A 9-year-old's distress call finally arrived / The man trying to live forever has an incurable disease / Killer robots and who gets to stop them episode artwork

EPISODE · Jul 7, 2026 · 11 MIN

A 9-year-old's distress call finally arrived / The man trying to live forever has an incurable disease / Killer robots and who gets to stop them

from News Sidequest

In 1973, 9-year-old Laurie Blair Brown threw a note in a bottle into the ocean at the Jersey Shore — a fake distress call from her family's vacation. It washed up 53 years later. Also: Bryan Johnson, who spends roughly $2 million a year on a 30-person medical team trying to live forever, just disclosed he has autoimmune gastritis — an incurable disease that was quietly destroying his stomach lining for over a decade while every biomarker looked fine. And the UN Secretary-General has declared that autonomous killer robots are "politically unacceptable and morally repugnant" and must be banned by international law — but the 2026 deadline he set is here, talks are stalled, and the US, Russia, and Israel have been quietly blocking a treaty for years. Plus a whale sinking a fire rescue ship, Frank's Hot Sauce across a highway, the Delaware falling camel, and a $3 Goodwill jacket worth $250,000. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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A 9-year-old's distress call finally arrived / The man trying to live forever has an incurable disease / Killer robots and who gets to stop them

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