The FREAK-est Links
Are cows really the next energy source? U.S. Internet surfing time to surpass TV time. Good thing stars don’t care about privacy: Google Earth launches. (Earlier) Do Jim Cramer’s picks…
What’s the difference between anger and indignation? What’s Angela’s problem with turkey sandwiches? And why wasn’t a No Stupid Questions listener angry at the men who assaulted him? Take the…
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…
How many bottles of wine are regifted? What’s wrong with giving cash? And should Angela give her husband a subscription to the Sausage of the Month Club?
Are cows really the next energy source? U.S. Internet surfing time to surpass TV time. Good thing stars don’t care about privacy: Google Earth launches. (Earlier) Do Jim Cramer’s picks…
…but it was a girl’s Raleigh from the 1960’s with a wicker basket. I started looking around the web. At the down-to-earth-sounding Recyclery, another Portland used bike shop — and…
Takeru Kobayashi revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. What can the rest of us learn from his breakthrough?
The Norwegian government parleys massive oil wealth into huge subsidies for electric cars. Is that carbon laundering or just pragmatic environmentalism?
A lot of full-time jobs in the modern economy simply don’t pay a living wage. And even those jobs may be obliterated by new technologies. What’s to be done so…
They’re not always the nicest places to go — but for their owners, portable toilets are a lucrative revenue stream. Zachary Crockett lifts the lid….
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…
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….
Whaling was, in the words of one scholar, “early capitalism unleashed on the high seas.” How did the U.S. come to dominate the whale market? Why did whale hunting die…
…the Earth Institute at Columbia University, started an ambitious program called the Millennium Villages Project. He and his team chose a handful of sub-Saharan African villages, where they imposed a…
…there, why does NASA continue to use it as a launch site? Because it’s close to the equator, which helps a launching spacecraft more quickly escape Earth’s gravity; because shuttle…
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is increasing the space between rows of seats on its planes. I’m not surprised — the Dutch are the tallest people on earth these days, as…
…your marriage, your close relationships, your family? That’s the criteria we use for our personal lives, as well as for society. I mean, to what extent does the Flat Earth…
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…
…dealt with recessions. Nathan Myhrvold on risk and the state of the Earth. Killer paychecks: You’re more likely to die shortly after you get paid. Why restructuring Greek debt is…
Our co-host is Grit author Angela Duckworth, and we learn fascinating, Freakonomical facts from a parade of guests. For instance: what we all get wrong about Darwin; what an iPod…
He’s an M.I.T. cosmologist, physicist, and machine-learning expert, and once upon a time, almost an economist. Max and Steve continue their conversation about the existential threats facing humanity, and what…
Steve Levitt has so far occupied the interviewer chair on his new show, but in a special live event — recorded over Zoom and presented by WNYC and the Greene…
…rise. So what on Earth is going on? And: According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated….
When Stephen Dubner learned that Dallas–Fort Worth will soon overtake Chicago as the third-biggest metro area in the U.S., he got on a plane to find out why. Despite getting…
In the early 20th century, Max Weber argued that Protestantism created wealth. Finally, there are data to prove if he was right. All it took were some missionary experiments in…
…But back here on earth, do we really need or desire teleporters for our considerably more mundane existences? If we could get places instantaneously, and rid ourselves of travel entirely,…
Think you know how much parents matter? Think again. Economists crunch the numbers to learn the ROI on child-rearing.
We tend to think of tragedies as a single terrible moment, rather than the result of multiple bad decisions. Can this pattern be reversed? We try — with stories about…
…to pump particles of water into the atmosphere as a test run before moving onto sulfates and aerosols that would reflect sunlight away from earth, mimicking the aftereffect of a…
The simplicity of life back then is appealing today, as long as you don’t mind Church hegemony, the occasional plague, trial by gossip — and the lack of ibuprofen. (Part…
Beatrice Fihn wants to rid the world of nuclear weapons. As Russian aggression raises the prospect of global conflict, can she put disarmament on the world’s agenda?…
