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Episode 70

Eating and Tweeting

Does the future of food lie in its past — or inside a tank of liquid nitrogen? Also: how anti-social can you be on a social network? This is a…


The SuperFreakonomics Global-Warming Fact Quiz

…we describe in SuperFreakonomics, the Seattle-based company Intellectual Ventures has designs for both a “stratoshield” (No. 1) and the cloud-seeding project (No. 2). I don’t see how the critics could…



Episode 6

Nathan Myhrvold: “I Am Interested in Lots of Things, and That’s Actually a Bad Strategy”

He graduated high school at 14, and by 23 had several graduate degrees and was a research assistant with Stephen Hawking. He became the first chief technology officer at Microsoft…

Episode 19

Waiter, There’s a Physicist In My Soup, Part I

The “molecular gastronomy” movement — which gets a bump in visibility next month with the publication of the mammoth cookbook “Modernist Cuisine” — is all about bringing more science into…

Episode 6

Nathan Myhrvold: “I Am Interested in Lots of Things, and That’s Actually a Bad Strategy.” (Replay)

He graduated high school at 14, and by 23 had several graduate degrees and was a research assistant with Stephen Hawking. He became the first chief technology officer at Microsoft…

Episode 20

Waiter, There’s a Physicist in My Soup, Part 2

What do a computer hacker, an Indiana farm boy, and Napoleon Bonaparte have in common? The past, present, and future of food science.

Finally: A Garden Hose to the Sky

…Levitt’s interview with Jon Stewart from 2009, where he discusses the idea (beginning at about the 2:20 mark). And below, from SuperFreakonomics Illustrated, is a look at Intellectual Ventures’ plan…




Some Links Worth Reading

C. Kirabo Jackson finds that college-prep programs — with payments — really do work for inner-city students. The Stanford Technology Law Review digs deep into Intellectual Ventures’ role as “mass…



Episode 6

T. rex Skeletons

How do they emerge from the Upper Cretaceous period to end up in natural-history museums and private collections? Zachary Crockett digs for answers.

Episode 552

Freakonomics Radio Presents: The Economics of Everyday Things

In three stories from our newest podcast, host Zachary Crockett digs into sports mascots, cashmere sweaters, and dinosaur skeletons….

Episode 346

Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet

The environmentalists say we’re doomed if we don’t drastically reduce consumption. The technologists say that human ingenuity can solve just about any problem. A debate that’s been around for decades…

Episode 196

Is There a Better Way to Fight Terrorism?

The White House is hosting an anti-terror summit next week. Summits being what they are, we try to offer some useful advice.

Episode 346

Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet (Replay)

The environmentalists say we’re doomed if we don’t drastically reduce consumption. The technologists say that human ingenuity can solve just about any problem. A debate that’s been around for decades…


The Anti-Malarial Bug Zapper

Readers of SuperFreakonomics will be familiar with Nathan Myhrvold‘s Intellectual Ventures, an invention company researching fixes for, inter alia, global warming and malaria. The book touches briefly on one of…




Geoengineering Is in the Air

…some of the oldest and least practical modes of geoengineering as opposed to the ideas put forth by Nathan Myhrvold and his team at Intellectual Ventures (see this recent Myhrvold…




What's Harder: Science or Rapping?

Three interns at Intellectual Ventures have made a rap video: After watching this, you tell me: what’s harder, science or rapping? (HT: Kara Swisher)…



Beautiful Junk

…recycled by the kids into artwork, some of it pretty splendid. Here’s a neat look at the “beautiful junk” being amassed by Intellectual Ventures, the invention company near Seattle we…



Bill Gates, Book Critic

…was called Azyxxi. Gates is also affiliated with Intellectual Ventures, the invention firm founded by Nathan Myhrvold, the former C.T.O. of Microsoft. Among the I.V. projects we write about are…



Ken Caldeira's Carbon Solution

Intellectual Ventures on potential global-warming solutions, which include a variety of geoengineering ideas. We cite a variety of Caldeira’s research, primarily on atmospheric carbon dioxide, including these passages: Caldeira is…



Nathan Myhrvold, Mad Chef

Nathan Myhrvold is the Intellectual Ventures chieftain we wrote about in SuperFreakonomics; I.V. has plans to thwart, inter alia, hurricanes, malaria, and global warming. (He has also written for this…




How to Make the Perfect Cup of Coffee

…of sharing a meal with the author Neal Stephenson, a lovely man who’s also a part-time inventor at Intellectual Ventures. (He has worked on, inter alia, I.V.’s hurricane-busting device.) As…



Breakthrough Batteries?

…Gates and inventors connected to Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures made headlines two years ago with a patent application for an electromagnetic engine. Now a Seattle-based company, Clarian Labs, says it…



The Hurricane "Vaccine"

…Ryssdal talk about the Salter Sink, an invention from Nathan Myhrvold and Intellectual Ventures that could possibly prevent future storms. Here’s where to find Marketplace on the radio near you….



NASA to Print Pizzas; Free Delivery Unlikely

(Photo: Neven Mrgan) In our podcast “Waiter, There’s a Physicist in My Soup!,” we talked to Pablos Holman at Intellectual Ventures about food printers (we’ve also blogged about organ printers…