday. My goal as a creative is to help people cope with dramatic technological change through entertaining stories. In early March, I started to wrestle with whether I could ask people to worry about a bad scenario when we’re going through one in real-time. By mid-March, my answer was no. I don’t want to ask people to care about anything at the moment except getting through this with our loved ones and our country in one piece. I’m not sure when the time will be right for me to pursue that project. I fear it could be delayed by a year. In the meantime, I’ve shifted around my creative production schedule. I’ve just put my finishing touches on my latest novel about nuclear weapons and AI. If you’re interested in being a beta reader, shoot me a note on Twitter to @WMDgirl. Next week, I’m starting a dystopian science fiction novel set in 2044, 16 years after a second U.S. civil war. It will be a bit like Hunger Games meets George Orwell’s 1984. This week, I’d just like to highlight a few articles from my vast pandemic reading:“How to Counter China’s Coronavirus Disinformation Campaign.” This is a piece by myself and my colleague Christine Parthemore published in Defense One on March 29.This is about the political spin surrounding the coronavirus outbreak and how the U.S. should take back the narrative. “Modernizing biotechnology for the fight against COVID-19 and the future of pandemic response,” published on Medium on April 2 by Alexander Titus, Michelle Rozo and Diane DiEullis, another colleague of mine.Discusses various advances in biotechnology that can be leveraged to fight the pandemic “How the Coronavirus became an American Catastrophe,” published in the Atlantic on March 21.If you’re still wondering whatever happened with testing in the U.S. This article does a great job discussing the various failures. Let’s go to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 35 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema You might be a bit confused by me releasing two episodes in a row. Last Thursday, I recorded an interview with Dr. Joe Holley and Kimberly Holley, both are currently engaged with responding to the coronavirus, COVID-19, in Tennessee. The interview was really informative and I wanted to share it with you all right away. And you’re all cooped up at home, so you probably appreciate more podcasts anyway. Personal Update:American Doomsday My thoughts Two useful articles:One is a comprehensive guide put out by Arstechnica. It’s updated regularly. I’ll include the link in my show notes, but if you look up Arstechnica and coronavirus, you’ll find it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/dont-panic-the-comprehensive-ars-technica-guide-to-the-coronavirus/ The other is an article written by a number of physicians on kevinmd.com. https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/03/a-covid-19-coronavirus-update-from-concerned-physicians.html I’ll let these resources do their own talking. There’s still a lot of uncertainty about the virus and the situation is fluid. We won’t know everything there is to know for a while. And that’s part of the problem. Let’s go to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 35 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema You might be a bit confused by me releasing two episodes in a row. Last Thursday, I recorded an interview with Dr. Joe Holley and Kimberly Holley, both are currently engaged with responding to the coronavirus, COVID-19, in Tennessee. The interview was really informative and I wanted to share it with you all right away. And you’re all cooped up at home, so you probably appreciate more podcasts anyway. Personal Update:American Doomsday My thoughts Two useful articles:One is a comprehensive guide put out by Arstechnica. It’s updated regularly. I’ll include the link in my show notes, but if you look up Arstechnica and coronavirus, you’ll find it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/dont-panic-the-comprehensive-ars-technica-guide-to-the-coronavirus/ The other is an article written by a number of physicians on kevinmd.com. https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/03/a-covid-19-coronavirus-update-from-concerned-physicians.html I’ll let these resources do their own talking. There’s still a lot of uncertainty about the virus and the situation is fluid. We won’t know everything there is to know for a while. And that’s part of the problem. Let’s go to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 34 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update: My apologies for not releasing an episode last week. I got caught up in travel preparations for my trip to DC and didn’t have time. On March 3, it’s been a year since I launched this podcast. I’m looking forward to another year, so I’m not going anywhere just yet. But I’ve found that twice monthly is a better pace for me. I’m currently working on planning for my Kickstarter campaign for a dark comedy stage play entitled American Doomsday and finishing up my technothriller novel, Rescind Order. My headline for this week is “The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing,” published in The Atlantic on March 6.In the past few days, I’ve heard a number of respected experts compare the coronavirus pandemic to the 1918 Spanish flu and predict that it will be widespread throughout the U.S. by the end of April. This is both due to the infectiousness and transmissibility of the virus. But if you’re paying attention to the information coming from the Trump administration, you might have a rosier picture. Why aren’t there more cases, you ask? Well, the answer to that question is likely, that there are many more cases, but we haven’t tested enough people. This article goes into detail about the testing debacle from the flawed CDC tests, lack of sufficient quantity to stringent requirements for testing. Testing plays a critical role in understanding the spread of disease and is essential for containing it. The White House has promised that we can test everyone, but that’s not true. Our testing capacity as a nation is severely limited. What should you do? Wash your hands. Make sure you have soap and hand sanitizer on hand. Stay home if you’re sick. Don’t go to the hospital unless you require emergency treatment. Let’s go to the interview with Dr. Frank Sauer, where we talk about a less immediately scary topic of autonomous weapons systems.

