Endless Thread

SNACK ATTACK! I mean... SHARK ATTACK! I mean, BOTH. Another snack-sized episode for you, complete with shark attacks, the story of a chilling shipwreck, and whatever the heck is happening in Area 51. Boston-area listeners, join the Endless Thread team on July 25 at WBUR's CitySpace for a behind-the-scenes look at our five-part series, "Infectious: The Strange Past and Surprising Present of Vaccines – And Anti-Vaxxers." Event info: https://wbur.fm/2XXJIts

The thrilling conclusion to an internet mystery surrounding a massive pile of dishware in the middle of the woods.

A Redditor stumbles upon a huge pile of plates in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. Reddit sleuths across the globe try to figure out where the plates are located and how they got there. Endless Thread embarks on an epic journey to Pennsylvania to get to the bottom of this mystery, once and for all. See the plates here: http://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/06/28/we-want-plates

In honor of Pride month, the Endless Thread team shares a pair of stories from another WBUR podcast -- Kind World. Co-hosts Yasmin Amer and Andrea Asuaje tell stories about the profound impact an act of kindness can have on us. Enjoy, and happy Pride to all!

Snacktime returns with the story of a Redditor who got into quite the sticky situation. All he needed to get unstuck was a captive Reddit audience…and a jar of pickles.

When someone close to you dies, it can be a struggle to feel normal again – and to have people TREAT you normally again. When T.J.’s long-time partner died suddenly in 2017, she found a sense of normalcy and healing from strangers in the r/Widowers community on Reddit. Full transcript and more information about this episode at: http://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/06/14/shipwrecked

At the end of the day, our species only survives if we can communicate. In our fifth and final episode of "Infectious," we hear from those whose lives have been irrevocably altered by vaccines and learn about a radically simple solution to the current controversy – one which has already started to pay dividends.

Even considering the winding road of scientific advancement and the new expressway that is the internet, what the heck happened in Clark County? With reporting from the ground in Washington and Oregon, we take the fourth episode of our vaccine series to trace the societal pathogens, identify the symptoms, and try to prescribe a solution to what some are calling a “canary in the coal mine” for a near future of eroding herd immunity and increasing threats of outbreak for all kinds of diseases in the U.S.

You can’t tell the story of today’s anti-vaccine — or “vaccine hesitant”— movement without telling a story of technology and social media. Part 3 of our "Infectious" series looks at the spread of anti-vaccine messaging online and how the Internet and social media have made it possible for vaccine-related misinformation and hoaxes to reach further and faster than ever before.

There was a time when the measles were common enough to be a source of comedy on TV shows like "The Flintstones." So how did we go from joking about the measles to reports on the news about a growing international measles emergency? In the second episode of our "Infectious" series, we embark on a search for truth, aided by a renowned pediatrician and several prominent anti-vaccine activists. Along the way, we look at how vaccines actually work, fallout from the swine flu pandemic, and the highly controversial -- but unproven -- link between vaccines and autism.