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 “mashupdate” of “Waiter, There’s a Physicist in My Soup, Part 1,” “Waiter, There’s a Physicist in My Soup, Part 2,” and “Is Twitter a Two-Way Street?”
A new study says that yes, it is — but try telling that to the United Nations officials who are preaching sustainability practices.
What do you do when smart people keep making stupid mistakes? And: are we a nation of financial illiterates? This is a “mashupdate” of “Is America Ready for a “No-Lose Lottery”?,” “The “No-Lose Lottery,” Part 2,” and “What Do Hand-Washing and Financial Illiteracy Have in Common?“
At a time when people worry about every mile their food must travel, why is it okay to import most of our cut flowers from thousands of miles away?
In a world where nearly everything is for sale, is it always okay to buy what isn’t yours?
Sure, we all dream of leaving the office forever. But what if it’s bad for your health?
How American food so got bad — and why it’s getting so much better.
The N.B.A.’s superstars are suddenly sporting Urkel glasses — but is it more than a fashion statement?
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.
Paying workers as little as possible seems smart — unless you can make more money by paying them more.
How using peer pressure — and good, old-fashioned shame — can push people to do the right thing.
Once a week, the British Prime Minister goes before the House of Commons for a lightning round of hard questions. Should the U.S. give it a try?
Levitt and Dubner answer your FREAK-quently Asked Questions about junk food, insurance, and how to make an economist happy.
What happens to your reputation when you’re no longer around to defend it?
Do host cities really get the benefits their boosters promise, or are they just engaging in some fiscal gymnastics?
We know that summertime brings far too many fatal accidents. But you may be surprised if you dig into the numbers.
College tends to make people happier, healthier, and wealthier. But how?
If you think working from home offers too many distractions, just think about what happens at the office.
What we know — and don’t know — about the gazillions of dollars that never show up on anyone’s books.
Binge drinking is a big problem at college football games. Oliver Luck — father of No. 1 N.F.L. pick Andrew, and the athletic director at West Virginia University — had an unusual idea to help solve it.
What “Sleep No More” and the Stanford Prison Experiment tell us about who we really are.
Trying to go rustic by baking, brewing, and knitting at home can be terribly inefficient. And that’s a wonderful thing.
Sure, we love our computers and all the rest of our digital toys. But when it comes to real economic gains, can we ever match old-school innovations like the automobile and electricity?
When you want to get rid of a nasty pest, one obvious solution comes to mind: just offer a cash reward. But be careful — because nothing backfires quite like a bounty.
We rely on polls and surveys to tell us how people will behave in the future. Too bad they’re completely unreliable.
Politicians tell voters exactly what they want to hear, even when it makes no sense. Which is pretty much all the time.
Is it as simple as going to the richest neighborhood you can find? Of course not …
Turkey sex and chicken wings, selling souls and swapping organs, the power of the president and the price of wine: these are a few of our favorite things
Adding more train and bus lines looks like an environmental slam dunk. Until you start to do the math.
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