Big Brains

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Most people say they’d want to read minds. But Prof. Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business says you already have that power: You just need to use it. Epley’s research has focused on the ways our minds understand, or fail to understand each other. Now, he’s expanded that research to look into why talking to strangers may be the key to better well-being, even if it’s difficult.

It’s been a historic week, with news that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has officially opened an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. There’s no better expert to examine the recent events in Washington than Prof. William Howell, one of the leading scholars on the power of the American presidency. In this episode, he discusses the historical context of impeachment, the Republicans’ response, the inquiry’s effect on the Trump presidency and its potential impact on the 2020 election.

The looting of the National Museum of Iraq became one of the defining moments of the second Iraq War. Christopher Woods, the director of the Oriental Institute says that when archaeology and politics intersect, archaeology becomes a kind of statecraft. Since the Gulf Wars, archaeologists have been unable to work in Iraq. But Woods is returning the OI too excavations. If the looting of the Baghdad museum is on one end of the archaeology as statecraft spectrum, this historic return to Iraq is on the other.

One of the incredible perks of making a podcast at a place like the University of Chicago is the opportunity to feature some of the incredible guests who speak on our campus.  This week, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was here for a conversation hosted by Katherine Baicker, dean of the Harris School of Public Policy. On this episode of the Big Brains podcast, please enjoy Justice Ginsburg discussing her history and role on the Supreme Court.

Is it possible that having lunch with your friends is just as important in keeping you alive as exercising? That’s what University of Chicago professor Linda Waite is arguing. Her first of its kind research into social well-being has provided key insights into how our social lives affect our physical health. Now, she’s insisting that our health care and medical industries need to incorporate social well-being into their practice when treating patients.

If you’ve played Candy Crush, flown on United Airlines, or taken an Uber or Lyft, you’ve been in one of Prof. John List’s experiments without even knowing it. List’s studies have changed the world by equipping policymakers with real-world data to address issues like climate change, the gender pay gap, and why inner-city schools fail. But now, he’s warning of a crisis that’s threatening the impact of scientific research. It’s something he calls ‘the scale-up problem.’

We're taking a summer break during July, but we'll be back in August with new episodes telling the stories of leading research with some of the world's greatest minds. During the break, we'll be bringing you updated versions of prior episodes. Kathleen Belew’s research has revealed a surprising history of how the Vietnam War created the modern white power movement, a thesis she details in her book, Brining the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.

We're taking a summer break during July, but we'll be back in August with new episodes telling the stories of leading research with some of the world's greatest minds. During the break, we'll be bringing you updated versions of prior episodes. This week, evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin spent six years in the Arctic searching for a fossil that could be a missing link between sea and land animals. What he found changed our understanding of human evolution, and the future of genetic research.

We're taking a summer break during July, but we'll be back in August with new episodes. During the break, we'll be bringing you updated versions of prior episodes. This week, we have a guest episode of the No Jargon podcast. The show is produced by the Scholars Strategy Network and features interviews with America's top researchers on the nation's toughest policy problems. This episode highlights the struggles of working mothers in the US.

If you want to better understand how Trump has forever changed the American presidency, the history of impeachment, or how to fix the dysfunction in our government, it’s best to go to an expert. Prof. William Howell is one of the leading scholars on presidential powers. Howell explains how Trump’s era fits into the larger narratives, the debate around impeachment , and he argues why giving more powers to the office could actually make our government more effective.

UChicago economist Raghuram Rajan became infamous for predicting the 2008 financial collapse three years before it happened. Now, he’s warning that an imbalance in our society is threatening global stability.

The “birthers”, “Pizzagate”, anti-vaxxers. Since the election of Donald Trump, it’s seemed that belief in conspiracy theories is on the rise. At the same time, our polarization is worse than ever. Could the underlying force driving conspiracy theories also be the same one that’s dividing our country? UChicago Professor Eric Oliver explains that deeper than red or blue, liberal or conservative, we’re actually divided by intuitionists and rationalists.

Doctor Valluvan Jeevanandam says that transplantation is a “spiritual journey.” One person’s tragic loss leads to the another’s second chance at life. But not all transplants are the same. In 2018, patients Daru Smith and Sarah McPharlin were both waiting on the donor list for not one but three organs. They were to be only the 16th and 17th triple organ transplant patients. But a shocking coincidence would push their doctors to attempt a medical feat no one has ever attempted.

When dinosaur hunter and paleontologist Paul Sereno discovered an ancient mass gravesite in the sands of the Sahara, he knew he had to excavate and save that history and heritage. Sereno has always said paleontology and archeology are adventures with a purpose. If the discovery of that ancient society is his greatest adventures, his new project to bring it back to the people it belongs to could be his greatest purpose.

Since the late 1800s, if you were serious about studying biology you went to the Marine Biological Laboratory. The discoveries made there have led to world-changing applications in biology, medicine and neurology. The newly appointed MBL director, Nipam Patel, knows a lot about studying organisms. As one of the world’s leading evolutionary and developmental biologists, his work has help us better understand why it matters to study a diversity of life.