Welcome to the episode number 34 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update: My apologies for not releasing an episode last week. I got caught up in travel preparations for my trip to DC and didn’t have time. On March 3, it’s been a year since I launched this podcast. I’m looking forward to another year, so I’m not going anywhere just yet. But I’ve found that twice monthly is a better pace for me. I’m currently working on planning for my Kickstarter campaign for a dark comedy stage play entitled American Doomsday and finishing up my technothriller novel, Rescind Order. My headline for this week is “The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing,” published in The Atlantic on March 6.In the past few days, I’ve heard a number of respected experts compare the coronavirus pandemic to the 1918 Spanish flu and predict that it will be widespread throughout the U.S. by the end of April. This is both due to the infectiousness and transmissibility of the virus. But if you’re paying attention to the information coming from the Trump administration, you might have a rosier picture. Why aren’t there more cases, you ask? Well, the answer to that question is likely, that there are many more cases, but we haven’t tested enough people. This article goes into detail about the testing debacle from the flawed CDC tests, lack of sufficient quantity to stringent requirements for testing. Testing plays a critical role in understanding the spread of disease and is essential for containing it. The White House has promised that we can test everyone, but that’s not true. Our testing capacity as a nation is severely limited. What should you do? Wash your hands. Make sure you have soap and hand sanitizer on hand. Stay home if you’re sick. Don’t go to the hospital unless you require emergency treatment. Let’s go to the interview with Dr. Frank Sauer, where we talk about a less immediately scary topic of autonomous weapons systems.

Welcome to the episode number 33 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update: I’m working on planning for my Kickstarter campaign for a dark comedy stage play entitledAmerican Doomsday. I’ve decided on the goal for the campaign—audio drama podcast I have two headlines for this week:The first headline is “Your Philips Hue light bulbs can still be hacked — and until recently, compromise your network” published on theverge.com on February 5.Internet of Things – Smart TVs, Alexa, Smartphones – any electronic device connected to the Internet is vulnerable to hacking or cyberattacks. Oftentimes, the firmware created for these devices are not designed with security in mind. Cyberattacks used to be solely digital – in the future, they will also be “cyberphysical” Four years ago, researchers demonstrated a cyberhack of Philips lightbulbs carried about using a drone. These light bulbs are controlled with the Philips Hue Hub which has firmware that connects to the Internet. Using the drone, a hacker gained access to a light bulb and then the hub which controls the light bulb. Guess what? That vulnerability never got fully fixed. Researchers have now figured out how to leverage vulnerabilities in these lightbulbs to gain access to your computer network. Once in control of the hub, a hacker can install malware to gain access to other internet-connected appliances in your home. If you haven’t installed a patch, then your system is still vulnerable. My second headline is “All the Invasive Ways China Is Using Drones to Address the Coronavirus” published on slate.com on February 4.You’d have to live in a cave not to know about the coronavirus, a virus that started in China and causes a severe respiratory illness. It’s spreading rapidly around the world and could end up turning into a global pandemic. This is scary stuff. Another interesting aspect, the authoritarian power of the Chinese government is on display. Not only did it quarantine tens of millions of its citizens, it is using some extreme measures to contain the disease. This article describes how China is using loudspeakers on drones to communicate with pedestrians who are not wearing masks. Sounds helpful, right? “China has been using drones, some of which are disguised as birds, on a mass scale since 2016 to track down fugitives, catch people making traffic infractions, monitor students taking college entrance exams, and surveil the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, particularly for illegal border crossings.” The drones are coming… Let’s go to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 33 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update: I’m working on planning for my Kickstarter campaign for a dark comedy stage play entitledAmerican Doomsday. I’ve decided on the goal for the campaign—audio drama podcast I have two headlines for this week:The first headline is “Your Philips Hue light bulbs can still be hacked — and until recently, compromise your network” published on theverge.com on February 5.Internet of Things – Smart TVs, Alexa, Smartphones – any electronic device connected to the Internet is vulnerable to hacking or cyberattacks. Oftentimes, the firmware created for these devices are not designed with security in mind. Cyberattacks used to be solely digital – in the future, they will also be “cyberphysical” Four years