High-Speed Rail and CO2
…than a down payment, given the very large sums needed to build HSR (University of Minnesota transportation scholar David Levinson estimates that the proposed California segment alone will cost $80…
Hear diagnostician Gurpreet Dhaliwal try to solve the case of a patient who came to the emergency room with an unusual combination of symptoms. Plus, we discuss how difficult it…
A watercolor of a harbor? A black-and-white photo of a pile of rocks? Some hotels are trying to do better. Zachary Crockett unpacks….
…than a down payment, given the very large sums needed to build HSR (University of Minnesota transportation scholar David Levinson estimates that the proposed California segment alone will cost $80…
Also: How do you recover from a bad day?…
The pandemic provided city dwellers with a break from the din of the modern world. Now the noise is coming back. What does that mean for our productivity, health, and…
…paper by a Stanford linguist named David Beaver (that’s not an aptonym, is it?) called “Have You Noticed That Your Belly Button Lint Colour Is Related to the Colour of…
Stephen Dubner and Steve Levitt talk about their new book and field questions about prestige, university life, and (yum yum) bacon.
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…
Takeru Kobayashi revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. What can the rest of us learn from his breakthrough?
Behavioral economists say “regret lotteries” are powerful motivational tools. When Philadelphia tried one in 2021, the results were disappointing. Bapu looks at how incentives can backfire — and what we…
(Photo: Kisha Bari) If you remember our podcast “Boo…Who?” (which was included in the hour-long special “Show and Yell“), you’ll know we love the topic of booing. David Herman, our…
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 everything.
How does the profitability of family firms stack up against the rest? Has nepotism become more taboo over time? And why are 90 percent of adoptees in Japan not children…
Sure, we all want to make good personal decisions, but it doesn’t always work out. That’s where “temptation bundling” comes in.
An interesting approach to economics, from UC Berkeley economists William Fuchs, Brett Green, and David Levine: crowdfunding. But first, some background, because this is fascinating stuff. The typical household in…
Also: What does your desired superpower say about you?…
…has been overly skeptical deserves — well, an Oscar. P.S.: David Remnick wrote a very interesting essay on Gore in this week’s New Yorker (and his long Gore profile from…
When are negative emotions enjoyable? Are we all a little masochistic? And do pigs like hot sauce?
The latest issue of The Economists’ Voice is a special issue on health care reform. David Cutler explains the economics of health reform, while Mark Duggan and Robert Kocher weigh…
For decades, the U.S. let globalization run its course and hoped China would be an ally. Now the Biden administration is spending billions to bring high-tech manufacturing back home. Is…
The pandemic has hit America’s biggest city particularly hard. Amidst a deep fiscal hole, rising homicides, and a flight to the suburbs, some people think the city is heading back…
You’ve heard that the weather can make your joints hurt. Maybe you’ve even felt it yourself. But, is it true? Bapu Jena looks at why we think we know certain…
He argues that personal finance is so simple all you need to know can fit on an index card. How will he deal with Steve’s suggestion that Harold’s nine rules…
In this special episode of No Stupid Questions, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss the consequences of seeing every glass as at least half-full….
Three leading researchers from the Mount Sinai Health System discuss how ketamine, cannabis and ecstasy are being used (or studied) to treat everything from severe depression to addiction to PTSD….
The families of U.S. troops killed and wounded in Afghanistan are suing several companies that did reconstruction there. Why? These companies, they say, paid the Taliban protection money, which gave…
…to be a hard task for a computer because language is such a fundamental part of answering the questions correctly. I found this article on the subject, written by David…
…with author David Levy, I finally understand the answer to both of these questions. The book that tells the full story is here. See also his visit with Stephen Colbert….
…David Laibson and Richard Thaler. Now for the dialysis patient. Let’s say she’s on a waiting list for a new kidney. But there is a good chance she’ll die before…
