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Episode 361

Freakonomics Radio Live: “Jesus Could Have Been a Pigeon.”

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…

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Episode 22

Why Do We Buy Things We’ll Never Use?

Also: How is social media like a knife?

A bargain at $900,000

…$25 to the person who comes up with a great name for his baby due in a few weeks. We’ve got lots of great Freakonomics-approved baby names to give away….



Boy, Are We Stupid

Levitt and I missed a terrific business opportunity. If we had even an ounce of entrepreneurship between us, we would have parlayed the Freakonomics chapter on baby names into a…




A Google-Wrinkle in the Name Game

…product. But, just as women with “distinctively black” names wound up just as well off as women with more traditional names, will a “Kohler” really have much of an advantage…



Forecast: There Will Be No More Cash in 2012

…frequency of three names through time gives the main intuition of their result: Here you see the adoption curves, and later abandonment, of three names that were about as popular…




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EXTRA

Stadium Names, from The Indicator

How did Florida International University’s new football stadium come to be named after the rapper and singer Pitbull? Adrian Ma and Wailin Wong of The Indicator from Planet Money explain….

Zyzmor's Revenge?

…the alphabet are faster at making buying decisions. Why? Kids with the A to I last names were always first in line, whereas kids with last names from R to…



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Episode 31

School Start Times, Brand Names, and Too Much Ground Beef: TMSIDK Episode 31

…with AJ Jacobs (author of It’s All Relative) as real-time fact-checker. We filled this episode with insights about the true value of ground beef, sleeping in, company names, and more….

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Episode 84

Why Do We Find So Much Meaning in Meaningless Coincidences?

Why are humans so fascinated by coincidences? What do Carl Jung and an album by The Police have in common? And what did Stephen win in a bar mitzvah limbo…

Very Sticky Wickets

In our continuing effort to bring you news of interesting first names from around the globe (see here and here and here and here), please consider this recent e-mail from…



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Episode 128

Baby, You Can Program My Car

A glimpse into our driverless future.



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Episode 203

Do You Need a Hug?

Do humans need touch to survive? Do any of us get enough touch throughout our lives? And why doesn’t Angela want to hug anyone for eight seconds?…

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Episode 36

Hey Baby, Is That a Prius You’re Driving?

Conspicuous conservation is about showing off your environmental bona fides. In other words, if you lean green, there’s extra value in being seen leaning green.

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Episode 475

Why Does the Richest Country in the World Have So Many Poor Kids? (Update)

Among O.E.C.D. nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty. Until recently, it looked as if Washington was about to change that. But then … Washington…

FeedBurn, Baby, FeedBurn

How many people read this blog? Who knows. Our hosting service says about 50,000 unique visitors come each day. That’s a lot of people — but when our traffic is…



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Episode 475

Why Does the Richest Country in the World Have So Many Poor Kids?

Among O.E.C.D. nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty. How can that be? To find out, Stephen Dubner speaks with a Republican senator, a Democratic…

Baby Steps to the Internet

Hoping to harness new parents’ love of photographing their babies, researchers at the University of Washington have put together a computer program that tracks a child’s development in photos. With…




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Episode 76

Why Can’t Baby Boomers and Millennials Just Get Along?

Also: how do phone cameras affect the way we experience live events?…

What's the Best Way to "Sponsor" Baby Girls?

A reader named Gunjan Aggarwal writes: I came to the U.S. 7 years ago, worked in U.K./Switzerland/Netherlands/India prior to that. I work in human resources and have been fortunate to…




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Episode 369

A Good Idea Is Not Good Enough

Whether you’re building a business or a cathedral, execution is everything. We ask artists, scientists, and inventors how they turned ideas into reality. And we find out why it’s so…

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Episode 137

Are We All Addicted to Ultra-Processed Foods?

Is your favorite treat changing your brain? Why do so many snacks melt in your mouth? And why can’t Stephen replicate his favorite salad dressing? Take the Seven Deadly Sins…

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EXTRA

Why Quitting Is Usually Worth It

Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the lessons that success…

Where Have All the Bobs Gone?

…1,884 Bobs, Sanders [of the San Diego Chargers] is the only one still playing. We’ve written regularly about names and how some just go out of fashion. The fact is…