ago, researchers demonstrated a cyberhack of Philips lightbulbs carried about using a drone. These light bulbs are controlled with the Philips Hue Hub which has firmware that connects to the Internet. Using the drone, a hacker gained access to a light bulb and then the hub which controls the light bulb. Guess what? That vulnerability never got fully fixed. Researchers have now figured out how to leverage vulnerabilities in these lightbulbs to gain access to your computer network. Once in control of the hub, a hacker can install malware to gain access to other internet-connected appliances in your home. If you haven’t installed a patch, then your system is still vulnerable. My second headline is “All the Invasive Ways China Is Using Drones to Address the Coronavirus” published on slate.com on February 4.You’d have to live in a cave not to know about the coronavirus, a virus that started in China and causes a severe respiratory illness. It’s spreading rapidly around the world and could end up turning into a global pandemic. This is scary stuff. Another interesting aspect, the authoritarian power of the Chinese government is on display. Not only did it quarantine tens of millions of its citizens, it is using some extreme measures to contain the disease. This article describes how China is using loudspeakers on drones to communicate with pedestrians who are not wearing masks. Sounds helpful, right? “China has been using drones, some of which are disguised as birds, on a mass scale since 2016 to track down fugitives, catch people making traffic infractions, monitor students taking college entrance exams, and surveil the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, particularly for illegal border crossings.” The drones are coming… Let’s go to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 32 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update: I just finished the first draft of my new novel, Rescind Order, a technodrama set in the future about the threat of nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence. For my next project, I’m working on a dark comedy stage play entitled American Doomsday. My headline for this week is about the coronavirus outbreak, “8 questions about the coronavirus outbreak, answered,” published on Feb 2 on Vox.comCoronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China in late 2019 First case in the U.S. on January 21 More than 14,000 cases in China as of today A few facts:A virus (not bacteria) – antibiotics don’t work – that spread from animals to humans Causes a respiratory infection, symptoms range from common cold to severe pneumonia, starts with fever, cough, shortness of breath Lower death rate than SARS, but appears to spread more quickly Spreads from exposure to droplets – sneezing, coughing – appears to be spreading before symptoms Hand washing is key Both the CDC and the State Department have issued their highest-level travel alerts for China The WHO has declared the outbreak a global health emergency Risk to public health in the US is considered low R Naught – reproduction number – how contagious is an infectious disease – average number of people who will catch a disease from one contagious personIncubation period Contact rate Public health preparedness The reproduction number for the 2019 Coronavirus appears to be 1.4 to 3.3. Ebola – 2 Seasonal flu – 1.3 Measles – 11-18 https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1223982163546247168?s=20 https://www.healthline.com/health/r-nought-reproduction-number Let’s go to my interview. 

Welcome to the episode number 32 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update: I just finished the first draft of my new novel, Rescind Order, a technodrama set in the future about the threat of nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence. For my next project, I’m working on a dark comedy stage play entitled American Doomsday. My headline for this week is about the coronavirus outbreak, “8 questions about the coronavirus outbreak, answered,” published on Feb 2 on Vox.comCoronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China in late 2019 First case in the U.S. on January 21 More than 14,000 cases in China as of today A few facts:A virus (not bacteria) – antibiotics don’t work – that spread from animals to humans Causes a respiratory infection, symptoms range from common cold to severe pneumonia, starts with fever, cough, shortness of breath Lower death rate than SARS, but appears to spread more quickly Spreads from exposure to droplets – sneezing, coughing – appears to be spreading before symptoms Hand washing is key Both the CDC and the State Department have issued their highest-level travel alerts for China The WHO has declared the outbreak a global health emergency Risk to public health in the US is considered low R Naught – reproduction number – how contagious is an infectious disease – average number of people who will catch a disease from one contagious personIncubation period Contact rate Public health preparedness The reproduction number for the 2019 Coronavirus appears to be 1.4 to 3.3. Ebola – 2 Seasonal flu – 1.3 Measles – 11-18 https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1223982163546247168?s=20 https://www.healthline.com/health/r-nought-reproduction-number Let’s go to my interview. 

