If you were asked to describe your personality, you might choose words such as “funny” and “outgoing,” or “shy” and “quiet.” But what if those were not quite the right words? The Myers-Briggs - which many of us have taken - promises to assess your personality, and assign you a specific “type.” In her book, The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the birth of Personality Testing, Merve Emre examines the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (which is its full name), and how it has ...
May 24, 2019•23 min
If you have that gnawing feeling that you’re forgetting something, chances are you’re right. And it may not be your keys, but something a little bigger. César Hidalgo, director of MIT’s Collective Learning Group, explains how society experiences generational forgetting. Hidalgo says: even if you have a pristine memory, time greatly impacts the names, books, movies, and historical events that are common knowledge at any given moment. Researching how culture gets passed down (or doesn’t) from gene...
May 17, 2019•22 min
From the moment that Judith Grisel started drinking alcohol at age 13, she was hooked. For the next ten years, Grisel suffered from addiction, as she used drugs from marijuana to opiates to psychedelics. As a recovering addict and neuroscientist, Grisel learned that she was especially vulnerable because she was genetically predisposed to addiction. (She is one of many who are susceptible to the disease.) Grisel, a professor of psychology at Bucknell University and the author of “Never Enough: Th...
May 17, 2019•28 min
Shortly after Michael Jackson died in 2009, Helen Brown, a music critic for the Daily Telegraph wrote that the Jackson 5’s 1969 single “I Want You Back,” is “certainly the fastest man-made route to pure joy.” And while Michael, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Jackie may have stolen the spotlight, the group - like so many others - emerged from a hit factory created by a man named Berry Gordy Jr. Gordy founded Motown after stints as a boxer and as a worker in a Lincoln-Mercury plant. And he quickly tu...
May 10, 2019•24 min
The Grinch’s is two sizes too small. Al Green wants to know how you can mend a broken one. You can destroy them, steal them, break them. They can pine or ache or wander. Suffice it to say, hearts are a big part of our culture. After all, though our kidneys are vital, there aren’t many pop songs about them. Still, as important as they are to our culture, our hearts are even more important to our health. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and chances are that you kno...
May 10, 2019•24 min
Generally, patients have to show symptoms of a disease before they’re treated for it. But, increasingly, thanks to advances in precision medicine, some new treatments are focused on the prevention of diseases that people are most at risk for - and that risk is determined by their unique genetic data. While personalized medicine sounds great in principle, there are several challenges, including the cost. Antonio Regalado, senior editor of biomedicine for MIT Technology Review, and Carlos Bustaman...
May 03, 2019•31 min
How far would you go to make sure your food doesn’t taste bland? Would you cross the seven seas for cinnamon, like the British East India Company did? In the early 1600s, King James I of England needed cash. And he built on a charter that Queen Elizabeth I - his predecessor - had issued. What James did would, in modern times, be considered a breach of power. He allowed the East India Company to establish a virtual monopoly over trade with Asia and, in return, he asked for a share of the company’...
May 03, 2019•18 min
Just about 40 years ago, a secret group of elite scientists, known as the Jasons, sounded the death knell for climate change. They had consulted a computer model that predicted the destabilizing effects of a warming earth - from droughts, to rising sea levels, to geopolitical conflicts. Their warnings reached the ears of politicians, and, ultimately, during his 1988 presidential campaign, George H. W. Bush pledged to solve the problem. But then the story shifted, and climate change was not addre...
Apr 26, 2019•32 min
If you’ve ever had an evil thought - or even a murder fantasy - you’re not alone. Julia Shaw, the author of “Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side” explains that most people have devilish notions sometimes. Shaw, a psychologist and research associate at University College London, says we all have the capacity for cruel deeds. She suggests that acknowledging our darker desires may in fact help us deconstruct and better understand the whole concept of evil. This understanding, Shaw believe...
Apr 26, 2019•18 min
Every day, it seems like there’s a new story about privacy: A Facebook hack that puts the private data of millions at risk. A years-long surveillance program of personal communications by the government. Endless concerns about how much of our lives we share on social media. With all this in the air, it can certainly feel like we have a lot less privacy nowadays. But is that really the case? Well, according to Vanderbilt professor Sarah Igo, author of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Mo...
