Big Brains

Nov 14 2024 179 ep. 27 mins 2.8k

Big Brains Podcast artwork

Translating groundbreaking research into digestible brain food. Big Brains, little bites. Produced by the University of Chicago Podcast Network & Winner of CASE "Grand Gold" award in 2022, Gold award in 2021, and named Adweek's "Best Branded Podcast" in 2020.

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Can We Predict The Unpredictable? with J. Doyne Farmer

Nov 14 2024 33 mins

What if we could predict the economy the way we predict the weather? What if governments could run simulations to forecast the effects of new policies—before they happen? And what if the key to all of this lies in the same chaotic systems that explain spinning roulette wheels and rolling dice? J. Doyne Farmer is a University of Oxford professor, complexity scientist, and former

Unlocking The Secrets Of ‘SuperAgers’, with Emily Rogalski

Oct 31 2024 22 mins

We used to think aging inevitably led to memory loss, but a small group of people—known as SuperAgers—are defying the odds. These individuals, all over 80, have the memory performance of someone in the 50s. The question is: how? One of the leading experts studying SuperAgers is University of Chicago neurologist Emily Rogalski. She explores the fascinating science behind SuperA

2024 Nobel Laureate Explains What Makes Countries Fail Or Succeed, with James A. Robinson

Oct 17 2024 29 mins

On Big Brains, we get to speak to a lot of groundbreaking scholars and experts, but some conversations we walk away knowing we’ve just heard from someone who is really changing the world. We certainly felt that way years ago after talking to University of Chicago scholar James Robinson, and it turns out…the Nobel Prize committee agreed in 2024 when it awarded him a share of the

Why Can’t Scientists Agree On The Age Of The Universe? with Wendy Freedman

Oct 03 2024 24 mins

How old is the universe—and how fast is it expanding? These are part of one of the biggest—and most contested—questions in science, and the answers could change our understanding of physics. In this episode, we talk with renowned UChicago astronomer Wendy Freedman, who’s spent decades trying to solve these very questions. There are two ways to measure how fast the universe

What Are We Getting Wrong About Young Voters?, with Cathy Cohen

Sep 19 2024 28 mins

One of the biggest questions of every election is: What’s going on with young voters? There is endless speculation on the news about what young people care about, but very little good research examining their views on the candidates and the issues that matter most to them. The first-of-its-kind GenForward Survey changed that when it was created in 2016 at the University of Chicag

Why Are More Women Saying No To Having Kids? With Peggy O'Donnell Heffington

Sep 05 2024 32 mins

More and more women in the United States are saying no to motherhood. Alarmingly, in 2023, the U.S. fertility rate reached the lowest number on record. But the idea of non-motherhood is actually not a new phenomenon, nor did it come out of the modern feminist movement. For centuries, women have made choices about limiting births and whether or not to become mothers at all. This his

How Homeownership Shaped Race In America, with Adrienne Brown

Aug 22 2024 27 mins

Race has played a huge role in the creation of mass homeownership in the United States. Discriminatory housing practices including redlining, exclusionary zoning and whitewashing led to great disparities in home ownership among White and Black homeowners. Despite the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, the damage had been done to communities of color and the rates of Black hom

Fighting Back Against AI Piracy, with Ben Zhao and Heather Zheng

Aug 08 2024 28 mins

If you’ve spent any time playing with modern AI image generators, it can seem like an almost magical experience; but the truth is these programs are more like a magic trick than magic. Without the human-generated art of hundreds of thousands of people, these programs wouldn’t work. But those artists are not getting compensated, in fact many of them are being put out of business

The Bioelectric Future of Regenerative Medicine

Jul 25 2024 28 mins

In the near future, birth defects, traumatic injuries, limb loss and perhaps even cancer could be cured through bioelectricity—electrical signals that communicate to our cells how to rebuild themselves. This innovative idea has been tested on flatworms and frogs by biologist Michael Levin, whose research investigates how bioelectricity provides the blueprint for how our bodies ar

Is Mindfulness The Secret To Health?

Jul 11 2024 33 mins

Can you heal faster just by tricking your brain? Could you lose weight with only a change of mindset? Could you think yourself into being younger? If you think the answer to all these questions is no, you haven’t read the research from renowned Harvard University psychologist Ellen Langer. Our podcast is taking a quick summer break, but we wanted to take this time to share some