Welcome to the episode number 31 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update:It’s good to be back after a month break. Thanks for your patience. I’m hoping to switch gears a bit for the next few months and focus on some new and different topics. I regret to inform you that I will not be producing the Project Gecko podcast as planned. I’d already recorded the intro and autro and finished the graphics, but then I realized I need to prioritize other things at this time. I haven’t been able to monetize the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast; that means that I still pay money to produce each episode and my time is free. I’m wrapping up work on my fourth novel, Rescind Order. It’s due to my editor on February 1. As my next project, I’ll be writing a dark comedy stage play based on the themes in the novel. I’m planning a Kickstarter campaign to fund the initial stage of production, which I hope will be an audio play. My headline for this week is a doozie: “The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It,” published in the New York Times on January 18.If you’ve listened to this podcast and my Bionic Bug podcast, you know that one of my soapboxes is the data we’re putting on the Internet and the potential for certain actors to surveill us with this information. A startup company called Clearview AI has invented a tool that puts the final nail in the coffin of our anonymity.  “You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared.” Clearview AI has a database of billions of images scraped from Facebook, YouTube and other popular apps. What this means? Your face, wherever it is recorded, unlocks everything about who you are. This has occurred because we, including policymakers, have largely stood by and watched as our privacy erodes and we’ve willingly offered companies and third parties unlimited information about us. Guess who is using the tool? Law enforcement authorities. The company intends to pair the app with AR glasses, meaning that anyone wearing them can walk down the street and know things about you simply from your face—your name, your address, your social network, your employer. And while your privacy is being stripped away, this company operates in the dark, shrouded in secrecy. As a nation, we’re afraid of the potential of AI powering autonomous weapons systems, but before we get there, we’ll lose ourselves to the data issue. If you’re interested, I wrote an essay on the risks posed by AI as depicted in pop culture and warned about the data monster. We need to wake up from our slumber and do something about this before it’s too late. It may already be too late. On that cheery note, let’s go to a fun interview on nanotechnology where I talk to Dr. Margaret Kosal about science enabling invisibility cloaks and night vision in rats as well as the truth about gray goo.

Welcome to the episode number 31 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema Personal Update:It’s good to be back after a month break. Thanks for your patience. I’m hoping to switch gears a bit for the next few months and focus on some new and different topics. I regret to inform you that I will not be producing the Project Gecko podcast as planned. I’d already recorded the intro and autro and finished the graphics, but then I realized I need to prioritize other things at this time. I haven’t been able to monetize the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast; that means that I still pay money to produce each episode and my time is free. I’m wrapping up work on my fourth novel, Rescind Order. It’s due to my editor on February 1. As my next project, I’ll be writing a dark comedy stage play based on the themes in the novel. I’m planning a Kickstarter campaign to fund the initial stage of production, which I hope will be an audio play. My headline for this week is a doozie: “The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It,” published in the New York Times on January 18.If you’ve listened to this podcast and my Bionic Bug podcast, you know that one of my soapboxes is the data we’re putting on the Internet and the potential for certain actors to surveill us with this information. A startup company called Clearview AI has invented a tool that puts the final nail in the coffin of our anonymity.  “You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared.” Clearview AI has a database of billions of images scraped from Facebook, YouTube and other popular apps. What this means? Your face, wherever it is recorded, unlocks everything about who you are. This has occurred because we, including policymakers, have largely stood by and watched as our privacy erodes and we’ve willingly offered companies and third parties unlimited information about us. Guess who is using the tool? Law enforcement authorities. The company intends to pair the app with AR glasses, meaning that anyone wearing them can walk down the street and know things about you simply from your face—your name, your address, your social network, your employer. And while your privacy is being stripped away, this company operates in the dark, shrouded in secrecy. As a nation, we’re afraid of the potential of AI powering autonomous weapons systems, but before we get there, we’ll lose ourselves to the data issue. If you’re interested, I wrote an essay on the risks posed by AI as depicted in pop culture and warned about the data monster. We need to wake up from our slumber and do something about this before it’s too late. It may already be too late. On that cheery note, let’s go to a fun interview on nanotechnology where I talk to Dr. Margaret Kosal about science enabling invisibility cloaks and night vision in rats as well as the truth about gray goo.