Apr 19, 2019•19 min
Twitter. Selfie-sticks. Reality TV. It can seem like our society is becoming more narcissistic and self-involved. (Just read a few of the boatload of articles and think-pieces on this topic) But are we really more self-centered? The answer involves Aristotle, Ayn Rand, and 80s-era California. At least, that’s according to Will Storr, author of the book, Selfie: How We Became Self-Obsessed and What It’s Doing To Us. He explains how our conception of self has changed throughout human history, and ...
Apr 19, 2019•19 min
Economist John Quiggin wants to change the way we talk about millennials. That is, he thinks we should stop talking about them altogether. In a recent New York Times editorial, Quiggin argued that the notion of generations is a pop-culture myth. He thinks we should focus on how people are affected by more significant traits like class, gender, and age.
Apr 19, 2019•10 min
We all know of moonshots, a grand idea we can get behind. But we sat down with Safi Bahcall, a physicist and former biotech entrepreneur, to understand a counter term he came up with: loonshots. Bahcall claims many ideas and innovations, when they are first proposed, are seen as mere fantasies from the minds of slightly (or very) crazy people. From the telephone to the computer, several game-changing ideas were turned down — in fact, microwave radar, which detected German U-boats at sea and help...
Apr 12, 2019•31 min
Technology has become more hands-free, thanks to voice-activated digital assistants like Alexa and Siri. Have a question? Ask away. But in the future it won’t be just a matter of using this technology to find out facts or to determine the best route home. James Vlahos, author of “Talk to Me - How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Think,” explains how companies are trying to make the Alexas and Siris of the world more sociable. Voice tech that can apply background knowledge...
Apr 12, 2019•18 min
It’s easy to see ourselves as separate from the animal kingdom, but Adam Rutherford, author of “Humanimal: How Homo sapiens Became Nature’s Most Paradoxical Creature - A New Evolutionary History,” believes that we aren’t as different as we might think. Fashion design, interacting with fire, and making multi-step plans all seem like qualities that are unique to humans. But according to Rutherford, species across the animal kingdom - from crabs to birds of prey - exhibit many of these complex beha...
Apr 05, 2019•28 min
Buttons make the world go round. How else would you tell an elevator to whisk you up to the sixth floor, or get a candy bar out of a vending machine? Buttons are the simple interface for how we interact with more complex technology. They cover up the wires and inner workings of your TV and microwave, and make tech accessible at, you guessed it, the push of a button. Rachel Plotnick, author of “Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, And the Politics of Pushing,” explains the origin of button...
Apr 05, 2019•19 min
In 1957, Buddy Holly appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on CBS, strumming his tunes on a Fender Stratocaster, which was casually slung across his body. The instrument had - and would - fundamentally change American culture and music. And, to a lot of people, it was a shock. But behind the technological innovations inherent in the solid-body electric guitar is a story of two friends and rivals, people whose legacies have been inscribed on the guitars they created. Leo Fender and Les Paul, though,...
Mar 29, 2019•28 min
You might guess that the United States is the world’s biggest exporter of corn, but did you know that it is also one of the biggest exporters of blood? In fact, the U.S. exports more blood than it does corn, soybeans, or gold. More specifically, blood plasma - the yellow liquid that separates out, once your blood is in a tube or a bag - since it is a critical component in many pharmaceutical products and medicines. Rose George, author of “Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and My...
Mar 29, 2019•21 min
Talk to anyone who lived in New York City in the 1970s, and they will probably highlight the city’s widespread crime. Times Square wasn’t yet Disney-fied and Brooklyn hadn’t been taken over by hipsters. Most people agreed that New York was a dangerous place. But then something happened: murders, and violent crime in general, began to drop. And that trend wasn’t unique to New York: It happened in many places across America. So who do we have to thank for the crime decline? To find out, we talk wi...
Mar 22, 2019•18 min
Unless we’re relaxing on it at the beach, or kicking it out of our shoes, we probably don’t think too much about sand. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Sand is a vital ingredient in concrete. And glass. And asphalt. It makes our modern, urban life possible. And our hunger for it is causing more and more trouble. Vince Beiser, author of The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, explains why sand matters, and how the quest to extract more of it is shapin...
