unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

While it is commonly assumed that prevalent health issues like heart disease, obesity, and depression are uniquely human experiences, they exist across multiple species. Despite the undeniable connection rooted in our shared animal nature, a perceptible barrier remains between human and veterinary medicine and psychology, often driven by the notion of human exceptionalism. Barbara Natterson-Horowi...

Life is all about solving problems—whether it’s what shirt to put on in the morning or how to solve a complex engineering question. And without problems, life wouldn’t have much meaning. But how do you master effective problem-solving skills?  Bernard Roth is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University and is one of the founders of Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (al...

Here’s the thing about evolution: It’s really complicated. And there’s so much about how humans have evolved and what causes certain behaviors that scientists are still figuring out.  It’s those unknowns that fascinate Marlene Zuk, a professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota. She’s written numerous books on animal behavior and evolution, with her most recent publi...

How much did the religious beliefs of the Enlightenment Age influence the evolution of modern economic theory? Can widespread economic growth lead to an improvement in moral character across a vast population?  Benjamin M. Friedman is a professor and former Chair of Economics at Harvard University. In his books Religion and the Rise of Capitalism and The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, he e...

It may be rational to be ignorant, and it might even be rational to be irrational! This is quite prevalent in our highly polarized and tribalized current political landscape. In fact, it is what gives politics its newfound religious flavor. In education it exists where we move everyone forward the same amount, no one has moved relative to each other, and it is considered progress.  Bryan Caplan is...

From the Silent Generation to Gen Z, different generations have distinct behaviors, values, and attitudes that were shaped by the events during their formative years. However, the most significant factor influencing generational differences is technology. While technological progress has led to more individualism, it also can have negative impacts on mental health, leading to depression and suicid...

The science of economics can be an intimidating topic to understand, but it can be broken down into basic motivations and forces that are understandable to anyone. Supply, demand, and trade-offs are a part of everyone’s daily life and should be identifiable in any industry or market.  Matthew Hennessey is a journalist who is the Deputy Op-Ed Editor for the Wall Street Journal. He is also an author...

Is it a bad day that puts someone in a bad mood, or could it be the room they’re sitting in? The environments we place ourselves in function as much more than just mere backdrops, and the way spaces are designed can greatly influence how the people in them feel and react. A simple window can mean the difference between health and sickness, and the height of a ceiling may unlock creativity. Sarah W...

Most Americans have had to do it at some point: check the box that most closely describes how you identify your race or ethnicity. But those categories can be limiting. How did America settle on the specific categories that are in use? And what does it mean for how the country works on a sociological level and a legal one?  David E. Bernstein is a law professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at...

Throughout history, new advances in science, such as the advent of electricity, nuclear power, genetic engineering, or artificial intelligence, have often been met with fear and uncertainty. While novel scientific developments offer countless possibilities for improving our lives, they also come with ethical considerations and sometimes unintended consequences that must be carefully navigated. Mat...

Innovation is both extremely important to the life of a corporation and also extremely tricky to regularly achieve and maintain. There are certain strategies that tend to yield higher innovation, but at its heart are the people, the corporate explorers that drive things forward. Andrew Binns is the co-founder and manager of Change Logic, an advisory firm, and the author of several articles and boo...

Over the course of history, as human civilization has developed and advanced, so have our microbial enemies. This has led to a vast and diverse disease pool dating all the way back to the last Ice Age.  Kyle Harper is a professor of Classics and Letters at the University of Oklahoma. In his books, Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History and The Fate of Rome: Climate, Diseas...

Money is a mirage, and the harder and deeper you look into it, the hazier it can become. It is a human construct, a tool that we have all agreed to hold value in so that we can exchange it with each other for goods and services, but what is it really? How did we all come to agree on this abstract thing together, and where does it go from here? Frederick Kaufman is a journalist, professor of Englis...

Is law an instrument of the state? Or is it broader than that?  Fernanda Pirie is a professor of law and anthropology at the University of Oxford. Through her books like, The Anthropology of Law and The Rule of Laws: A 4,000-Year Quest to Order the World , she makes the distinction that law is a particular type of custom that doesn’t necessarily need a governmental system to exist.  In this episod...

Museums are centers for culture, for art, and for conversation. They are places where the far ends of the earth come together in the same place and expose people of all ages to things from across space and time. They also draw the past into the present and become centers for experiencing and understanding humans and humanity. Daniel H. Weiss is an art historian and president of The Metropolitan Mu...

Mental health disorders have become an epidemic in today's society. Yet, we often fail to recognize the critical impact of early childhood adversity and our relationships with our parents, especially our mothers, on the mental and physical health of adolescents. Erica Komisar is a psychoanalyst and also a contributor, contributing editor at the Institute for Family Studies, journalist, and author....

There are three necessary conditions for a fire to start – oxygen, heat, and fuel. The same can be said for financial bubbles. In order for them to happen, three conditions must be in place. In his book, Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles , economic and financial historian William Quinn lays out what those conditions are in what he calls, “the bubble triangle.” At Queen’s Univers...

What do financial bubbles and religious millenarianism have in common? They both involve collective delusion. When Charles Mackey wrote a book on the Madness of Crowds in the 19th century, he could not have imagined that religious and financial bubbles will continue to reappear, but as Willam Bernstein points out, the world has not gotten any saner. William Bernstein is an investment manager and t...

Does a strong state mean a weak market? This is a common misconception amongst economists. Many view the state as either taxing and regulating the market too much or too little. However, the truth is that state capacity is just not well conceptualized in economic theory. James A. Robinson is a political scientist, economist, and professor at the University of Chicago. His recent book, co-authored...

In order to make an impact in the political world, we need to understand the science of politics, which means setting aside emotion and designing general models of strategic behavior and equilibrium drawn from game theory. These models may not only explain the past but predict the future. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political scientist, a professor at New York University, and a senior fellow at t...

What are the limits to free speech in a university setting? And how does our society define what is permissible speech and what is not? When Ulrich Baer wrote What Snowflakes Get Right , his hope was to expand free speech on campuses and provoke a debate on the proper scope of conversation in the classroom. Ulrich is a professor of comparative literature at New York University and is the author an...

Philosophical problems are all around us. From economics to games and sports, most people in the world are philosophizing every day, maybe without even realizing it.  David Papineau is a Professor of Philosophy of Science at the King’s College London. He’s written numerous books, including The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience and Knowing the Score: What Sports Can Teach Us About Philosophy (And W...

What is attention, and how can we manage it? The new science of attention explores how our conscious and unconscious attention dictate how we interact with the world. With the proliferation of digital media and always being on digital devices, a proper understanding of attention is more important than ever.  Gloria Mark is the Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Informatics at the Universi...

Should we separate decisions related to love and money, approaching finance and career-related decisions solely in a rational way while relying more on our emotions in the personal domain? Perhaps it's time to start using both our heads and hearts together when making life's most significant decisions. Myra Strober is an emerita Professor at the Schools of Education and Business at Stanford Univer...

In a world of either/or tradeoffs, it sometimes pays to explore the possibility of and/or. By changing our perspective and embracing paradox, we can see possibilities that were obscured by our tendency to see only tradeoffs. Wendy K. Smith is the Dana J. Johnson Professor of Business at the University of Delaware and co-founder of the Women's Leadership Initiative. She is also an author, and with...