PRI's The World: Technology Podcast 222

To be honest, I've always given myself wide latitude when it comes to choosing what goes into my weekly "tech" podcast. Often, when a major public health story comes along, I find it irresponsible not to pass it along to listeners. And so, the highlight of this week's Tech Podcast (WTP 222) is "Grace," a woman in Ivory Coast who is pictured here holding her AIDS medication. We started with some basic questions. Where were those pills made? How did they get to Grace? And would it be possible to trace a shipment of pills from their point of origin and into her hands? The World's Health and Science Editor, David Baron, takes you on that journey. It's fascinating. It's informative. And there are pictures. We follow David's reported piece with an interview with Elizabeth Pisani, an epidemiologist and author of the book The Wisdom of Whores. Pisani weighs in on PEPFAR (The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), the Bush Administration's multi-billion dollar effort to tackle the disease in the developing world.

Not to worry, though, because there's plenty of tech in the WTP this week as well. We go to Croatia and hear about how several opposition activists were arrested recently after they used the social networking site Facebook to, well, poke a bit of fun at the current Prime Minister, and to organize protests against him. Did the online protest translate into boots on the streets of Zagreb? Listen in, and find out.

Next up, we speak with Drew Cogbill, a student at the Parsons The New School for Design in NYC. For his thesis, he wanted to combine his twin love of design and technology in pursuit of a social networking set-up for people without access to the Internet, but with access to phones. His answer? Pigeon.My Pigeon User Number, should you want to add me as a contact, is 345-345.

We also return to CERN, outside of Geneva, to find out how and why the Large Hadron Collider suffered a magnet meltdown, and how scientists and engineers plan to fix the problems.

And we end with a global spin on a story you've probably heard about. President Elect Obama likes his BlackBerry...a lot. But he may have to give it (and maybe even email) up because of national security and privacy concerns. So, we go in search of other world leaders who really, really like their tech. Fun. And it all came courtesy of emails (clark.boyd [at] bbc.co.uk), Facebook messages and Tweets from listeners to the WTP. Thanks!