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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.
223 episodes tracked Similar shows
27%The Little-Known Secrets To A Good Life, with Shigehiro Oishi
Big Brains · 34m
30%How to Use Nature to Restore Your Focus, with Marc Berman
Big Brains · 34m
23%How to Raise Kids in the Age of AI, with Dana Suskind
Big Brains · 33m
22%What Our Trash Problem Says About Our Culture, with Sarah Newman
Big Brains · 36m
24%How Websites Trick You Using ‘Dark Patterns’ with Marshini Chetty
Big Brains · 37m
21%Quantum Technology, Explained: A Big Brains Live Event
Big Brains · 39m
24%Our Untapped Superpower: Connecting With Others, with Nicholas Epley
Big Brains · 38m
23%Why the Fed Matters Now More Than Ever, with Douglas Diamond
Big Brains · 37m
25%Anxious? Avoidant? How to Build More Secure Relationships
Big Brains · 36m
28%Could AI Models Forecast Extreme Weather Events? with Pedram Hassanzadeh
Big Brains · 35m
20%Are Judges Too Powerful? The Rise of Universal Injunctions, with Samuel Bray
Big Brains · 40m
34%Could Data Centers Break Our Power Grid? with Andrew Chien
Big Brains · 37m
24%Remarkable New Treatments for Spinal Cord Injuries, with Mohamad Bydon
Big Brains · 26m
36%Can You Improve Your Working Memory and Attention? with Edward Awh
Big Brains · 35m
31%Why Knowing Your True Self Is So Difficult, with Eric Oliver
Big Brains · 31m
20%The Breakthrough Quantum Sensor That Sees Inside Your Cells, with Peter Maurer
Big Brains · 35m
31%How to Manifest Your Destiny with the Late James Doty
Big Brains · 31m
27%What Makes Music Go Viral—From AI to Taylor Swift
Big Brains · 35m
29%How Wearable Tech Will Heighten Our Senses and Abilities, with Pedro Lopes
Big Brains · 38m
30%Why Are More Women Saying No To Having Kids? With Peggy O'Donnell Heffington
Big Brains · 32m
25%How Full-Body MRIs Could Predict Your Long-Term Health, with Daniel Sodickson
Big Brains · 34m
35%Is There Such A Thing As A Psychopath?
Big Brains · 35m
21%Why We Haven’t Solved Brain Disorders—And How To Fix It, with Nicole Rust
Big Brains · 36m
26%Life On Mars: Is It Possible For Humans? with Edwin Kite
Big Brains · 30m
33%How To Use Nature To Restore Your Focus, with Marc Berman
Big Brains · 32m
31%Could Plants Unlock Quantum Medicine’s Potential? with Greg Engel
Big Brains · 25m
21%How Microplastics Are Invading Our Bodies, with Matthew Campen
Big Brains · 28m
34%Why We Get Stuck—And How to Finally Move Forward
Big Brains · 34m
20%Inside the AI Debate: Hope, Hype, Or Harm? A Big Brains Panel Weighs In
Big Brains · 47m
23%Are Your Medications Safe And Effective?, with Jerry Avorn
Big Brains · 36m
36%Are We Making AI Too Human?, with James Evans
Big Brains · 31m
24%Inside The Disease That Changes Your Personality, with Bruce Miller
Big Brains · 26m
24%Meet The ‘Planet Hunter’ Searching For Alien Life, with Jacob Bean
Big Brains · 34m
27%How To Stop Gun Violence Before It Starts, with Jens Ludwig
Big Brains · 30m
24%Can Your DNA Predict Your Future?, with Dalton Conley
Big Brains · 34m
32%Can You Really Die of a Broken Heart? The Hidden Dangers of Grief, with Mary Frances O'Connor
Big Brains · 31m
25%The Science Behind Raising Successful Kids, with Ariel Kalil
Big Brains · 31m
23%Do Animals Understand Death?, with Susana Monsó
Big Brains · 32m
19%Why Measles Is Resurging—And The Rise Of Vaccine Hesitancy, with Adam Ratner
Big Brains · 35m
29%The Little-Known Secrets To A Good Life, with Shigehiro Oishi
Big Brains · 33m
60%How Bioelectronics Could Heal Our Bodies And Minds, with Bozhi Tian
Big Brains · 29m
26%Could A Fungal Pandemic Be “The Last of Us?", with Arturo Casadevall
Big Brains · 27m
32%The "Magic Words" That Turn Resolutions Into Reality
Big Brains · 32m
25%What’s The Truth About Alcohol’s Benefits And Risks? with Tim Stockwell
Big Brains · 33m
25%What Happens When We Die? with Sam Parnia
Big Brains · 30m
19%The Illusion of Moral Decline
Big Brains · 32m
35%Can We Predict The Unpredictable? with J. Doyne Farmer
Big Brains · 33m
36%Unlocking The Secrets Of ‘SuperAgers’, with Emily Rogalski
Big Brains · 22m
31%2024 Nobel Laureate Explains What Makes Countries Fail Or Succeed, with James A. Robinson
Big Brains · 29m
32%Why Can’t Scientists Agree On The Age Of The Universe? with Wendy Freedman
Big Brains · 24m
21%What Are We Getting Wrong About Young Voters?, with Cathy Cohen
Big Brains · 28m
24%Why Are More Women Saying No To Having Kids? With Peggy O'Donnell Heffington
Big Brains · 32m
28%How Homeownership Shaped Race In America, with Adrienne Brown
Big Brains · 27m
24%Fighting Back Against AI Piracy, with Ben Zhao and Heather Zheng
Big Brains · 28m
25%The Bioelectric Future of Regenerative Medicine
Big Brains · 28m
27%Is Mindfulness The Secret To Health?