Mar 22, 2019•15 min
Have you ever taken an IQ test? Think about the results. Did you do well? You might have gotten a high score, but, often, intelligence doesn’t have anything to do with rationality. There is a marked difference between the two, although we often conflate them. We talk with York University associate professor Maggie Toplak and Boston University professor Carey Morewedge about why even smart people do irrational things.
Mar 22, 2019•15 min
Obsessed with work, insensitive, socially detached, and neglectful of family and friends. Those may not be the most endearing qualities, but they are just a few of the common characteristics that longtime innovation researcher, Melissa Schilling found when studying some of the world’s most famous and prolific inventors in the fields of science and technology. Schilling, a professor of management and organizations at New York University’s Stern School of Business, explores the ingenuity of eight ...
Mar 15, 2019•25 min
We all know the legacy that Sputnik had on U.S. science education. Washington poured more than a billion dollars into overhauling the U.S. science curriculum. But television was transformed too. According to Ingrid Ockert, a Haas Fellow at the Science History Institute and a NASA History Fellow, the television show “Continental Classroom” was launched as a direct response to the Sputnik challenge. Five days a week, “Continental Classroom” was broadcast into American homes to encourage and inspir...
Mar 15, 2019•24 min
Are you a self-proclaimed germaphobe like President Trump? Well, if you think your home is sparkling clean, try walking around with a microscope. According to Rob Dunn, a professor of Applied Ecology at both North Carolina State University and the Natural History Museum of Denmark, we are surrounded by thousands of tiny species, living on every imaginable surface. And while some bacteria can be harmful, most just humbly co-exist with us... and some are more helpful than we know. In his book, “Ne...
Mar 08, 2019•27 min
In 21st century America, citizens assert their individual rights loud and clear. Media coverage shows that Americans defend, debate, and demand individual liberties, including freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. Yet just over 100 years ago, Americans valued the greater good of the country more than their personal freedoms, according to Christopher Capozzola, the author of “Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen.” Capozzola explains that the chang...
Mar 08, 2019•21 min
In a modern-day Mexican standoff, the U.S. and China are confronting each other over trade practices. The United States believes China has been luring away jobs and stealing American technology. But what if the issue isn’t that China is stealing innovations, but that it is out-innovating us? George Yip, a professor of marketing and strategy at Imperial College Business School in London thinks that the Chinese are no longer mere imitators but have become serious innovators in their own right. Ian...
Mar 01, 2019•33 min
Spiders and grizzlies and snakes, oh my! Ask someone what they are afraid of, and the answer is likely to be something like a plane crash or shark attack. But the authors of the book “Worried?: Science Investigates Some of Life’s Common Concerns,” Eric Chudler and Lise Johnson explain why they believe we often waste our energy worrying about the wrong things. Chudler, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington and Johnson, an assistant professor of physician assistant studies at Rocky Vist...
Mar 01, 2019•16 min
If you’re reading this on your smartphone, it might be time to reevaluate how much time you spend in front of a screen. Author Cal Newport offers a road map toward digital minimalism. Then, how did American capitalism become so unequal? And where is it headed? Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein thinks it’s time for a change.
Feb 22, 2019•50 min
Think you might need a digital detox? You’re not alone. It’s becoming more and more of a trend to take time away from our online lives. Cal Newport author of “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused life in a Noisy World” shares his approach to avoiding digital distraction and reclaiming time. He discusses how to be more intentional about how you use technology, and more aware about how technology uses you. We’ll discuss everything from the neuroscience of the human brain to how to do your own 30...
Feb 22, 2019•30 min
Capitalism is a recurring theme among the ever-growing list of Democratic presidential candidates. But many Americans of all political stripes have concerns about our free market economy and whether it is working for them, according to Steven Pearlstein, a Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist for The Washington Post and author of "Can American Capitalism Survive: Why Greed Is Not Good, Opportunity Is Not Equal, and Fairness Won't Make Us Poor." We talk with Pearlstein about the importance of fairnes...
Feb 22, 2019•18 min
