For our music episode, Dan Zanes leads his band of fact-checkers, accompanied by Stephen J. Dubner. (Photo: Lucy Sutton) Throughout history, women composers stood in the shadows of their male…
He’s a world-renowned magician who’s been performing since he was seven-years-old. But Joshua Jay is also an author, toymaker, and consultant for film and television. Steve Levitt talks to him…
Having already amassed an eventful resume — the Clinton White House, the Department of Justice, and Bertelsmann — Joel I. Klein spent the past eight years as chancellor of the…
Most of us are are afraid to ask sensitive questions about money, sex, politics, etc. New research shows this fear is largely unfounded. Time for some interesting conversations!…
Also: how does a cook become a chef? With Gabrielle Hamilton.
The National Institutes of Health is the backbone of health research in the U.S., and Collins has been in charge for more than a decade. Now that he’s stepping down,…
Who makes the stacks of fake cash used in movies — and how do they stay clear of counterfeit law? Zachary Crockett follows the fake money….
Sanjoy Mahajan We recently solicited your questions for Sanjoy Mahajan, author of Street-Fighting Mathematics. As usual, you came up with some excellent questions, about everything from the methodology of educated…
How vulnerable should you get with your coworkers? What’s the benefit of telling strangers about your relationship with your mother? And why did Mike’s childhood home burn down — twice?
From baseball card conventions to Walmart, John List has always used field experiments to say revolutionary things about economics. He explains the value of an apology, why scaling shouldn’t be…
Victoria Groce is one of the best trivia contestants on earth. She explains the structure of a good question, why she knits during competitions, and how to memorize 160,000 flashcards….
When Freakonomics co-authors Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner first met, one of them hated the other. Two decades later, Levitt grills Dubner about asking questions, growing the pie, and what…
…Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss the relationship between age and happiness. Also, does all creativity come from pain? New episodes of No Stupid Questions are released every Sunday evening….
…the blog via feed, meanwhile, and prefer the old full feed to the current partial feed, won’t be receiving the outcome they wanted. After a lot of deliberation, here’s the…
In our collective zeal to reform schools and close the achievement gap, we may have lost sight of where most learning really happens — at home.
The gist: in our collective zeal to reform schools and close the achievement gap, we may have lost sight of where most learning really happens — at home.
From the Manhattan Project to the Challenger investigation, the physicist Richard Feynman loved to shoot down what he called “lousy ideas.” Today, the world is awash in lousy ideas —…
…the kind of questions at the center of a new book by Sanjoy Mahajan, a physicist and associate director of M.I.T.’s Teaching and Learning Laboratory. Street-Fighting Mathematics espouses a different…
In his final years, Richard Feynman’s curiosity took him to some surprising places. We hear from his companions on the trips he took — and one he wasn’t able to….
What does the Seven Deadly Sins survey tell us about the people who listen to this podcast? Are we more afflicted by sloth or by lust? And what does Angela…
…the consumer’s favor. Mr. LEVITT: They’re not bad people, but they’re people, and they respond to incentives. LAUER: OK, and it’s human nature. Mr. LEVITT: Right. Mr. DUBNER: Correct. LAUER:…
Photo: iStockphoto Last week, we posed two questions regarding the NCAA basketball tournament: what are the odds that two teams from the same city would make the Sweet 16? And…
Ideas are currency. This couldn’t be more true in academia, where it’s the job of researchers to think of questions and, hopefully, find answers. Bapu talks with economists Steve Levitt…
In a special episode of No Stupid Questions, Angela Duckworth and Mike Maughan talk about unfinished tasks, recurring arguments, and Irish goodbyes….
Are modern parents too protective? Why do we worry so much about things that almost never happen? And how did Mike learn about bus stops?…
In a special episode of No Stupid Questions, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss classroom design, open offices, and cognitive drift….
…top guys in the world compete with each other. The risk would far outweigh the reward. Before he answers reader questions, Lesnar has a question for all of you: Who…
Dubner and Levitt are live onstage at the 92nd Street Y in New York to celebrate their new book “When to Rob a Bank” — and a decade of working…
Overt discrimination in the labor markets may be on the wane, but women are still subtly penalized by all sorts of societal conventions. How can those penalties be removed without…
Last week was a busy one for the visual wizards at Google. First, the company launched Street View, which offers street-level photos of San Francisco, New York, Miami, Denver, and…
