Can We Cool Data Centers With… Pee?

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1. 

   14 Oct 2026 · 26 minNew

   Are Chatbots Harming Our Relationships? | Close All Tabs Presents

   Humans are complicated, and relationships can be messy, so it may be no surprise that people are falling in love with chatbots. They are available 24/7, hang on your every word and never ask anything of you. Amelia Miller, a human-AI relationship coach, sees danger in our reliance on bots for intimacy and companionship. Guest: Amelia Miller, human-AI relationship coach; fellow, Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center Further Reading/Listening: Are Chatbots Harming Our Relationships? — Lesley McClurg, KQED Read the Transcript here Email us at [email protected] Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠…

2. 

   7 Oct 2026 · 41 min

   Influencers Are Peddling Peptides, but Is Tanmaxxing Worth the Risk?

   Seems like everywhere you turn these days, influencers are gushing about their peptide use and how it’s done wonders for their appearance and health. One of the more popular ones, Melanotan II, also known as the “Barbie” peptide, is said to give you a tan without the harmful effects of sun exposure. But many of these substances aren’t approved by the FDA and are often sold through unregulated gray market sources. So, how safe is any of this stuff? And what does the peptide boom tell us about the risks people will take in the name of “looksmaxxing?” Morgan talks to skin cancer surgeon Dr.…

3. 

   23 Sep 2026 · 52 min

   AI, Artists, and the Future of Creative Work from Life, Automated | Close All Tabs Presents

   While the Close All Tabs team churns out our next few episodes, we bring you this must-listen from Life, Automated. Generative AI is able to conjure new images, stories, and songs at lightning speed. So what does this mean for humans artists, storytellers and musicians? Life, Automated Host Jess Love explores what happens when AI enters creative markets. We learn that, at least today, key bottlenecks prevent AI from replicating some aspects of creativity. But there’s no guarantee those bottlenecks will exist tomorrow, raising vital questions about what we value in human labor. Life,…

4. 

   16 Sep 2026 · 42 min

   Save or Scroll: Fake NFL Players, Girly Coding, AI Music Scams and Community Garden Drama

   Host Morgan Sung and the Close All Tabs team pull up the stories they can’t stop thinking about. From a fake NFL player catfishing women on dating apps, to femme creators reclaiming tech, indie musicians fighting AI music slop, and a comedian dishing out the juiciest community garden gossip — they’ve got a lot to chew on. Save or Scroll is our series where Morgan teams up with guests for a rapid-fire roundup of internet trends that are filling their feeds right now. At the end of each segment, they’ll decide: is the post just for the group chat, or should we save it for a future episode?…

5. 

   9 Sep 2026 · 43 min

   Close All Tabs Presents Snap Judgment: Runaway Car

   Close All Tabs is on break this week, but we’re sharing a captivating episode about technology gone wrong from our friends at KQED’s Snap Judgment. A 19 year old picks up his family’s car from the auto mechanic shop, but a few minutes into the drive home the vehicle begins suddenly accelerating and won’t respond to any of his attempts to get it to stop. As his speed continues to build, state troopers have to catch up and think quickly to come up with a way to prevent a tragedy from happening on the road. The Snap Judgment podcast mixes real stories with original music to create cinematic,…

6. 

   2 Sep 2026 · 34 min

   What Happened to the Quantified Self Movement?

   Before Apple Watches, Oura Rings and Fitbits delivered mountains of health data to the masses, a group of obsessive self-tracking enthusiasts in Silicon Valley started a movement with the tagline “self-knowledge through numbers.” This was the Quantified Self. From tracking “urges to take aspirin” to using infrared cameras to keep tabs on sleeping positions while snoring, these eccentric knowledge-seekers built a community around technical expertise and an ethos of self-discovery. Reporter Gabriela Glueck traces what happened when self-tracking went mainstream — and how the data-obsessed…

7. 

   31 Aug 2026 · 31 min

   Going Down the AI Music Slop Chute with Camilo Landau | Dream Machines

   Can people tell the difference between a song made by human musicians, and one prompted by AI? Oftentimes not, it turns out. But that doesn’t make the distinction any less important. Dream Machines hosts Alexis Madrigal and Robin Sloan talk to longtime musician Camilo Landau, who also works in music analysis at The Music Genome Project at streaming service Pandora. Camilo and his colleagues have sifted through millions of tracks uploaded by musicians and users to catalogue their musical elements, all with the aim of curating personalized music recommendations. And he says most of the new…