Fight Global Pandemics (Or At Least Find a Good Excuse When You’re Playing Hooky)
…think I would choose the latter. I am probably in the minority on this one, but I think a pandemic might be the graver threat. A few years ago I…
How did mobile kitchens become popular with hipster gourmands? And just how much money can a popular truck make from a lunch shift? Zachary Crocket drops some napkins.
He’s been an engineer, a surgeon, a management consultant, and even a boxer. Now he’s a physician focused on the science of longevity. Peter Attia talks with Steve Levitt about…
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 —…
Once upon a time, Bapu Jena was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. His most interesting teacher? The economist Steve Levitt. This week on Freakonomics, M.D., a replay…
…spend our money and time — that undermine our well-being. An all-star team of academic researchers thinks it has the solution: perfecting the science of behavior change. Will it work?…
…business, and made friends with Republicans. She is also one of just 15 Democratic governors in the country. Would there be more of them if there were more like her?…
Most travelers want the cheapest flight they can find. Airlines, meanwhile, need to manage volatile fuel costs, a pricey workforce, and complex logistics. So how do they make money —…
The road to success is paved with failure, so you might as well learn to do it right. (Ep. 5 of the “How to Be Creative” series.)…
After eight years and more than 300 episodes, it was time to either 1) quit, or 2) make the show bigger and better. We voted for number 2. Here’s a…
Presenting two stories from The Economics of Everyday Things: Why does it seem like every car is black, white, or gray these days? And: How self-storage took over America….
…a world of human-level artificial intelligence, and asks when it might be time to worry that the machines have become too powerful. (Part 2 of “How to Think About A.I.“)…
Also: are the most memorable stories less likely to be true? Stephen Dubner chats with Angela Duckworth in this classic episode from July 2020….
An update of our 2020 series, in which we spoke with physicians, researchers, and addicts about the root causes of the crisis — and the tension between abstinence and harm…
Victoria Groce is the best trivia contestant on earth. The winner of the 2024 World Quizzing Championship explains the structure of a good question, why she knits during competitions, and…
…think I would choose the latter. I am probably in the minority on this one, but I think a pandemic might be the graver threat. A few years ago I…
…ban violates equal protection because it arbitrarily treats renewable bone marrow like nonrenewable solid organs instead of like other renewable or inexhaustible cells — such as blood — for which…
My colleagues Jacob Hacker and Daniel Markovits have created a cool website called?www.GiveItBackForJobs.org that not only includes a useful tool to let you calculate the size of your tax cut,…
Photo: Hemera How do people who love salty snacks like their toilet paper to hang? Are fans of carbonated beverage more likely to enjoy horror movies? A new website, www.correlated.org,…
…who can’t get easy access to credit—who are most likely to raise their spending if they get the extra dollars. Education Policy: Perhaps folks think that forgiving educational loans will…
A special episode: Steve reports on a passion of his. Most high-school math classes are still preparing students for the Sputnik era. Steve wants to get rid of the “geometry…
Do highway warnings save lives or cost lives? How do you keep men from peeing on the floor? And what’s Angela’s plan to get more people washing their hands?…
Every language has its taboo words (which many people use all the time). But the list of forbidden words is always changing — and those changes tell us some surprising…
Every language has its taboo words (which many people use all the time). But the list of forbidden words is always changing — and those changes tell us some surprising…
You know the saying: “There are no shortcuts in life.” What if that saying is just wrong? In his new book Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut in Math…
When Richard Thaler published Nudge in 2008 with co-author Cass Sunstein, the world was just starting to believe in his brand of behavioral economics. How did nudge theory hold up…
In this live episode of “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know,” we learn why New York has skinny skyscrapers, how to weaponize water, and what astronauts talk about in space….
One prescription drug is keeping some addicts from dying. So why isn’t it more widespread? A story of regulation, stigma, and the potentially fatal faith in abstinence. (Part two of…
In policing, as in most vocations, the best employees are often promoted into leadership without much training. One economist thinks he can address this problem — and, with it, America’s…
When online anger turned to offline violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, the big social media companies responded by kicking some users — including the president himself —…
A new thrill ride can cost an amusement park $20 million or more — but roller coasters attract customers like nothing else. Zachary Crockett must be at least this tall…