Big Brains · 33m
28%Feeling Stuck? Here’s How To Achieve a Breakthrough, with Adam Alter
Big Brains · 33m
82%What Makes Something Memorable (or Forgettable?) with Wilma Bainbridge
Big Brains · 26m
27%Learning To Speak To Whales Using AI, with David Gruber
Big Brains · 26m
31%Storm Warning: Why Hurricanes Are Growing Beyond Measure, with Michael Wehner
Big Brains · 27m
51%How To Manifest Your Future Using Neuroscience, with James Doty
Big Brains · 31m
30%Why We Die—And How We Can Live Longer, with Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan
Big Brains · 32m
25%What Dogs Are Teaching Us About Aging, with Daniel Promislow
Big Brains · 32m
23%Where Has Alzheimer’s Research Gone Wrong? with Karl Herrup
Big Brains · 29m
34%Why Breeding Millions of Mosquitoes Could Help Save Lives, With Scott O'Neill
Big Brains · 30m
29%Why Shaming Other Countries Often Backfires, with Rochelle Terman
Big Brains · 33m
30%Can Trump Legally Be President?, with William Baude
Big Brains · 36m
65%What Our Hand Gestures Reveal About Our Thoughts, with Susan Goldin-Meadow
Big Brains · 26m
28%Psychedelics Without Hallucinations: A New Mental Health Treatment? with David E. Olson
Big Brains · 32m
36%The Science Of Happiness
Big Brains · 29m
31%Do We Really Have Free Will? With Robert Sapolsky
Big Brains · 34m
29%A Radical Solution To Address Climate Change, with David Keith
Big Brains · 33m
25%How PFAS “Forever Chemicals” Are Harming Our Health, with Linda Birnbaum
Big Brains · 29m
37%Are We Worse People Than We Used To Be? With Adam Mastroianni
Big Brains · 31m
27%Freakonomics’ Steven Levitt On The Secret To Making Tough Choices
Big Brains · 39m
20%Will Political Violence Destroy Our Democracy?, With Robert Pape
Big Brains · 28m
31%Defending Campus Free Speech In A Polarized Age, with Paul Alivisatos and Tom Ginsburg
Big Brains · 32m
24%Why The Secret To Health Lies In The Mind-body Connection, with Ellen Langer
Big Brains · 32m
30%Phonics Vs. Whole Word: The Science Of Reading, With Adrian Johns
Big Brains · 34m
19%How AI Is Transforming Scientific Research, With Rebecca Willett
Big Brains · 31m
19%How AI Could Change The Law
Big Brains · 27m
37%How AI Can Predict Future Scientific Discoveries
Big Brains · 29m
21%The Uncovered History of Space Travel & Its Privatized Future
Big Brains · 28m
30%The Health Costs of Air Pollution
Big Brains · 28m
23%How Your Brain Benefits From Music, With Larry Sherman
Big Brains · 29m
22%Magic words: Can What You Say Help You Get Your way? with Jonah Berger
Big Brains · 31m
28%Providing Basic Health Insurance For Every American, With Katherine Baicker
Big Brains · 31m
29%Why We Fight, With Christopher Blattman
Big Brains · 28m
21%The Hidden Truths About Sexuality And Gender In The Medieval World, with Roland Betancourt
Big Brains · 29m
26%How We Could Regrow Limbs And Organs, with Michael Levin
Big Brains · 28m
28%A Nobelist’s Controversial Approach To Solving Inequality, With James Heckman
Big Brains · 32m
27%How The Food Industry Created Today’s Obesity Crisis, With Marion Nestle
Big Brains · 31m
31%Why Your Gut Health Is So Important, With Cathryn Nagler And Eric Pamer
Big Brains · 34m
23%Why Mourning Is Essential To Our Well-Being, With Jonathan Lear
Big Brains · 25m
20%The History of Black Cinema Re-examined, With Jacqueline Stewart
Big Brains · 32m
34%The Scientific Secret To A Happy Life, With Marc Schulz
Big Brains · 29m
25%Unraveling Sleep’s Greatest Mysteries: The Day Tomorrow Began
