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 did it. We made it to another weekend.

Coming up, Mary Roach is going to talk to us about her new book, Fuzz, and she gives us the lowdown on counterfeit tiger penises. Yes, you heard me right.

The thing is, though, the tiger's penis is very small. But first, it's our chat about the week that was with two excellent panelists. John Paul Bramer writes an advice column for the cut called Ola Poppy. Ola Poppy is also

the title of his book, a memoir and essays, JPA. Hello. We also have Helen Rosner, who is a writer who talks

about food, among other things at the New Yorker. Helen, hello. Hi. Happy to be here.

Happy to have both of you. As always, lots of COVID news this week. I think we should start there.

Pfizer is asking for official FDA approval of their vaccine for five to 11 year olds.

Thousands of public school employees in New York City got vaccinated before the

deadline there. Meanwhile, New Zealand has decided to give up on its goal of no one getting COVID

there. Something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is how I'm kind of just assuming that

everyone in my circles is vaccinated. And I think especially as my social

circle sort of like expand more and more, I'm realizing maybe that's not quite the case as much

as I had assumed. And I have a friend actually who recently told me that like someone she's been

hanging out with pretty intensely wasn't vaccinated. And it was until she explicitly asked that she

found out. And it just made me

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