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Episode 34

Store-Brand Products

Those low-priced staples on grocery-store shelves — where do they come from? Zachary Crockett finds out at a national convention for private-label manufacturers….

Do You Bag Your Own Groceries?

Photo: Noel Hendrickson Checking out of the local supermarket yesterday, my wife was thanked for bagging her own groceries. She stopped, then realized that in the U.S. supermarkets have baggers,…



Customer Sabotage

…loves to wear fur). But do vegans go to the supermarket and hide steaks behind the rows of cereal? Do fans of one hip-hop star bury the CD’s of rival…



Episode 52

Max Tegmark on Why Superhuman Artificial Intelligence Won’t be Our Slave (Part 2)

He’s an M.I.T. cosmologist, physicist, and machine-learning expert, and once upon a time, almost an economist. Max and Steve continue their conversation about the existential threats facing humanity, and what…

Episode 27

Romance Novels

How did love stories about vampires, cowboys, and wealthy dukes become the highest-grossing fiction genre in the world? Zachary Crockett gets swept away….


Episode 226

Food + Science = Victory!

On the menu: A kitchen wizard and a nutrition detective talk about the perfect hamburger, getting the most out of garlic, and why you should use vodka in just about…

August Wilson, R.I.P.

…home. I felt sorry for him. I figured at least you should know why people were doing that. They burned down the supermarket and this and that, white businesses. Who…



Episode 2

Mayim Bialik on the Surprising Risks of Academia and Stability of Show Biz (Replay)

This new Jeopardy! host is best known for playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, but she has a rich life outside of her acting career too,…

DSK Collateral Damage

…Graff said. “You could be standing next to him at the supermarket check-out line and not recognize him.” The Examiner piece calls the timing “unfortunate indeed.” GeorgetownPatch concurs, with an…



Episode 438

How to Succeed by Being Authentic (Hint: Carefully)

John Mackey, the C.E.O. of Whole Foods, has learned the perils of speaking his mind. But he still says what he thinks about everything from “conscious leadership” to the behavioral…

Episode 37

How Do You Know if People Don’t Like You?

Also: do self-help books really help?…

Stealing in Supermarkets

There’s an interesting news brief in today’s N.Y. Times about a report just issued by the Food Marketing Institute about shoplifting in supermarkets. In previous years, health and beauty products…



Episode 465

Introducing a New “Freakonomics of Medicine” Podcast

Bapu Jena was already a double threat: a doctor who is also an economist. Now he’s a podcast host too. In this sneak preview of the Freakonomics Radio Network’s newest…

Do Mysterious Forces Dictate Our Travel Patterns?

…grocery shopping trip to a distant supermarket or warehouse club instead of to the neighborhood market on the corner. What might account for stable transportation budgets? Well, for one, until…



Episode 120

Werner Herzog Thinks His Films Are a Distraction

The filmmaker doesn’t want to be known only for his movies. He tells Steve why he considers himself a writer first, how it feels to be recognized for his role…

Episode 78

You Eat What You Are, Part 2

To feed 7 billion people while protecting the environment, it would seem that going local is a no-brainer — until you start looking at the numbers.

Episode 17

How Does Retirement Affect Your Brain?

Aging carries a risk of losing our memory, focus, and ability to take care of ourselves and others. Does leaving the workforce worsen that risk? We investigate the research. And…Bapu…

Episode 91

Do You Savor or Gobble? (Replay)

What’s the difference between people who preserve special things and people who devour them right away? Why do we love to binge-watch? And did Adam really eat an apple?

Episode 91

Do You Savor or Gobble?

What’s the difference between people who preserve special things and people who devour them right away? Why do we love to binge-watch? And did Adam really eat an apple?…

Aptonyms for the New Year

the supermarket chain with very good produce, is named Gerry Greenleaf. 8. The world of vice provides a couple of good examples. A reader named Flip alerted us to a…



Ushahidi in Haiti and Chile

…seven-year-old girl and two women were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed supermarket by an American search and rescue team after they sent a text message calling for help.”[%comments]…



Episode 220

“I Don’t Know What You’ve Done With My Husband But He’s a Changed Man”

From domestic abusers to former child soldiers, there is increasing evidence that behavioral therapy can turn them around.


Episode 264

In Praise of Incrementalism (Replay)

What do Renaissance painting, civil-rights movements, and Olympic cycling have in common? In each case, huge breakthroughs came from taking tiny steps. In a world where everyone is looking for…

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…

Episode 190

Time to Take Back the Toilet (Replay)

Public bathrooms are noisy, poorly designed, and often nonexistent. What to do?

Episode 456

How to Fix the Hot Mess of U.S. Healthcare

Medicine has evolved from a calling into an industry, adept at dispensing procedures and pills (and gigantic bills), but less good at actual health. Most reformers call for big, bold…

Episode 68

The Power of the President — and the Thumb

How much does the President of the United States really matter? And: where did all the hitchhikers go? A pair of “attribution errors.” This is a “mashupdate” of “How Much…

Episode 149

Is It Harder to Make Friends as an Adult?

How do friendships change as we get older? Should you join a bowling league? And is Angela more important to Mike than Mike is to Angela?…