After the Fact

This summer, we're revisiting the ways that scientists are using artificial intelligence in their health research. Keyla Sá, a researcher at Yale University School of Medicine, discusses her work tracking how long COVID develops and an AI tool that can identify its wide variety of symptoms and patterns. Since this episode originally aired in 2024, researchers are still learning about the ways long COVID continues to affect millions of people.

America has a milestone birthday coming up: This July, the nation will turn 250. As many pause to reflect on the past 250 years, there's also an opportunity to think about our shared future. While political polarization remains one of the greatest challenges to our democracy, with 65% of Americans saying that they feel exhausted when thinking about politics because of deep partisan divisions, we have more in common than current politics suggest. According to a 2025 Gallup poll, 8 in 10 Americans support compromise between political leaders, and two-thirds agree that democracy—despite its flaws—remains the best form of government. 
In this episode of "After the Fact," we speak to Pew's CEO, Susan K. Urahn, and curiosity expert Scott Shigeoka, fresh from the TED Democracy Philadelphia: Founding Futures event, about how the American "experiment" is going, the state of democracy today, and how we can collectively strengthen the foundation of our nation for the next 250 years.

The U.S. housing shortage has rapidly increased rents in lower-income neighborhoods—making secure housing hard to find. But how does building high-end apartments address availability across income brackets?
This episode of "After the Fact" explores new housing's ripple effects and its impact on affordability. The podcast team traces a chain of vacancies, starting with a new luxury apartment unit in Washington, D.C. Its opening spurred the availability of middle-income units and ultimately led to an available unit for a single mother who was able to move out of a shelter and build a new life with her son.

With the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States, the youngest generation of lawmakers is demonstrating how they're working together more effectively and rebuilding trust in U.S. democracy. 
Layla Zaidane, who leads Future Caucus, shares how the organization supports millennial and Gen Z elected leaders in Congress and state legislatures who are collaborating on bipartisan policy solutions.
Amid declining trust in U.S. democracy, she tells us why its model is working and why it's a reason for hope—with data indicating that these young lawmakers are 24% more effective than their peers.

Meet the "barbie pig," "gummy squirrel," and "headless chicken monster": These fantastical-sounding nicknames belong to real creatures living in the deep sea—one of the most extreme environments on Earth. And taxonomists, the scientists who discover and name new species, are finding new life in the ocean with every expedition to its depths. In fact, the deep sea makes up 90% of the marine environment, yet recent science suggests we've seen less than 1% of it.
But in the same place where a creature such as the barbie pig can survive, there's growing interest in deep-sea mining. Mineral-rich nodules that grow on the seafloor could one day help manufacture products such as cell phones and electric vehicle batteries. But scientists warn that mining could damage critical ecosystems before we fully understand them.
In this episode of "After the Fact," Pew expert Julian Jackson explains what seabed mining is and what its consequences could be. We also hear from filmmakers Eleanor Mortimer and Jacob Thomas, whose documentary "How Deep Is Your Love" follows taxonomists as they discover and name new species living at the bottom of the ocean.
Disclaimer: Last year, a private mining company sought U.S. approval to commercially recover deep-sea minerals in areas of the deep ocean cited in this episode. The mining application was submitted to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), outside the framework of the International Seabed Authority—the entity responsible for overseeing future deep-sea mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The application continues to advance under NOAA's application and review process. Also, the documentary, "How Deep Is Your Love," is fully independent and did not receive funding or support from Pew.