How does your doctor know that a drug or procedure will work to treat a condition before they try it? Often, they don’t. Researchers are looking to create “digital twins,” digital versions of individual organs, to see how a patient will respond. Eventually there could be digital twins of entire bodies that are updated in real time with patient data. WSJ’s Alex Ossola speaks with WSJ senior special writer Stephanie Armour about how that might change the way we treat diseases in the future. 


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Further reading: A ‘Digital Twin’ of Your Heart Lets Doctors Test Treatments Before Surgery  
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Will a Treatment Work? Try the 'Digital Twin' First.

What will the future look like? The Future of Everything offers a view of the nascent trends that will shape our world. In every episode, join our award-winning team on a new journey of discovery. We’ll take you beyond what’s already out there, and make you smarter about the scientific and technological breakthroughs on the horizon that could transform our lives for the better.

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What good is a future without ketchup or pasta sauce? These are just two potential casualties of a changing climate, as tomato growers face shrinking harvests due to hotter and drier weather. WSJ reporter Patrick Thomas takes us behind the scenes of how seed breeders are trying to make a tomato that can thrive with less water, and how that highlights the efforts going into protecting crops against the effects of climate change.


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What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 


Further reading: 
The Race to Save Ketchup: Building a Tomato for a Hotter World 
How to Eat Your Way to a Greener Planet 
Sustainable Agriculture Gets a Push From Big Corporations 


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Saving Ketchup: The Race to Breed a Tomato for a Warming World

 How did a sandal that originally entered the U.S. market as a health product become a fashion staple and the crowning shoe of a multibillion dollar company? Margot Fraser originally brought Birkenstocks to the U.S. thinking that the comfort of the German sandal would appeal to women. But she couldn’t get shoe stores to sell them. They finally made it into the U.S. market through health food stores. Now, the seductively ugly shoe is a cultural icon and was valued at about $8.6 billion when the company went public last year. WSJ’s Ben Cohen explores the history of Birkenstock and how it paved the way for the future of women’s feet.


What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 


Further reading: 
Why Americans Are Obsessed With These Ugly Sandals 
A Key to Birkenstock’s Billion Dollar Success? Its Frumpiest Shoe 
A Visual History of Birkenstock’s Rise, From Insoles to IPO 
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Science of Success: Birkenstocks and the Promise of Healthy Feet

Ultrasound is known for its use in imaging during pregnancy. But new advancements in the technology suggest that in the future, ultrasound  could be used to disrupt the blood-brain barrier. This would allow doctors to more easily diagnose and directly treat illnesses like brain cancer without major surgery. WSJ’s Danny Lewis and Charlotte Gartenberg examine the new ways that ultrasound could be used more specifically and subtly to deliver accurate diagnoses and precise treatments.


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Further reading:


New Ultrasound Therapy Could Help Treat Alzheimer’s, Cancer 
Treatment Breakthrough for an Intractable Brain Cancer 
The ‘Mini Brains’ solving medical mysteries and raising concerns
We Can Now See the Brain Like Never Before 
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Ultrasound Isn’t Just for Pregnancy. How It’s Helping Treat the Brain.

A day when people can interact directly with computers using their thoughts could be on the horizon. Several companies, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, have begun preliminary human trials of brain-computer interfaces - devices that decode the electrical signals in their brain and translate them into digital bits. Neurosurgeon Benjamin Rapoport is a co-founder and chief science officer of Precision Neuroscience, a company working on brain-computer interfaces. He spoke with WSJ’s Danny Lewis about how the technology works and how these implants could improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who could gain the ability to independently engage with the digital world.


Correction: Dr. Benjamin Rapoport is the co-founder of Precision Neuroscience. An earlier version misspelled his name Rapaport. (Corrected on May 3)


What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com 


Further reading: 
Inside the Operating Room: Doctors Test a Revolutionary Brain-Computer Implant 
Elon Musk’s Neuralink Wants to Make ‘The Matrix’ a Reality. It Has a Lot to Prove First. 
She Didn’t Speak for 18 Years. A Computer Helped Find Her Voice. 
The Devices That Will Read Your Brain—and Enhance It 


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Will a Treatment Work? Try the 'Digital Twin' First.

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