The Price of Eggs: A Leading Indicator?
…a year ago … Behind the higher prices: Feed. Rising corn and soybean prices have led to increased costs for feed. The increase is in large part because of rising…
To get a lot of followers on Twitter, do you need to follow a lot of other Tweeps? And if not, why not?
Broadway operates on a winner-take-most business model. A runaway hit like Stereophonic — which just won five Tony Awards — will create a few big winners. But even the stars…
Is it better to be the best player on the worst team or the worst player on the best team? How did Angela cope with her extremely impressive freshman dorm-mates?…
When the computer scientist Ben Zhao learned that artists were having their work stolen by A.I. models, he invented a tool to thwart the machines. He also knows how to…
Covid-19 has shocked our food-supply system like nothing in modern history. We examine the winners, the losers, the unintended consequences — and just how much toilet paper one household really…
Sixty percent of the jobs that Americans do today didn’t exist in 1940. What happens as our labor becomes more technical and less physical? And what kinds of jobs will…
Also: why do we hoard? (Rebroadcast From Ep. 28)…
How do you know when it’s the right time to retire? What does a “good” retirement look like? And will Stephen and Angela ever really hang up their hats?…
…a year ago … Behind the higher prices: Feed. Rising corn and soybean prices have led to increased costs for feed. The increase is in large part because of rising…
Is there such a thing as a victimless crime? In an unfair system, is dishonesty okay? And are adolescent vandals out of ideas?…
…Alma Casales, was surprised to learn that Coca-Cola is basically sugar water. She, like many of her countrymen is drinking it morning, noon, and night, and feeding it to her…
Last week, we heard a former U.S. ambassador describe Russia’s escalating conflict with the U.S. Today, we revisit a 2019 episode about an overlooked front in the Cold War —…
Researchers are trying to figure out who gets bored — and why — and what it means for ourselves and the economy. But maybe there’s an upside to boredom?
How American food so got bad — and why it’s getting so much better.
In 2023, the N.F.L. players’ union conducted a workplace survey that revealed clogged showers, rats in the locker room — and some insights for those of us who don’t play…
…we asked Myhrvold, Caldeira, Wood, and others to review the first draft of our chapter and give us any and all feedback and corrections. We incorporated many of their suggestions…
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the former N.F.L. player, union official, and all-around sports thinker, recorded for our “Hidden Side of Sports” series….
This week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio takes a look at Pope Francis’s critique of the free-market system in “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), his first apostolic exhortation….
…find that there is no longer a full feed, but rather a partial feed. There’s another change you may notice right away: the protocol for commenting. We have written before…
Ecologist Suzanne Simard studies the relationships between trees in a forest: they talk to each other, punish each other, and depend on each other. What can we learn from them?
…run their lives. Egyptians clearly know how to demand change in government. We should let them decide for themselves. Reader greenoacean pointed out that fuel price hikes would feed inflation….
You said, “I’m sorry,” but somehow you haven’t been forgiven. Why? Because you’re doing it wrong! A report from the front lines of apology science.
Researchers are trying to figure out who gets bored — and why — and what it means for ourselves and the economy. But maybe there’s an upside to boredom?
Physicist Helen Czerski loves to explain how the world works. She talks with Steve about studying bubbles, setting off explosives, and how ocean waves have changed the course of history….
When a zoo needs an elephant, or finds itself with three surplus penguins, it doesn’t buy or sell the animals — it asks around. Zachary Crockett rattles the cages….
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…
What do a computer hacker, an Indiana farm boy, and Napoleon Bonaparte have in common? The past, present, and future of food science.
In the final episode of our whale series, we learn about fecal plumes, shipping noise, and why Moby-Dick is still worth reading. (Part 3 of “Everything You Never Knew About…
Aisle upon aisle of fresh produce, cheap meat, and sugary cereal — a delicious embodiment of free-market capitalism, right? Not quite. The supermarket was in fact the endpoint of the…
