Funding for this podcast comes from Math Works, creators of Mat Lab and Simulink Software,

accelerating the pace of engineering and science. Learn more at Math Works.

Come. Support for this podcast comes from Math Works, a company accelerating the pace of

engineering and science. Stick around until the end of this episode for a special

segment about how one company is using Mathworks software to revolutionize

outer space navigation.

This is a special episode of On Point, I'm Meghachra Bardi.

ProPublica's independent nonprofit newsroom

is one of the most respected and award-winning journalism

organizations in the country.

It's won seven Pulitzer Prizes among other honors.

We here at Onpoint don't do so badly ourselves.

We've won the National Edward Armero Award

and Gracie Awards for Women in Journalism, among other honors.

So I'm proud to announce that our two teams are launching a new collaboration.

Just about once a month, we'll bring you a special episode that combines ProPublica's groundbreaking

investigative reporting with on-point incisive analysis.

The collaboration will bring you new reporting from across the country on issues that are changing the way we all live.

And today, it's our inaugural episode. Human beings are ingenious. For thousands of years we've used a process known as

pyrolysis. The word is derived from the beautifully evocative ancient Greek

pire for fire or fever and lysis for separation or loosening.

You can call it the freeing fire.

...