Announcing the Debut of Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
…can handle. In each episode, audience contestants get on stage and tell us something fascinating (or earth-shaking, or just plain weird) while a panel of three experts tries to sort…
Corporate Social Responsibility programs can attract better job applicants who’ll work for less money. But they also encourage employees to misbehave. Don’t laugh — you too probably engage in “moral…
…can handle. In each episode, audience contestants get on stage and tell us something fascinating (or earth-shaking, or just plain weird) while a panel of three experts tries to sort…
…they turned to an expert on comfort foods. Traci Mann (of the University of Minnesota’s Mann Lab) and her team tested the effectiveness of comfort foods on earth. The researchers…
…(author of It’s All Relative) as real-time fact-checker. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know covers everything from birth to earth, including pregnancy tests, parenting, monogamy, aging better, and, finally, embalming….
…a riddle: Why would water run uphill in Antarctica? According to researcher Robin Bell from Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, some Antarctic ice sheets sit two miles above rivers, squishing everything…
A breakthrough in genetic technology has given humans more power than ever to change nature. It could help eliminate hunger and disease; it could also lead to the sort of…
Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, explains the thinking behind the controversial new Republican tax package — and why its critics are wrong. (Next week, we’ll hear…
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the Facebook founder and C.E.O., recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Secret Life of a C.E.O.”…
The bad news: roughly 70 percent of Americans are financially illiterate. The good news: all the important stuff can fit on one index card. Here’s how to become your own…
In their chase for a global audience, American movie studios spend billions to make their films look amazing. But almost none of those dollars stay in America. What would it…
The bad news: Roughly 70 percent of Americans are financially illiterate. The good news: All the important stuff can fit on one index card. Here’s how to become your own…
The human foot is an evolutionary masterpiece, far more functional than we give it credit for. So why do we encase it in “a coffin” (as one foot scholar calls…
How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the world.
Charles Koch, the mega-billionaire C.E.O. of Koch Industries and half of the infamous political machine, sees himself as a classical liberal. So why do most Democrats hate him so much?…
Steve Hilton was the man behind David Cameron’s push to remake British politics. Things didn’t work out so well there. Now he’s trying to launch a new political revolution —…
As C.E.O. of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer was famous for over-the-top enthusiasm. Now he’s brought that same passion to the N.B.A. — and to a pet project called USAFacts, which performs…
It’s Self-Improvement Month at Freakonomics Radio. We begin with a topic that seems to be on everyone’s mind: how to get more done in less time. First, however, a warning:…
Now and again, Freakonomics Radio puts hat in hand and asks listeners to donate to the public-radio station that produces the show. Why on earth should anyone pay good money…
The digital age is making pen and paper seem obsolete. But what are we giving up if we give up on handwriting?
The gist: the argument for open borders is compelling — and deeply problematic.
What happens when tens of millions of fantasy-sports players are suddenly able to bet real money on real games? We’re about to find out. A recent Supreme Court decision has…
For most of us, the athletes are what make sports interesting. But if you own the team or run the league, your players are essentially very expensive migrant workers who…
Neuroscientists still have a great deal to learn about the human brain. One recent M.R.I. study sheds some light, finding that a certain kind of storytelling stimulates enormous activity across…
To you, it’s just a ride-sharing app that gets you where you’re going. But to an economist, Uber is a massive repository of moment-by-moment data that is helping answer some…
What do NASCAR drivers, Glenn Beck, and the hit men of the N.F.L. have in common?
Takeru Kobayashi revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. What can the rest of us learn from his breakthrough?
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…
It may seem like winning a valuable diamond is an unalloyed victory. It’s not. It’s not even clear that a diamond is so valuable.
How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the world.
The N.F.L. is very good at making money. So why on earth doesn’t it sell ad space on the one piece of real estate that football fans can’t help but…
