Bapu tries to stump master clinician Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal with a medical mystery….
In this special crossover episode, People I (Mostly) Admire host Steve Levitt admits to No Stupid Questions co-host Angela Duckworth that he knows almost nothing about psychology. But once Angela…
In a special episode of No Stupid Questions, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss classroom design, open offices, and cognitive drift….
Over 40 percent of U.S. births are to unmarried mothers, and the numbers are especially high among the less-educated. Why? One argument is that the decline in good manufacturing jobs…
Data scientist Nate Silver gained attention for his election predictions. But even the best prognosticators get it wrong sometimes. He talks to Steve about making good decisions with data, why…
They can’t vote or hire lobbyists. The policies we create to help them aren’t always so helpful. Consider the car seat: parents hate it, the safety data are unconvincing, and…
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings came to believe that corporate rules can kill creativity and innovation. In this latest edition of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, guest host Maria Konnikova talks…
For lots of things, price is an indicator of quality. But what about in health care? Bapu Jena gets some clues from Steve Levitt’s wine tasting experiment, and looks at…
Studies by men published in scientific journals are more likely to include glowing, hyperbolic terms. Bapu talks about this “groundbreaking” research (see what we did there?) in a wide-ranging discussion…
In pursuit of a more perfect economy, we discuss the future of work, the toxic remnants of colonization, and whether giving everyone a basic income would be genius — or…
…make, head over to FreakonomicsExperiments.com [DEFUNCT]. You can read about the experimental design [DEFUNCT] and check out the FAQ [DEFUNCT]. For instance: Q: Just what is Freakonomics Experiments? A: Freakonomics…
Public bathrooms are noisy, poorly designed, and often nonexistent. What to do?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz combs through mountains of information to find advice for everyday life….
Fear is a popular tool in public health campaigns. But is it an effective one? Bapu Jena discusses new research on whether we can — and should — scare people…
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer, and David Paterson….
Bill Frist was a transplant surgeon before serving in the Senate, where he drove controversial legislation on embryonic stem cells and end-of-life care. Did he change politics? Or did politics…
How does comparing yourself to others affect your well-being? What do you do when there’s no one left to blame? And should we all just move to Finland?…
Our co-host is Grit author Angela Duckworth, and we learn fascinating, Freakonomical facts from a parade of guests. For instance: what we all get wrong about Darwin; what an iPod…
Abraham Verghese is a physician and a best-selling author — in that order, he says. He explains the difference between curing and healing, and tells Steve why doctors should spend…
The bad news: Roughly 70 percent of Americans are financially illiterate. The good news: All the important stuff can fit on one index card. Here’s how to become your own…
…What’s the difference between betting on sports and entering a charity raffle? And does Angela know the name of her city’s football team? Take the Seven Deadly Sins survey: freakonomics.com/nsq-sins/…
The National Institutes of Health is the backbone of health research in the U.S., and Collins has been in charge for more than a decade. Now that he’s stepping down,…
How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the world.
Is it really in a restaurant’s best interest to give customers free bread or chips before they even order?
…his immediate predecessor — to see if a massive federal infrastructure package can put America back in the driver’s seat. (This is part of the Freakonomics Radio American Culture series)….
We take it for granted that, when people are acutely ill, they should be in the hospital. Is there a better way?…
In this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt speaks with the palliative physician B.J. Miller about modern medicine’s goal of “protecting a pulse at all costs.” Is…
Bapu talks to White House Covid Czar Dr. Ashish Jha about becoming a household name, studying pandemics, and the frustrations of politics. Also, when will he be out of a…
Levitt and Dubner field questions from the public and hold forth on everything from dating strategies and rock-and-roll accordion music to whether different nations have different economic identities. Oh, and…
Success and failure are hard to measure in medicine. Bapu looks at how surgeons are judged after a bad outcome — and whether men and women are treated the same….
