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PODCAST

Big Brains

University of Chicago Podcast Network

Big Brains explores the groundbreaking research and discoveries that are changing our world. In each episode, we talk to leading experts and unpack their work in straightforward terms. Interesting conversations that cover a gamut of topics from how music affects our brains to what happens after we die.

science

All Episodes

00:29:13

2024 Nobel Laureate Explains What Makes Countries...

Big Brains ·

2024/10/17

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 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.Robinson was honored for the exact work that we

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00:24:28

Why Can’t Scientists Agree On The Age Of The...

Big Brains ·

2024/10/03

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 is expanding, also known as the Hubble constant; Freedman has done groundbreaking research to calculate this number using stars,

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00:28:45

What Are We Getting Wrong About Young Voters?, with...

Big Brains ·

2024/09/19

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 Chicago.Led by renowned University of Chicago political scientist Cathy Cohen, the survey digs into what is animating young

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00:32:04

Why Are More Women Saying No To Having Kids?

Big Brains ·

2024/09/05

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 history is documented in a new book, "Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother," by University of Chicago

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00:27:23

How Homeownership Shaped Race In America, with...

Big Brains ·

2024/08/22

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 homeownership. Mass homeownership actually changed the definition, perception and value of race, according to a new book

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00:28:31

Fighting Back Against AI Piracy, with Ben Zhao and...

Big Brains ·

2024/08/08

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 by the very programs their work helped create.Now, two computer scientists from the University of Chicago, Ben Zhao and

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00:28:23

The Bioelectric Future of Regenerative Medicine

Big Brains ·

2024/07/25

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 are built—and how it could be the future of regenerative medicine. Our podcast is taking a quick summer break, but we wanted

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00:33:42

Is Mindfulness The Secret To Health?

Big Brains ·

2024/07/11

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 of our favorite episodes with you. The summer is a perfect time to take a step back, evaluate where we are in our lives, and

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00:33:51

Feeling Stuck? Here’s How To Achieve a Breakthrough,...

Big Brains ·

2024/06/27

We've all been stuck at some point in our lives — whether we've been stuck at a job and wanting to make a career change, stuck in a location and wanting to move somewhere new, or stuck in relationships or friendships. But the method to getting “unstuck” and achieving a breakthrough might be easier than you think.Using research-backed tools, New York University's Adam Alter shares his tips for how to get unstuck in his new book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough. Alter shares success stories from some of the

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00:26:33

What Makes Something Memorable (or Forgettable?) with...

Big Brains ·

2024/06/13

There is a science to what we remember and what we don't. For instance, why do we remember certain pieces of artwork, some brands’ logos, or even people's faces? University of Chicago psychologist Wilma Bainbridge has been studying what makes things memorable for over a decade. Through her research, she has found that there is a common thread about what most people remember—and even what we remember incorrectly (a phenomenon called the Mandela effect)—but most recently, why some visuals are

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00:26:06

Learning To Speak To Whales Using AI, with David Gruber

Big Brains ·

2024/05/30

If aliens landed on Earth tomorrow, how would we talk with them? Well, we already have a kind of creature on this planet we could attempt to talk to first, and in the last few years a team of renowned scientists have been exploring the ocean studying sperm whales to get that conversation going.David Gruber is a professor of biology and environmental science at CUNY and the founder of Project CETI, an interdisciplinary scientific initiative that is using the latest developments in AI to understand,

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00:27:34

Storm Warning: Why Hurricanes Are Growing Beyond...

Big Brains ·

2024/05/16

We all know that extreme weather events like hurricanes are getting worse due to climate change, but what scientists would really like to know is: By how much worse exactly? This year a team of researchers argued that hurricanes have become so much more extreme due to climate change that we need to add a new category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures the wind speed of hurricanes.One of those scientists was Michael Wehner from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Using the latest and

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00:31:20

How To Manifest Your Future Using Neuroscience, with...

Big Brains ·

2024/05/02

We've all heard the phrase "Manifest Your Destiny" when it comes to wanting that new promotion, figuring out a new career path or just trying to achieve that long-term goal. It turns out that the act of manifestation is not merely pseudoscience—it actually has a body of research in neuroscience to back it up. Dr. James Doty has been exploring this topic throughout his career; and offers scientific research as well as tools on how to manifest your goals in his new book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience

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00:32:31

Why We Die—And How We Can Live Longer, with Nobel...

Big Brains ·

2024/04/18

They’re perhaps the oldest questions in the science: Why do we die? And could we find a way to live forever? But for decades, anti-aging research was a “backwater” of the scientific community, consider too fanciful and unrealistic. That is until the last few years. Modern advances in biology have taught us a lot about how we age and why we die—could that knowledge help us turn back the clock?In his new book, “Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality”, Nobel Prize-winning

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00:32:30

What Dogs Are Teaching Us About Aging, with Daniel...

Big Brains ·

2024/04/04

Every dog owner has faced the hard realization that their dog won’t live as long as they do, but we’ve all probably wondered: Why do some dogs live longer than others? It turns out that several factors are at play, according to the largest research study of dogs, known as The Dog Aging Project.Prof. Daniel Promislow of the University of Washington is co-director of the project, which examines how biology, lifestyle and environment can increase both the health and lifespan of more than 50,000 dogs

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00:29:05

Where Has Alzheimer’s Research Gone Wrong? with Karl...

Big Brains ·

2024/03/21

For more than a century, scientists have been studying Alzheimer’s disease and developing theories about its underlying cause. The leading theory for decades has been that abnormal amyloid plaques in the brains of those who suffer from the disease are the central cause. But, according one renowned Alzheimer’s researcher, this myopic focus is not only flawed, but may be holding back our search for a cure. Neurobiologist Karl Herrup argues that we need to go back to the drawing board, redefine the

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00:30:43

Why Breeding Millions of Mosquitoes Could Help Save...

Big Brains ·

2024/03/07

Mosquito-borne diseases are one of the greatest global health threats, infecting around 700 million people every year with Zika virus, dengue fever, malaria and yellow fever — which can all be deadly if left untreated. Unfortunately, the mosquito population is not slowing down, and factors like climate change and increased global travel are broadening the mosquito's range. The effort to stop the mosquito is not an easy task; insecticides and vaccines can't completely stop the spread of these

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00:33:45

Why Shaming Other Countries Often Backfires, with...

Big Brains ·

2024/02/22

How do you stop a government from continuing to commit human rights abuses? You could take them to an international court of justice, or file a complaint at the UN. But none of those bodies have any enforcement power. Short of going to war, the only option on the table in most international situations is to name and shame. But is that strategy effective?In her new book, “The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works and When It Backfires,” University of Chicago political scientist

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00:36:11

Can Trump Legally Be President?, with William Baude

Big Brains ·

2024/02/06

The Supreme Court’s decision on whether Colorado can take former President Donald Trump off the ballot in the 2024 election may be one of the most consequential in its history. The case will turn on the court’s interpretation of Amendment 14, Section 3 of the Constitution, which bars any previous elected official from holding office if they participated in an insurrection. When making their case, Colorado followed the logic of a law review article co-authored last year by University of Chicago Prof

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00:26:23

What Our Hand Gestures Reveal About Our Thoughts,...

Big Brains ·

2024/01/25

Language shapes our world. But when we speak, there is actually a secret conversation happening beyond our words. It’s happening not with our mouths—but with our hands.Prof. Susan Goldin-Meadow is a distinguished scholar of psychology at the University of Chicago. Her research into deaf children who were never taught sign language led her to studying why the gestures we do all day may contain more information about our minds than we realize. Now she’s included all her insights in a new

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217 results

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