From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson, and we did it. We made it to another weekend.

Coming up, a theoretical physicist says we should not dismiss the idea of extraterrestrials as wacky sci-fi.

We should start from the humbling thought that there is nothing special about us, that we are probably just like ants on a sidewalk.

Plus, author David Youen tells us about the books he and his wife Nicola want to publish under the new YAA imprint Joy Revolution.

We get to be a boutique imprint focused on, you know, love stories, starring POC, written by POC,

with the full backing of the largest publishing house in the country,

if not the world. But first, it's our panel on the week that was with us this week. We have

Kat Chow. She's a journalist and writer who used to be on NPR's Code Switch team. She has a memoir

coming out next month called Seeing Ghosts. Kat. Hey. Hi. Thank you for having me on. Oh my gosh. Thank you for being here. We also have Joanne Freeman. She's a

history professor at Yale, co-host of Now and Then Podcast and the author of the book, Field of Blood,

Violence in Congress, and the Road to Civil War. Joanne, hey. Hey. Hey. I have to say that is a pretty

fun title to read. It sounds very intense and dramatic. That's a great title. Hey. I have to say that is a pretty fun title to read. It sounds very intense and dramatic.

That's a great title. Yeah, so much more relevant than it started out being. I bet.

Joanne's probably been a bit busy. Just a wee bit. That's actually the perfect setup cat,

because I think we should start this week by talking about work

the New York Times came out with a super interesting essay earlier this week it's by Bryce

covert she wrote this piece saying that as people are starting to go back to work and sort

of reassess reentry there are more and more conversations about work from home policies.

But her whole point is that we should also be talking about the idea of just working less.

And there's this great line in the piece. She says, the way to make work work is to cut it back.

I'm curious to hear what you think. Let's start with you, Joanne, since you probably have

been very busy from your point of view, I mean, is there anything remotely controversial

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