New from NPR's Embedded : Reporter Zach Mack thinks his dad has gone all in on conspiracy theories, while his father thinks that Zach is the one being brainwashed. In 2024, after the latest round of circular arguments, they decided to try something new, an attempt to pull each other out of the spell each of them thinks the other is under. Can one family live in two realities? This is episode 1 of a three-part series. To hear the rest, head to NPR's Embedded podcast. Learn more about sponsor mess...
Feb 24, 2025•26 min
We go back almost 100 years, to the beginning of women's inclusion in elite sports. It turns out that men had an odd variety of concerns about women athletes. Some doubted these athletes were even women at all. And their skepticism resulted in the first policies requiring sex testing. Tested is a six-part series, you can binge all the episodes now in the Embedded podcast and the CBC feed . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 22, 2024•34 min
New from NPR's Embedded podcast and CBC in Canada: Would you alter your body for the chance to compete for a gold medal? That's the question facing a small group of elite athletes right now. Last year, track and field authorities announced new regulations that mean some women can't compete in the female category unless they lower their body's naturally occurring testosterone levels. You'll meet one of those runners, Christine Mboma, a reigning Olympic silver medalist, and hear about the difficul...
Aug 22, 2024•39 min
In their final episode, Invisibilia searches for the right way to say goodbye. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Apr 27, 2023•50 min•Season 10Ep. 1
Sometimes the holidays are filled with the people you love. Other times, they're marked by an absence. In this special holiday episode, new Code Switch co-host and former Invisibilia producer B.A. Parker tells a story about family, loss and preserving memories before it's too late. Then Parker joins Kia and Yowei to reflect on the making of this story, and what it means to her now. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Dec 16, 2022•33 min
Bad bosses. Obnoxious coworkers. Unfair compensation. There are so many reasons people feel disempowered in the workplace. But how can our feelings about power enable or disrupt the larger dynamics we hate at work? This week, Yowei Shaw seeks answers from a power researcher and a union organizer. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Oct 07, 2022•35 min•Season 9Ep. 5
After months of working from home and retreating from the world, Kia Miakka Natisse is stuck - in her house, and in her head. In an attempt to break out of the funk, she's searching for wisdom at the bottom of the ocean with South Africa's first Black freediving instructor, Zandile Ndhlovu. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Sep 30, 2022•33 min•Season 9Ep. 4
In San Jose, California, a community clinic was stumped as to why their clients were seeing ghosts. This week, a story about grappling with ghosts of our past and one clinic's attempt to heal intergenerational trauma. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Sep 23, 2022•48 min•Season 9Ep. 3
This week on Invisibilia, could the rebrand of a familiar pill open up a new way to control fertility in a post-Roe America? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Sep 16, 2022•28 min•Season 9Ep. 2
Alex is a comic who feels perfectly comfortable commanding a packed, rowdy audience, but consistently submits to what other people want in everyday life. This week, a look at how uncomfortable feelings about power can backfire on ourselves and the people we love. We get the help of a power expert - a dominatrix - to untangle Alex's power dynamics, and find out what it takes to treat a power allergy . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Sep 09, 2022•42 min•Season 9Ep. 1
2022 feels like walking a tightrope. We're grappling with control of our bodies, our time, the direction of our country - while trying to not spin out and just doomscroll. So this season, Invisibilia takes on control. The narratives we have about what's in or out of our control. Invisible tools of control. The crutches we use to FEEL in control but that might not be helping. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Sep 06, 2022•2 min
Would you ever consider going to therapy with a friend?Two best friends who call themselves brothers were drifting apart, so they asked psychotherapist Esther Perel to help — and we listened in. This episode was recorded in collaboration with Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel and a companion episode can be heard on her podcast. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Nov 04, 2021•39 min•Season 8Ep. 6
Sh*t happens. So why is it so hard to talk about? This week, the ways that poop divides and binds us in our friendships. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Oct 28, 2021•45 min•Season 8Ep. 5
A lot of us think that it's a bad idea to get physical with friends. We worry it'll get messy, maybe even ruin the friendship. But if physical intimacy between friends weren't so taboo, what could our friendships look like? In this episode, we explore the gray zone of sex and friendship, following a man who deliberately kept his friendships with women hazy and now wants to apologize, and a pair of BFFs who became close through sex. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adc...