Welcome to the episode number 30 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema For only three dollars per month, you can get access to my new podcast. It’s called Project Gecko after the second novel in the Lara Kingsley Series. In each episode, I’ll be giving a brief tech news intro and then reading two chapters from my book. Basically, this picks up where the Bionic Bug Podcast left off. If you haven’t listened to that one yet, you can access all the episodes on Patreon for free. Personal update: I apologize for being a week late with this episode. I started out the month with a nasty sinus infection lasting for about two weeks. I’m still coughing and my voice is a bit scratchy, but I wanted to get this amazing interview with Tracy Walder, a former CIA staff operations officer and FBI special agent, out as soon as possible. Before we get to the interview, let’s take a look at the news headlines. This week, I was particularly interested in the article titled “Silicon Valley Is Listening to Your Most Intimate Moments,” published on Bloomberg.com on December 11.By now, most of us are aware (and maybe even comfortable) with the notion of being tracked on the Internet. Soon after we google something, we are bombarded with relevant ads on our Facebook newsfeed. But what about all the audio data we know companies are collecting through the microphones on our devices like Alexa or our smartphones. Audio data is not immediately useful. It often has to be transcribed before the information can be plugged into most data analytics and become searchable. And transcription costs a lot of money. Unless of course, we’re training the next gen speech recognition AI. This article claims that Amazon and other companies are paying temps to transcribe our audio into useable text data to do just that. And it makes economic sense. The value of Alexa is its capacity to recognize and respond to human speech. But what about our privacy rights? If you read Deep the user agreement for Siri, for example, Apple states that “voice data might be recorded and analyzed to improve Siri, but nowhere did it mention that fellow humans might listen.” If you read the user agreement for Alexa, Amazon goes even further, claiming the right to retain your audio recordings indefinitely. The day after this article came out, I experienced a bit of a shock. Last week, I gave two lectures on artificial intelligence over Zoom to Tracy Walder’s class of high school students at Hockaday School in Dallas. My iPhone was sitting next to me, and Facebook was open on my phone. During one of my lectures, I made a joke about wanting to genetically modify my metabolism so that I could eat more donuts. I hardly ever eat donuts or talk about them. There’s no information on my Facebook about my love for donuts. Two hours after I gave the lecture, an ad for donuts appeared in my Facebook feed. I went to check my privacy settings for my microphone, and sure enough, I’d turned it on for Facebook messenger. Coincidence? Let’s get to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 30 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema For only three dollars per month, you can get access to my new podcast. It’s called Project Gecko after the second novel in the Lara Kingsley Series. In each episode, I’ll be giving a brief tech news intro and then reading two chapters from my book. Basically, this picks up where the Bionic Bug Podcast left off. If you haven’t listened to that one yet, you can access all the episodes on Patreon for free. Personal update: I apologize for being a week late with this episode. I started out the month with a nasty sinus infection lasting for about two weeks. I’m still coughing and my voice is a bit scratchy, but I wanted to get this amazing interview with Tracy Walder, a former CIA staff operations officer and FBI special agent, out as soon as possible. Before we get to the interview, let’s take a look at the news headlines. This week, I was particularly interested in the article titled “Silicon Valley Is Listening to Your Most Intimate Moments,” published on Bloomberg.com on December 11.By now, most of us are aware (and maybe even comfortable) with the notion of being tracked on the Internet. Soon after we google something, we are bombarded with relevant ads on our Facebook newsfeed. But what about all the audio data we know companies are collecting through the microphones on our devices like Alexa or our smartphones. Audio data is not immediately useful. It often has to be transcribed before the information can be plugged into most data analytics and become searchable. And transcription costs a lot of money. Unless of course, we’re training the next gen speech recognition AI. This article claims that Amazon and other companies are paying temps to transcribe our audio into useable text data to do just that. And it makes economic sense. The value of Alexa is its capacity to recognize and respond to human speech. But what about our privacy rights? If you read Deep the user agreement for Siri, for example, Apple states that “voice data might be recorded and analyzed to improve Siri, but nowhere did it mention that fellow humans might listen.” If you read the user agreement for Alexa, Amazon goes even further, claiming the right to retain your audio recordings indefinitely. The day after this article came out, I experienced a bit of a shock. Last week, I gave two lectures on artificial intelligence over Zoom to Tracy Walder’s class of high school students at Hockaday School in Dallas. My iPhone was sitting next to me, and Facebook was open on my phone. During one of my lectures, I made a joke about wanting to genetically modify my metabolism so that I could eat more donuts. I hardly ever eat donuts or talk about them. There’s no information on my Facebook about my love for donuts. Two hours after I gave the lecture, an ad for donuts appeared in my Facebook feed. I went to check my privacy settings for my microphone, and sure enough, I’d turned it on for Facebook messenger. Coincidence? Let’s get to the interview.

