From This Collection

Male Contraception

Jun 29, 2016
They said it couldn't be done: The "male pill." Actuality asks why men haven't seen a new reversible contraceptive in centuries—and if we need one. We found out why Big Pharma gave up on a male pill, and meet people who want to make it happen anyway.
Men working for British condom maker Durex show off samples for a promotional campaign in Seoul on June 24, 2008.
JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images

UnAmerican Football

Jun 16, 2016
They said it couldn't be done: Soccer makes it in America. Actuality can't turn on the TV without seeing a soccer game — what gives? We talk with U.S. players Crystal Dunn and Matt Besler to figure out how global football became a media cash cow in America.
 U.S. women's national soccer team player Megan Rapinoe poses for a portrait on November 20, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.

 
Harry How/Getty Images

Cannabiz

Jun 1, 2016
They said it couldn't be done: Ending the American war on marijuana. This week, Actuality tells the ugly truth about cannabis prohibition and peeks at the green shoots of the nascent legal weed industry — but can the architects of a new market avoid the mistakes of the past?
A vendor weighs buds for card-carrying medical marijuana patients attending Los Angeles' first-ever cannabis farmer's market at the West Coast Collective medical marijuana dispensary, on Independence Day 2014.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

Museums: Wherefore contemporary art thou?

May 19, 2016
They said it couldn't be done: New art in old museums. Actuality visits an auction house to see a billion dollars of art sold in just a week and learn how this bubbling private market is changing staid public art museums in surprising ways.
Clare Toeniskoetter/Marketplace

A machine to save the world

May 4, 2016
They said it couldn't be done: Nuclear fusion. We visit scientists building a clean power plant that's hotter than the sun — but can they ever deliver? Then: the strange world of cold fusion, the people who hate it and the billionaires betting on it.
This photo taken 28 July 2004 in Cadarache shows a technician checking a plasma heating system inside a chamber of the Tore Supra nuclear reactor.
BORIS HORVAT/AFP/Getty Images

Batman v Hollywood

Apr 20, 2016
They said it couldn't be done: Making superheroes into movie stars. Forty years ago, Hollywood told 27-year-old Michael Uslan a Batman movie would never succeed. More than a dozen big-budget superhero movies will hit the big screen in the next few years. Holy impossibility, Batman!
Burt Ward as Robin, Adam West as Batman and Cesar Romero as The Joker, in a still from the 1960s "Batman" TV show, 1967.
20th Century Fox/Courtesy of Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

Space Internet

Apr 6, 2016
They said it couldn't be done: Internet in space. The dream of a totally connected world is still out of reach. Companies like OneWeb and SpaceX think a global swarm of satellites is the answer. The idea failed before — does it stand a chance today?

Robot Tastemakers

Mar 23, 2016
"Actuality" visits Spotify to look into the algorithmic DJs that soundtrack our lives.
French electronic duo Daft Punk, the original robot DJs, in "Tron: Legacy"
via Giphy

Smuggler’s Morgue

Jan 14, 2016
Quartz and Marketplace go into the world of animal trafficking with this episode of Actuality
Confiscated wildlife products.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service