Big Brains

As we approach the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, we wanted to reflect on a few questions that many Americans are asking these days: Is democracy on the brink of the collapse? Why are U.S. politics so polarized? And are we headed for another civil war? These questions seem incredibly daunting, so we wanted to understand what the data really tell us. William Howell, a...

As we head into 2023, many of us are setting our new year's resolutions and new goals for the year. It can be hard to stick to these resolutions or accomplish these goals, but there's a technique we can use to help us. We wanted to re-release our episode with Katy Milkman, a behavior scientist who wrote the best-selling book,  How To Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are To Where You W...

In the last few years, we’ve witnessed the birth of an entirely new field of science: quantum technology. With the power to create unbreakable encryption, supercharge the development of AI, and radically expedite the development of drug treatments, quantum technology will revolutionize our world. Today is the day our quantum future is beginning. But what will the future look like, and what do we n...

We’re taking the week off to spend the holidays with our families, but we think this is a perfect moment to re-release one of our most important episodes. As we all dig into our delicious Thanksgiving dinners, we need to remember that not everyone is so lucky. Global hunger is still a massive problem facing our society. By 2050 humanity will have to make 50% more food in order to feed a growing po...

When you name your special series The Day Tomorrow Began, you inevitably have to ask yourself: just how far back are we going to go? If there’s one group of scholars who could tell us what the earliest possible day that “tomorrow” began is, it’s archaeologists. On this episode, we go back in time to learn about James Henry Breasted, a UChicago scholar who in the early 20th century revolutionized t...

It can seem like our culture is obsessed with our ability to focus. Why can’t we focus, how we can focus better, why is our lack of focus ruining society? There are best-selling books and apps that promise to teach us the secrets of paying attention. But what do we really know about what’s happening in the brain when we’re focused or not? In a fascinating set of studies, University of Chicago neur...

Sometimes the biggest moments in scientific history happen in the most unlikely places. There’s no better example than the story of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, a longtime University of Chicago scholar whose pioneering research paved the way to the discovery of black holes. Chandrasekhar’s story is the first in a special series called “The Day Tomorrow Began,” in which...

This episode marks the official 100th episode of the Big Brains podcast. To celebrate this milestone, our Senior Producer Matt Hodapp joins host Paul M. Rand for a behind-the-scenes conversation about the philosophy behind the program, their favorite moments, as well as where the podcast has been—and where it’s going. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for inform...

Hello Big Brains listeners! Our podcast is coming up on an important milestone … our 100th episode! As part of the month-long celebration, we’re looking back at some of our favorite episodes—highlighting a different world-changing idea or discovery each week. The way we talk is not something we spend a lot of time thinking about. But, when it comes to communicating, what we’re saying may only be a...

Hello Big Brains listeners! Our podcast is coming up on an important milestone … our 100th episode! As part of the month-long celebration, we’re looking back at some of our favorite episodes—highlighting a different world-changing idea or discovery each week. What are the biggest questions in science today: Can we cure cancer, solve the climate crisis, make it to Mars? For Nobel laureate Jack Szos...

Hello Big Brains listeners! Our podcast is coming up on an important milestone … our 100th episode! As part of the month-long celebration, we’re looking back at some of our favorite episodes—highlighting a different world-changing idea or discovery each week. For the more than 20 million people with a felony record, incarceration doesn’t end at the prison gate. They enter what University of Chicag...

Hello Big Brains listeners! Our podcast is coming up on an important milestone … our 100th episode! As part of the month-long celebration, we’re looking back at some of our favorite episodes—highlighting a different world-changing idea or discovery each week. This week, we look back at our episode with UChicago economist, Raghuram Rajan. He became infamous for predicting the 2008 financial collaps...

There have been myths and tropes about welfare since it was created. We often hear critics say that welfare discourages people from working — but are these claims really true? This debate often plays out through theory and anecdotes, yet it’s rare to get good data about the true effects of welfare. A groundbreaking paper by University of Chicago economist Manasi Deshpande does just that. It’s a fi...

Batteries have revolutionized our lives, especially the invention of rechargeable batteries, which have enabled us to have cellphones, laptops, and electric vehicles. But as we transition to more forms of green energy, we're facing a serious dilemma: Will our current lithium-ion batteries be able to sustain us? Battery scientist Shirley Meng says we need to explore different metals and elements th...

Do animals dream? If you’re a pet owner, it may seem obvious that your furry friends dream. Most of us have seen dogs running in their sleep or cats meowing during a nap. But this is an academic podcast and really proving that animals dream isn’t so simple. In his new book, When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness, philosopher David M. Pena-Guzman of San Francisco State Univers...

It’s not your imagination, summers have been getting hotter and hotter with extreme heatwaves occurring earlier and more frequently. But why is this happening and can we better predict heatwaves in advance to give people time to prepare? In June of 2021, an unprecedented heatwave shocked the Pacific Northwest and Canada. It ended up being one of the most deadly extreme weather events in the region...

We can’t always see the consequences of air pollution around us, but it’s costing us years off our lives. According to a new Air Quality Life Index report from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), air pollution is taking 2.2 years off the average global life expectancy. In some of the most polluted regions in the world, residents are expected to lose an average five yea...

When you think about corporate secrecy, nefarious shell companies and conspiratorial tax dodging, the state of Delaware probably doesn’t come to mind. We often think of exotic places like Panama or Bermuda, but the research of University of Chicago Adjunct Professor Hal Weitzman shows how it’s all happening right here in the United States. In his new book, What’s The Matter With Delaware?, Weitzma...

War is costly, deadly and destructive. So, why do we do it? In his new book Why We Fight: The Roots of War and The Paths to Peace, Prof. Chris Blattman of the University of Chicago lays out the five main reasons why countries go to war—and why building peace is actually a lot easier than we may think. Blattman is an economist and political scientist who studies global conflict, crime and poverty....

What does our relationship with the dead tell us about the living? Anthropologists learn about ancient cultures by studying their burial sites, but could we do the same with contemporary America? Those are the questions that University of Chicago anthropologist and historian Shannon Lee Dawdy set out to answer in her new book, American Afterlives: Reinventing Death In The Twenty-first Century. Wha...

The United States is an outlier when it comes to parents. Compared to similar countries, the U.S. has the largest happiness gap between the 63 million parents and the child-free. This statistic is not shocking when you consider how other societies support parents with things like paid parental leave and high-quality child care. In her new book, Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child's Potential, Ful...

For nearly a decade, public health experts have been warning that bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. In 2014, the World Health Organization even said the post-antibiotic era is near. Despite these warnings, the problem has only worsened: Antibiotic-resistant superbugs like MRSA are rising—and faster than expected. University of Washington Professor Christopher Murray co-authored a 201...

There are far more scientists in today’s world, and they’re publishing research papers at a much faster pace. However, all of this growth hasn’t translated to more scientific progress. As University of Chicago Professor James Evans argues, scientists are overloaded by the flood of research papers they have to read, which is causing them to cite the same few papers over and over again. This dilemma...

The United States recently hit a grim milestone: More than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses between May 2020 and April 2021. The majority of those deaths were due to synthetic opioids, which have become more widely available in recent years. While medical interventions exist, the rise of opioid addiction has been difficult to prevent, let alone cure. Now, there could be a new promising s...

As Vladimir Putin continues his invasion of Ukraine, Western nations have come together in unprecedented fashion to condemn his actions, in the form of economic sanctions against Putin and his Russian oligarchs. But how were these sanctions implemented so quickly, and what was the international legal infrastructure than enabled us to target the oligarch’s assets in the west? A major tool western n...