Welcome to the episode number 29 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema For only three dollars per month, you can get access to my new podcast. It’s called Project Gecko after the second novel in the Lara Kingsley Series. In each episode, I’ll be giving a brief tech news intro and then reading two chapters from my book. Basically, this picks up where the Bionic Bug Podcast left off. If you haven’t listened to that one yet, you can access all the episodes on Patreon for free. Personal update: I apologize for being a week late with this episode. It’s nanowrimo month, which means hundreds of thousands of writers around the world are attempting to write 50,000 words in a single month. At the beginning of November, I started my new novel called Rescind Order, which is about nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence. Normally, I can write a daily quota of about 1,700 words per day. But not this book. It’s been more challenging than I expected to translate incredibly complex topics such as nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence, and artificial intelligence into an accessible and entertaining story. My headlines for this week is “Consumer DNA Testing May Be the Biggest Health Scam of the Decade” by Ed Cara published on November 20.If you’ve listened to me for a while, you’ll know this is a soapbox issue of mine. It’s that time of year again and millions of people will buy consumer DNA kits to gain understanding of their ancestry and potential health issues. Please don’t give away your genome to these companies. Consumer DNA companies are misleading the public about what things they can determine from a DNA sample. “Our genetics are only a piece of the puzzle that influences our health.”Sometimes, you can identify a specific gene mutation that causes disease. Most of the time, it’s a “complex mix of gene variants that predispose us to develop cancer or heart disease—and that risk can be amplified or muted by our environment.” Regarding your ancestry, at most, you’re going to get a rough estimate of where your ancestors were from. If you send it in again, you may get a different answer. Law enforcement agencies use genealogy databases to solve criminal cases, by connecting anonymous crime scene DNA to DNA submitted to these family tree companies, working backward through distant relatives to identify their suspect. My third novel, Genomic Data, is launching on Amazon on November 27 as an ebook and paperback. Let’s go to my interview. Today, I’m talking with science writer Emilie Lorditch and we’re ripping stories from the science news headlines. If you’re looking for story ideas from science or enjoy story brainstorming, you don’t want to miss this. I’m including the articles we talk about in the show notes: Researchers can now use AI and a photo to make fake videos of anyone (link: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/24/tech/deepfake-ai-one-photo/index.html) cnn.com/2019/05/24/tec… DNA Technology can create unbelievable suspect sketches from crime scene samples (link: https://wjactv.com/news/nation-world/dna-technology-can-create-unbelievable-suspect-sketches-from-crime-scene-samples) wjactv.com/news/nation-wo… Engineers tap DNA to create ‘lifelike’ machines (link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190411145103.htm) sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/… Disney Imagineering has created autonomous robot stunt doubles (link: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/disney-imagineering-has-created-autonomous-robot-stunt-doubles/) techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/dis… What is a frost quake? (link: https://abcnews.go.com/US/frost-quake-explaining-weather-phenomenon/story?id=60723810) abcnews.go.com/US/frost-quake…   Earthquake aftershocks could go on for years from 7.1 that shook SoCal, Dr. Lucy Jones says (link: http://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/us-world-news/earthquake-aftershocks-could-go-on-for-years-from-71-that-shook-socal-dr-lucy-jones-says) fox10phoenix.com/news/us-world-… Research Reveals How Certain Sounds Make Some People Dizzy (link: http://science.kjzz.org/content/670356/research-reveals-how-certain-sounds-makes-some-people-dizzy) science.kjzz.org/content/670356… A Head Full of Fluid and Burning Eyes: NASA Astronaut Talks about His Year Living in Space (link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-head-full-of-fluid-and-burning-eyes-nasa-astronaut-talks-about-his-year-living-in-space/) scientificamerican.com/article/a-head… ‘Strange Blue Lights’ Seen Over Arctic Circle Were Not Aliens, Says NASA (link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2019/04/08/strange-blue-lights-seen-over-arctic-circle-were-not-aliens-says-nasa/#7de229fe24d1) forbes.com/sites/jamiecar… Six People swallowed LEGOs and pored through their own poo for science (link: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/it-takes-about-two-days-for-legos-to-pass-through-the-body-science/) arstechnica.com/science/2018/1…

