April 15, 2021 An argument between economists is usually as exciting as reading the phone book (what’s that?), especially about something as boring-sounding as the discount rate. But it’s an argument that underlies how governments and businesses solve (or...

First things first, we try not to confuse ourselves or our listeners as we distinguish between conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies. Then we unpack a bunch of questions about why people (even some of the smart ones) are so...

Self domestication, the process by which humans became a more cooperative and less aggressive species, paradoxically contributes to humanity’s overshoot predicament. While trying to wrap their heads around that nugget, Asher, Jason, and Rob geek out on evolutionary biology,...

Thursday March 25, 2021 What can we learn about death from the X-Men, small screaming rodents, and unwitting college students in psychology experiments? It turns out that the fear of death (or death anxiety) affects human behavior in all...

Thursday March 18, 2021 How can the climate disaster and humanity’s overall sustainability crisis be explained by 80s sitcom characters, birdbrained hats from the late 1800s, and a dubious new use for scratch-and-sniff technology? Go for a ride to...