I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WB EZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson. We made it to another weekend. This week, we're doing something a little different, but it's probably going to be familiar if you've been

listening to the show for a while. If you have been tuning in to Nerdat over the past, you know,

say, year and a half, you know we like to check in with Emily Landon every couple of months. We call

Emily our resident epidemiologist, but her real job is that she's an infectious disease

specialist at the University of Chicago. She always helps me feel a little less overwhelmed by

what's going on with the pandemic. And we hope the same goes for y'all listening as well.

We have questions. We know you have questions.

We actually heard from a lot of you this time around.

I feel like half my social media feed is people freaking out about the variants.

What's the deal with the moo variant?

What the heck does mid to late winter mean anyway?

Any advice you have that could shed some light would really, really appreciate it.

Here, hopefully with some answers is Nuredat's resident epidemiologist, Dr. Emily Landon. Emily, welcome.

Hey, everybody. It's great to be back. It's so funny. I do feel like you're just a friend who I check in with now.

I feel the same. Let's keep doing this. Maybe without the pandemic.

Yeah, that would be really nice. So we asked nerd out listeners to send in their questions. We got a

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