Welcome to the episode number 29 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place.  Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.com If you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only two dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajema For only three dollars per month, you can get access to my new podcast. It’s called Project Gecko after the second novel in the Lara Kingsley Series. In each episode, I’ll be giving a brief tech news intro and then reading two chapters from my book. Basically, this picks up where the Bionic Bug Podcast left off. If you haven’t listened to that one yet, you can access all the episodes on Patreon for free. Personal update: I apologize for being a week late with this episode. It’s nanowrimo month, which means hundreds of thousands of writers around the world are attempting to write 50,000 words in a single month. At the beginning of November, I started my new novel called Rescind Order, which is about nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence. Normally, I can write a daily quota of about 1,700 words per day. But not this book. It’s been more challenging than I expected to translate incredibly complex topics such as nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence, and artificial intelligence into an accessible and entertaining story. My headlines for this week is “Consumer DNA Testing May Be the Biggest Health Scam of the Decade” by Ed Cara published on November 20.If you’ve listened to me for a while, you’ll know this is a soapbox issue of mine. It’s that time of year again and millions of people will buy consumer DNA kits to gain understanding of their ancestry and potential health issues. Please don’t give away your genome to these companies. Consumer DNA companies are misleading the public about what things they can determine from a DNA sample. “Our genetics are only a piece of the puzzle that influences our health.”Sometimes, you can identify a specific gene mutation that causes disease. Most of the time, it’s a “complex mix of gene variants that predispose us to develop cancer or heart disease—and that risk can be amplified or muted by our environment.” Regarding your ancestry, at most, you’re going to get a rough estimate of where your ancestors were from. If you send it in again, you may get a different answer. Law enforcement agencies use genealogy databases to solve criminal cases, by connecting anonymous crime scene DNA to DNA submitted to these family tree companies, working backward through distant relatives to identify their suspect. My third novel, Genomic Data, is launching on Amazon on November 27 as an ebook and paperback. Let’s go to my interview. Today, I’m talking with science writer Emilie Lorditch and we’re ripping stories from the science news headlines. If you’re looking for story ideas from science or enjoy story brainstorming, you don’t want to miss this. I’m including the articles we talk about in the show notes: Researchers can now use AI and a photo to make fake videos of anyone (link: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/24/tech/deepfake-ai-one-photo/index.html) cnn.com/2019/05/24/tec… DNA Technology can create unbelievable suspect sketches from crime scene samples (link: https://wjactv.com/news/nation-world/dna-technology-can-create-unbelievable-suspect-sketches-from-crime-scene-samples) wjactv.com/news/nation-wo… Engineers tap DNA to create ‘lifelike’ machines (link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190411145103.htm) sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/… Disney Imagineering has created autonomous robot stunt doubles (link: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/disney-imagineering-has-created-autonomous-robot-stunt-doubles/) techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/dis… What is a frost quake? (link: https://abcnews.go.com/US/frost-quake-explaining-weather-phenomenon/story?id=60723810) abcnews.go.com/US/frost-quake…   Earthquake aftershocks could go on for years from 7.1 that shook SoCal, Dr. Lucy Jones says (link: http://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/us-world-news/earthquake-aftershocks-could-go-on-for-years-from-71-that-shook-socal-dr-lucy-jones-says) fox10phoenix.com/news/us-world-… Research Reveals How Certain Sounds Make Some People Dizzy (link: http://science.kjzz.org/content/670356/research-reveals-how-certain-sounds-makes-some-people-dizzy) science.kjzz.org/content/670356… A Head Full of Fluid and Burning Eyes: NASA Astronaut Talks about His Year Living in Space (link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-head-full-of-fluid-and-burning-eyes-nasa-astronaut-talks-about-his-year-living-in-space/) scientificamerican.com/article/a-head… ‘Strange Blue Lights’ Seen Over Arctic Circle Were Not Aliens, Says NASA (link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2019/04/08/strange-blue-lights-seen-over-arctic-circle-were-not-aliens-says-nasa/#7de229fe24d1) forbes.com/sites/jamiecar… Six People swallowed LEGOs and pored through their own poo for science (link: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/it-takes-about-two-days-for-legos-to-pass-through-the-body-science/) arstechnica.com/science/2018/1…