Oct 21, 2021•50 min•Season 8Ep. 4
You know the old saying--keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But what if you can't tell the difference? In this episode, the story of two friends who got caught up in a Top Secret operation that tested their assumptions about trust, betrayal, loyalty, and power. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Sep 30, 2021•36 min•Season 8Ep. 3
It's a basic tenet of friendship that you get to choose your friends. We look at two institutions that took away that choice: convents circa the 1960s and a summer program with unusual rules. What do we lose and what do we gain when we give up our preferences and try to make friends with everyone equally? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Sep 23, 2021•45 min•Season 8Ep. 2
It's one of the most common and infuriating friend mysteries out there - a friend disappears into thin air. But where do these ghosts go? And why are we so haunted by them? If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Sep 16, 2021•49 min•Season 8Ep. 1
Friendship gets the Invisibilia treatment. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Sep 14, 2021•2 min
Let's get slow. Producer Abby Wendle picks up the gauntlet that was thrown down in the last episode " The Great Narrative Escape ." Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Jun 12, 2021•41 min•Season 7Ep. 6
Imagine a TV show with no plot, no characters, no tension... and yet, it went viral! In this episode, we have a story that questions storytelling as we know it. Plus, co-hosts Kia Miakka Natisse and Yowei Shaw take a spectacularly unspectacular train ride. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
May 20, 2021•56 min•Season 7Ep. 5
Is 209 Times helping or hurting the community it claims to serve? What does the site mean for the future of local news in America? And what can be done about it? In the final installment of "The Chaos Machine" series , Yowei finds herself in the middle of a long-standing tug of war over who owns the truth. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
May 13, 2021•47 min•Season 7Ep. 4
The man behind 209 Times is not who you'd expect. In Part 2, co-host Yowei Shaw discovers the website's surprising origin story, and ends up at the frontlines of a revolt against the mainstream media and a fight over who gets to own the truth. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
May 06, 2021•49 min•Season 7Ep. 3
Yowei gets a tip about Russian trolls in Stockton, California and falls down a hole of swirling conspiracy theories. At the center is a scrappy, controversial website that has become one of the most popular sources of local news in town. Some say it's doing important investigative journalism while others say it's spreading hateful lies about progressive leaders. In part 1 of The Chaos Machine series, what happens when traditional local news runs out of resources and reporting the narrative of a ...
Apr 29, 2021•38 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Invisibilia explores a social experiment with money, focused around a contentious topic: reparations. What happens when you demand white people give up their wealth? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Apr 22, 2021•51 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Invisibilia is back! Stories that help you see the world differently, with new hosts Kia Miakka Natisse and Yowei Shaw. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Apr 19, 2021•4 min
Hacking, phishing, surveillance, disinformation... these are tools used to silence dissidents and influence elections. But what happens when these same methods are used against an ordinary citizen? The story of a man fighting an enemy he can't see and becoming increasingly paranoid.Which makes him a lot like the rest of us. What happens when you no longer know how to trust? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Jun 13, 2020•48 min•Season 6Ep. 7
The strange story of an unlikely crew of people who band together to take on one of our largest problems using nothing but whale sounds, machine learning, and a willingness to think outside the box. Even stranger, several of the world's most accomplished scientists seem to think they might have a good idea. | To learn more about this episode, subscribe to our newsletter . Click here to learn more about NPR sponsors . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Priv...
Apr 10, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 6Ep. 1
A city council candidate says he's black. But his opponent accuses him of being a white man pretending to be black. If race is simply a social construct and not a biological reality, how do we determine someone's race? And who gets to decide? We tell the story of a man whose racial identity was fiercely contested... and the consequences this had on an entire city. | To learn more about this episode, subscribe to our newsletter . Click here to learn more about NPR sponsors . Learn more about spon...
Apr 03, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Season 6Ep. 4
What if you had a superpower that allowed you to see part of the world that was to come? At the age of 60, a Scottish woman named Joy Milne discovers she has a biological gift that allows her to see things that will happen in the future that no one else can see. A look at how we think about the future, and the important ways the future shapes the present. | To learn more about this episode, subscribe to our newsletter . Click here to learn more about NPR sponsors . Learn more about sponsor messa...
Mar 27, 2020•51 min•Season 6Ep. 3
Welcome to what is possibly the most tense and uncomfortable summer program in America! The Boston-based program aims to teach the next generation the real truth about race, and may provide some ideas for the rest of us about the right way to confront someone to their face. | To learn more about this episode, subscribe to our newsletter . Click here to learn more about NPR sponsors . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Mar 22, 2020•52 min•Season 6Ep. 2
