Texas continues its recovery from the winter storm that took down their power grid. And while millions of people were left without power, some still had the lights on and are now being hit with bills in the thousands of dollars. One man was hit with a bill at almost $17,000. For those that did not have fixed electricity prices, the cost of their power went up with demand. Ivan Penn, energy correspondent at the NY Times, joins us for why some Texas electric bills skyrocketed.

Next, it seems counterintuitive, but some Covid tests can’t pick up on certain variants in their results, and labs are using those very same tests to help flag if you might have the U.K. variant. If tests come back positive for Covid-19, but fail a specific section of the test, that could be an indicator that someone is infected with the U.K. strain. Brianna Abbott, health reporter at the WSJ, joins us for how some tests are being used to flag different Covid variants.

Finally, you’ve heard of lab-grown meat, now get ready for lab-grown wood that potentially could be grown into any shape. Scientists at MIT have a very early proof of concept that allowed them to grow plant tissue with cells, no seeds, soil, or sunlight needed. Keith Gillogly, contributing writer at Wired, joins us for more on this new tech.

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