Works in Progress

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Canale • 2 podcast

Tecnologia

Tecnologia

17 giu
Scienze

Scienze

27 mag

3 giu

The lost art of building cities

In the nineteenth century, cities often grew a thousandfold while increasing wages, the size of homes, and delivering great public goods like electricity and plumbing to their people. What made them so extraordinary? They had a hybrid of laissez-faire and top-down control. Landowners could build almost anything they liked but street networks were laid out with near-Soviet thoroughness decades in advance. Transport and utilities, meanwhile, ran as regulated monopolies. They were funded by users, turned a profit, but prices were controlled. Samuel, Ben and Aria discuss what made this system work and why it was dismantled.

3 giu

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1h 25m
20 mag

Where did all the good sculptors go?

The Trump administration wants to bolster traditional art. Their attempt to revive sculpture, a mass statue-building program, is doomed. America doesn’t have the sculptors, foundries, and workers to make hundreds of bronze or marble sculptures. North Korea would be in a much better position. Sam and Samuel sit down with our Art Director, Atalanta, a sculptor by training, and talk all things sculpture. They discuss how art education has become de-skilled, how sculpture has always been the best art form for mass production and the surprising places the tradition has been kept alive.

20 mag

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1h 19m
22 apr

How to speed up clinical trials

Drug development has never been more expensive, in terms of output per dollar spent. This trend, called Eroom's law, is surprising, considering incredible technological advances. Ben and Saloni talk to Ruxandra Teslo about why this has happened and what can be done about it. How can we reform clinical trials to make them more efficient and abundant? Why are so many pharma companies moving early trials to Australia? What's wrong with ethics boards and how can we fix them without compromising on safety?

22 apr

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56 min
25 mar

Did status signaling ruin architecture?

There are basically no ugly buildings from before 1930. There are definitely none from before 1830. Why? Is it survivorship bias? Have we demolished all the ugly old buildings and only kept the most beautiful and prestigious buildings? Is it just a matter of taste? Perhaps we haven't come round to liking modern buildings yet but we will. Is it because ornament is too expensive to reproduce now labor costs are too high? Is it because ornament is too cheap because of mass manufacturing and elites want to signal distinction from poor people who can now afford to cover their buildings with ornament too? Samuel, Ben and Aria discuss the merits of these different theories and what actually makes some architecture beautiful. If you enjoyed this episode, you'll enjoy Samuels many essays on beauty in architecture.Cheap ornament and status games: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/cheap-ornament-and-status-games/The beauty of concrete: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-beauty-of-concrete/Making architecture easy: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/making-architecture-easy/Against the survival of the prettiest: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/against-the-survival-of-the-prettiest/

25 mar

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1h 28m
17 giu

Issue 24: Rats, The Glorious Revolution and the secret to ultra-Orthodox fertility

Alberta is the only part of the world that has people but not rats. Rats came to the new world on ships to New York, Boston and Philadelphia during the Industrial Revolution. From there they spread west at a rate of 24 kilometers a year and by 1950 they were on Alberta's border. But Albertans stopped them coming any further. In the US there is a culture that lives in dense cities, the women usually work, and yet they still have an average of six children each. The ultra-Orthodox have a number of pro-fertility norms, most of which wouldn't work for the secular world but some we could learn from. Sam, Pieter, and Aria discuss a handful of pieces in Issue 24 of Works in Progress. They talk land reclamation, vaccinating wild animals, the Squamish Nation's housing development in Vancouver and how The Glorious Revolution caused the Industrial Revolution. Buy your copy here: https://worksinprogress.co/print/

17 giu

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1h 1min
17 apr

How to spot a monopoly: Measuring competition

Competition makes capitalism work. A new method for measuring it may be the holy grail of economic regulation. You can see the images, graphs and read the article at https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-spot-a-monopoly/ And you can find the rest of Works in Progress at worksinprogress.co Words by Brian Albrecht Read by Stuart Ritchie Music by David Hackett

17 apr

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25 min
6 mag

What is local government good for?

Local government works best when areas can compete with each other and capture some of the upside of economic growth. Ben sits down with Judge Glock to discuss how well-structured local incentives helped make Loudoun County, Virginia, the global capital of data centers — and helped France build so many nuclear power stations. They discuss which public goods local government is best placed to provide, why America has better housing outcomes than its reputation suggests, and when national government needs to constrain local power. Read Judge Glock's piece on why water in America is too clean here: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-gold-plating-of-american-water/

6 mag

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1h 3m
24 apr

The triumph of logical English

English prose has become much easier to read. But shorter sentences had little to do with it. You can see the images, graphs and read the article at https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-logical-triumph-of-english/ And you can find the rest of Works in Progress at worksinprogress.co Words by Henry Oliver Read by Stuart Ritchie Music by David Hackett

