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Episode 92

John Green’s Reluctant Rocket Ship Ride

Author and YouTuber John Green thought his breakout bestseller wouldn’t be a commercial success, wrote 40,000 words for one sentence, and brought Steve to tears.


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EXTRA

Your Brain Doesn’t Work the Way You Think

David Eagleman upends myths and describes the vast possibilities of a brainscape that even neuroscientists are only beginning to understand. Steve Levitt interviews him in this special episode of People…

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Episode 107

Bringing Data to Life

Talithia Williams thinks you should rigorously track your body’s data. She and Steve Levitt trade birth stories and bemoan the state of STEM education….

Purim and Penelope

…Apparently many kids smoke their first cigarette as a kind of Purim present. In retrospect, I’m struck that none of these kids were coughing and the first and youngest kid…



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Episode 77

How Can You Avoid Boredom?

Also: are we getting any better at assessing COVID risk?

Are Children Sounding the Global-Warming Alarm?

…all know how influential kids can be. Newspaper editors and TV producers and even politicians have kids, and when those kids start obsessing about something, it’s amazing how fast the…



Russian Rich Kids, and Diamonds Too

…a financial crisis underway, will Russia’s rich kids start behaving more like kids? (Related: Russia moves ahead of De Beers as the world’s largest diamond producer — and immediately starts…



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EXTRA

UPDATE: John Green’s Reluctant Rocket Ship Ride

Author and YouTuber John Green thought his breakout bestseller wouldn’t be a commercial success, wrote 40,000 words for one sentence, and brought Steve to tears….

The Plight of Mixed-Race Children

kids fall in between blacks and whites. 3) Mixed-race kids do have one advantage over white and black kids: the mixed-race kids are much more attractive on average. The really…



Recession Kids

We recently blogged about how recessions might affect the mentality of people growing up in them. American Public Media’s Marketplace recently hosted a “Small Town Hall,” where kids were asked…



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Episode 97

Are Women Really Less Happy Than Men?

Why are women unhappier than men? What can we do to move the needle? And is it better to be happy or to be good?…

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Episode 328

Extra: Mark Zuckerberg Full Interview

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.”…

Bribing Kids

…other hand, a number of other programs aimed at older kids have been less effective. A lot of things change across the various experiments, but one hypothesis Roland puts forth…




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Episode 106

The House of Dreams

Dubner’s childhood home goes from sacred to profane — and then back again.

Parents Are Less Happy. So What?

(Comstock) Bryan Caplan’s new book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, (which he blogged about for us here and here) has people talking about happiness and kids, again. Over at…



The Making of a First-Grade Data Hound

My son’s first-grade teacher recently held an open house to tell the parents what their kids will be learning this year, and how they’ll be going about it. I have…



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Episode 192

Should You Get Out of Your Comfort Zone?

What do the most creative people have in common? How open-minded are you, really? And what’s wrong with ordering eggs Benedict? Take the Big Five inventory: freakonomics.com/bigfive…

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Episode 26

Memory Champion Nelson Dellis Helps Steve Train His Brain

He’s one of the world’s leading competitors, having won four U.S. memory tournaments and holding the record for most names memorized in 15 minutes (235!). But Nelson Dellis claims he…

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Episode 219

How Do You Identify a Narcissist?

What’s the difference between narcissism and high self-esteem? Does social media fuel arrogance or self-consciousness? And do people get less toxic with age?

Economics Reading for the Kids

If you’re looking for ways to expose your kids to economics at an early age, Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, director of the Rutgers University Project on Economics and Children,…



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Episode 54

Andrew Yang Is Not Giving Up on Politics — or the U.S. — Yet

He’s tried to shake up the status quo — as a Democratic presidential candidate, a New York City mayoral candidate, and now the founder of the Forward party. Will his…

Is High Unemployment Hurting Kids' Grades?

…how kids whose parents lose their jobs perform worse on tests. This study shows that job losses have a much broader effect, and impact kids whose parents remain employed. Here’s…



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Episode 1

Steven Pinker: “I Manage My Controversy Portfolio Carefully”

By cataloging the steady march of human progress, the Harvard psychologist and linguist has become a very public intellectual. But the self-declared “polite Canadian” has managed to enrage people on…


Don't Tell Your Kids

Photo: gemsling Most parents have difficulty deciding how much of the “bad stuff” (war, death, etc.) they should tell their kids about, or when they’re old enough to hear it….



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Episode 134

Why Do We Still Teach People to Calculate?

Conrad Wolfram wants to transform the way we teach math — by taking advantage of computers. The creator of Computer-Based Maths convinced the Estonian government to give his radical curriculum…

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Episode 88

Freakonomics Goes to College, Part 2 (Replay)

College tends to make people happier, healthier, and wealthier. But how?