Ok, this episode is only sort of about DEADLY RADIOACTIVE GAS.  It's mostly about multilevel modeling, which is a way of building models with data that has distinct, related subgroups within it.  What are multilevel models used for?  Elections (we can't get enough of 'em these days), understanding the effect that a good teacher can have on their students, and DEADLY RADIOACTIVE GAS.

Relevant links:
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/multi2.pdf

Optimization Problems

Linear Digressions is a podcast about machine learning and data science.  Machine learning is being used to solve a ton of interesting problems, and to accomplish goals that were out of reach even a few short years ago.