24 apr

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41 min
11/06/2025

Lenacapavir: The miracle drug that could end AIDS

Lenacapavir is a new HIV drug that blocks infections with an efficacy rate of nearly 100%, and it could completely change the fight against HIV worldwide. Saloni and Jacob talk about the development and prospects for this new drug, as well as the history of HIV, the initial discovery of retroviruses, and how HIV was transformed from a death sentence to a manageable condition. Hard Drugs is a new podcast from Works in Progress and Open Philanthropy about medical innovation presented by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 03:52 How was HIV discovered? Where did it come from, and how does it attack the body and cause AIDS?38:10 Antiretrovirals: How did scientists develop breakthrough HIV drugs — from azidothymidine to protease inhibitors to PrEP?1:51:35 How does prevention and treatment work today?2:19:03 HIV’s capsid and the breakthrough of lenacapavir, the first-approved HIV capsid inhibitor2:50:36 How to develop long-lasting treatments3:14:45 Lenacapavir’s near 100% efficacy in clinical trials3:48:40 The impact of global programs against HIV, and can we now end HIV? Saloni’s substack newsletter: https://www.scientificdiscovery.dev/ Jacob’s blog: https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/ Books: How to Survive a Plague — by David France (2016). [Mentioned as a history of the science and activism against the AIDS epidemic, and the protease-inhibitor breakthrough.] https://surviveaplague.com/ And the Band Played On — Randy Shilts (1987). [Mentioned as an account of the early years of AIDS.] https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312374631/andthebandplayedon/ Drug development stories: From bench to bedside — Elsevier (2024). [Mentioned as containing a history of the development of lenacapavir] https://shop.elsevier.com/books/drug-discovery-stories/yu/978-0-443-23932-8 Retrospectives: The development of antiretroviral therapy and its impact on the HIV-1/AIDS pandemic — Samuel Broder (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2009.10.002 History of the discoveries of the first human retroviruses: HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 — Robert Gallo (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1208980 A Look at Long Acting Drugs — Anne de Bruyn Kops for Open Philanthropy (2025). https://bit.ly/long-acting-drugs-op How To Save Twenty Million Lives, with Dr Mark Dybul — Statecraft (2023) https://www.statecraft.pub/p/saving-twenty-million-lives The Road to Fortovase. A History of Saquinavir, the First Human Immunodeficiency Virus Protease Inhibitor — Redshaw et al. (2000) https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-57092-6_1 Articles: The origin of genetic diversity in HIV-1 — Smyth et al. (2012). [Mentioned as a review about HIV’s recombination, which described it as “a primitive form of sexual reproduction”] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168170212002122 PF74 Reinforces the HIV-1 Capsid To Impair Reverse Transcription-Induced Uncoating — Rankovic et al. (2018) https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.00845-18 Twice-Yearly Lenacapavir for HIV Prevention in Men and Gender-Diverse Persons — Kelley et al. (2024) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2411858 Twice-Yearly Lenacapavir or Daily F/TAF for HIV Prevention in Cisgender Women — Bekker et al. (2024) https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2407001 The evolution of HIV-1 and the origin of AIDS — Sharp and Hahn (2010) https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0031 Pathogenic mechanisms of HIV disease — Moir et al. (2011) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-pathol-011110-130254 Estimating per-act HIV transmission risk: a systematic review — Patel et al. (2012) https://journals.lww.com/aidsonline/fulltext/2014/06190/Estimating_per_act_HIV_transmission_risk__a.14.aspx The structural biology of HIV-1: mechanistic and therapeutic insights — Engelman and Cherepanov (2012) https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro2747 Challenges and opportunities in the development of complex generic long-acting injectable drug products — O’Brien et al. (2021) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2021.06.017 Making a “Miracle” HIV Medicine — Nahas (2025) https://press.asimov.com/articles/hiv-medicine Highly active antiretroviral therapy transformed the lives of people with HIV — Dattani (2024) https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/highly-active-antiretroviral-therapy-transformed-the-lives-of-people-with-hiv Videos: Mini-Lecture Series: HIV Capsid Inhibitors: Mechanism of Action — David Spach, National HIV Curriculum (2024) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ9KDxV5Zbs&ab_channel=NationalHIVCurriculum Image credits: Mini-Lecture Series: HIV Capsid Inhibitors: Mechanism of Action — David Spach, National HIV Curriculum (2024) [Multiple diagrams of HIV capsid and lenacapavir’s effect.]Saloni Dattani; Our World in Data (2024) Highly active antiretroviral therapy transformed the lives of people with HIV. [Graph of decline in HIV/AIDS mortality after HAART was introduced.]Engelman and Cherepanov (2012). The structural biology of HIV-1: mechanistic and therapeutic insights. [Diagram of HIV’s entry into the cell.]Susan Moir, Tae-Wook Chun, Anthony S Fauci (2011). Pathogenic mechanisms of HIV disease. [Diagram of HIV replication rates over time, contrasting acute and chronic infection.]Saloni Dattani, adapted from Patel et al. (2014). Estimating per-act HIV transmission risk: a systematic review. [Bar chart of risks of contracting HIV from different sources when unprotected.]Thomas Splettstoesser under CC-BY. [Diagram of HIV’s internal structure.]Twice-Yearly Lenacapavir or Daily F/TAF for HIV Prevention in Cisgender Women — Bekker et al. (2024) [Chart of lenacapavir’s efficacy.]Our World in Data based on Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2024). [Chart of global HIV deaths over time.] Acknowledgements: Douglas Chukwu, researcher at Open PhilanthropySanela Rankovic, Acting Instructor at the Institute for...

11/06/2025

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4 h 54 min
1 mag

Washer woman: The invention of dishwashers

In 1965, married American women did 34 hours of housework weekly. By 2010, that had fallen to 18 hours. The dishwasher wasn’t the only cause, but it certainly helped. You can see the images, graphs and read the article at https://worksinprogress.co/issue/inventing-the-dishwasher/ And you can find the rest of Works in Progress at worksinprogress.co Words by Erin BraidRead by Stuart Ritchie Music by David Hackett

1 mag

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9 min

Works in Progress is an online magazine devoted to new and underrated ideas about economic growth, scientific progress, and technology. Subscribe to listen to Hard Drugs by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen and the Works in Progress podcast by the whole team.

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Works in Progress

Top podcast

The lost art of building cities

Where did all the good sculptors go?

How to speed up clinical trials

Did status signaling ruin architecture?

Issue 24: Rats, The Glorious Revolution and the secret to ultra-Orthodox fertility

How to spot a monopoly: Measuring competition

What is local government good for?

The triumph of logical English

Lenacapavir: The miracle drug that could end AIDS

Washer woman: The invention of dishwashers

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Works in Progress

Top podcast

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