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Episode 166

How to Think Like a Freak — and Other FREAK-quently Asked Questions

Stephen Dubner and Steve Levitt talk about their new book and field questions about prestige, university life, and (yum yum) bacon.

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Episode 74

Getting Our Hands Dirty

Soil scientist Asmeret Asefaw Berhe could soon hold one of the most important jobs in science. She explains why the ground beneath our feet is one of our greatest resources…

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Episode 30

Dambisa Moyo Says Foreign Aid Can’t Solve Problems, but Maybe Corporations Can

…global corporations to explore how they can better meet society’s demands. And she explains to Steve why, even as a Harvard and Oxford-educated economist, her goal in life might sound…

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Episode 201

How Do We Know What Really Works in Healthcare?

A lot of the conventional wisdom in medicine is nothing more than hunch or wishful thinking. A new breed of data detectives is hoping to change that.

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Episode 136

The Middle of Everywhere

Chicago has given the world more than sausage, crooked politics and Da Bears.

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Episode 11

Paul Romer: “I Figured Out How to Get Myself Fired From the World Bank.”

For many economists — Steve Levitt included — there is perhaps no greater inspiration than Paul Romer, the now-Nobel laureate who at a young age redefined the discipline and has…

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Episode 65

A Rockstar Chemist and Her Cancer-Attacking “Lawn Mower”

Stanford professor Carolyn Bertozzi’s imaginative ideas for treating disease have led to ten start-ups. She talks with Steve about the next generation of immune therapy she’s created, and why she…

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Episode 25

Is Twitter a Two-Way Street?

To get a lot of followers on Twitter, do you need to follow a lot of other Tweeps? And if not, why not?

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Episode 363

Think Like a Winner

Great athletes aren’t just great at the physical stuff. They’ve also learned how to handle pressure, overcome fear and stay focused. Here’s the good news: You don’t have to be…

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Episode 74

Does Reverse Psychology Really Work?

Also: Does knowing your family history affect your identity?…

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Episode 244

How to Become Great at Just About Anything (Replay)

What if the thing we call “talent” is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the secret to excellence? Those are the claims of the research psychologist Anders Ericsson,…

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Episode 604

Did the N.F.L. Solve Diversity Hiring? (Part 2)

What happened when the Rooney Rule made its way from pro football to corporate America? Some progress, some backsliding, and a lot of controversy. (Second in a two-part series.)…

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EXTRA

Nobel Laureate Claudia Goldin on “Greedy Work” and the Wage Gap

Claudia Goldin is the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Steve spoke to her in 2021 about how inflexible jobs and family responsibilities make it harder for women…

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Episode 13

Yul Kwon: “Don’t Try to Change Yourself All at Once.”

…where he helped build tools to track the spread of Covid-19. But things haven’t always come easily for him. Steve Levitt talks to Kwon about his debilitating childhood anxieties, his…

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Episode 113

Do We Have Evidence of Alien Life?

Avi Loeb is a Harvard astronomer who argues that we’ve already encountered extraterrestrial technology. His approach to the search for interstellar objects is scientific, but how plausible is his argument?

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Episode 239

The No-Tipping Point (Replay)

The restaurant business model is warped: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are put in charge of paying the waitstaff. So what happens if you eliminate…

The Death of a Jewish Superhero Creator

…Green Lantern, Spider Man, Captain America-all of them, it turns out, were Jewish creations. As Alan Oirich, a scholar of the field, told me, “the list of early comic-book pioneers…




Guns in America

…In Louisiana, a man showing us a Civil War pistol once owned by a relative paused to say thoughtfully, “I sure hope Captain So-And-So got himself some Yankees with this.”…




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Episode 462

The Future of New York City Is in Question. Could Andrew Yang Be the Answer?

The man who wants America to “think harder” has parlayed his quixotic presidential campaign into front-runner status in New York’s mayoral election. And he has some big plans….

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Episode 41

Pet Movers

Relocating halfway across the world is hard enough for humans. For pets it can require a specialist. Zachary Crockett waits at the airport, holding a sign saying “Fluffy.”…

Cockpit Confidential: Debunking the Autopilot Myth

…a caricature of what flying is really like, in the process undercutting the value of our profession. “Aw, shucks,” says a captain, “this plane practically lands itself.” That’s a bit…



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Episode 21

How Can You Identify Hidden Talent? With Eric Schmidt

Also: Is there a downside to billionaire philanthropy?…

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Episode 37

Personal Injury Lawyers

If you can make it through three years of law school, you too might end up on a billboard. Zachary Crockett makes the case.

What Krugman Was Really Thinking

…that it would. 2. What a great job my wife had done in making small talk about her childhood in Texas (her father had been a Republican precinct captain, and…



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Episode 467

Is the Future of Farming in the Ocean?

Bren Smith, who grew up fishing and fighting, is now part of a movement that seeks to feed the planet while putting less environmental stress on it. He makes his…

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Episode 157

Why Are Japanese Homes Disposable?

In most countries, houses get more valuable over time. In Japan, a new buyer will often bulldoze the home. We’ll tell you why.


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EXTRA

How Much Do You Know About Immigration?

The political debates over immigration can generate a lot of fuzzy facts. We wanted to test Americans’ knowledge — so, to wrap up our special series on immigration, we called…