128 Transcontinental Railroad

For decades, office workers were told they had to be in the office. They couldn’t work remotely. Then, suddenly, the COVID pandemic required working from home. Now companies are contemplating when and if they will call employees back into office. In this episode we delve into the thinking behind where and when we work as well as how our productivity is measured.

Medical technology has taken a big leap forward with ingestibles. Ingestible medical devices stand to change the face of medicine and we're just on the tip of the iceberg!

Abraham Lincoln is often regarded as the greatest American president. He violated one of the oldest leadership practices by bringing his political opponents into his cabinet. Why would a leader do that? Wouldn’t that set him up for internal sabotage? In this episode we explore the man and his thinking.

We're going down under, underground that is. Coober Pedy is a mining town that discovered the value of staying out of the elements by digging into the earth. Not just houses, but museums, churches and many other businesses.

Compulsory education laws require children to attend a public or state-accredited private school for a certain period of time. We'll be talking about the history and significance of this disruptive idea for the betterment of society

We're headed to the North Pole. Well, actually, the USS Nautilus made the trip, but they didn't go to the North Pole, they went UNDER the North Pole.

With the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA and identifying and mapping of every gene in the human body, the Human Genome Project was finished under time and under budget. The value and possibilities are priceless!

It started as a publicity stunt for a radio station. It ended with a 3-ton block of ice traveling from the Arctic Circle to the Equator, and was followed by worldwide press corp, crowds of spectators and was called "the world's greatest publicity stunt".

The Coastal Highway Route E39-project is the largest infrastructure project in modern Norwegian history, and quite possibly the largest on-going road project worldwide. The almost 700-mile trip currently runs 21hours with an average speed of 30 MPH. The floating tunnel will change that to around 10 hours.

Before the transcontinental railroad was completed, travel overland by stagecoach cost $1,000, took five or six months, and involved crossing rugged mountains and arid desert. The transcontinental railroad would make it possible to complete the trip in five days at a cost of $150 for a first-class sleeper.