Big Brains · 34m
29%Is The U.S. Headed Toward Another Civil War? Feat. William Howell
Big Brains · 30m
22%Follow Through On Next Year's Resolutions Using Science With Katy Milkman
Big Brains · 28m
31%Why Quantum Tech Will Change Our Future: The Day Tomorrow Began
Big Brains · 28m
24%Fighting Global Hunger Through Genetics With Chuan He
Big Brains · 23m
22%The Origins Of Civilization And The Future Of Archaeology: The Day Tomorrow Began
Big Brains · 35m
28%Can We Predict Your Capacity To Focus? With Monica Rosenberg
Big Brains · 27m
22%The 'Legendary' Discovery Of Black Holes: The Day Tomorrow Began
Big Brains · 35m
27%Celebrating Our 100th Episode
Big Brains · 17m
21%The Science Of Speech & Identity With Katherine Kinzler
Big Brains · 31m
26%Life’s Mysterious Origins With Jack Szostak
Big Brains · 22m
33%The Afterlife Of Mass Incarceration With Reuben Jonathan Miller
Big Brains · 36m
36%The Imbalance In Our Society With Raghuram Rajan
Big Brains · 25m
35%Does Welfare Reduce Crime? With Manasi Deshpande
Big Brains · 27m
35%The Crucial Race To Build A Better Battery With Shirley Meng
Big Brains · 26m
21%Do Animals Dream? With David M. Peña-Guzmán
Big Brains · 33m
24%Extreme Heat Waves: Why Are They Surging? with Noboru Nakamura
Big Brains · 22m
21%Why Air Pollution Is Cutting Years Off Our Lives, With Christa Hasenkopf And Anant Sudarshan
Big Brains · 28m
20%How Tax Dodging And Corporate Secrecy Found A Home In Delaware, With Hal Weitzman
Big Brains · 32m
37%Why Countries Choose War Over Peace, With Chris Blattman
Big Brains · 29m
70%How Death In America Is Changing With Shannon Lee Dawdy
Big Brains · 26m
36%Why We Need To Invest In Parents During A Child's Earliest Years, With Dana Suskind
Big Brains · 25m
24%The Troubling Rise Of Antibiotic-resistant Superbugs, With Christopher Murray
Big Brains · 23m
33%Is Scientific Progress Slowing? with James Evans
Big Brains · 29m
25%Could We Vaccinate Against Opioid Addiction? With Sandra Comer And Marco Pravetoni
Big Brains · 24m
20%The Man Who Fought To Sanction Putin And Russian Oligarchs, with Bill Browder
Big Brains · 31m
33%Why Big Ideas Fail To Scale—And How To Fix It With John List
Big Brains · 28m
24%Could Personalizing Laws Make Society More Just? With Omri Ben-Shahar
Big Brains · 26m
34%How To Stick To Your Resolutions, With Ayelet Fishbach
Big Brains · 28m
27%The Overlooked History Of Black Cinema, With Jacqueline Stewart
Big Brains · 31m
25%Engineering A Cure For Cancer With Melody Swartz & Jeffrey Hubbell
Big Brains · 26m
23%Confronting Gun Violence With Data, With Jens Ludwig
Big Brains · 39m
31%Best Of: Why Talking to Strangers Will Make You Happier With Nicholas Epley
Big Brains · 25m
26%Unlocking The Secrets Of Black Holes, With Andrea Ghez
Big Brains · 28m
19%Do Your Genes Determine Your Success In Life? With Kathryn Paige Harden
Big Brains · 29m
28%How The UN Aims To Save Humanity, With Chris Williams And Luis Bettencourt
Big Brains · 25m
33%Combating Our Global Water Crisis Using AI, with Junhong Chen
Big Brains · 25m
20%Revolutionizing Technology at the Nanoscale, with Paul Alivisatos
Big Brains · 26m
25%The Science Behind Forming Better Habits, With Katy Milkman
Big Brains · 27m
21%The Secret Nazi Past and Billionaire Future of U.S. Space Innovation with Jordan Bimm
Big Brains · 27m
28%How a Genetic Breakthrough Could Address Global Hunger
Big Brains · 22m
30%Introducing: Entitled
Big Brains · 41m
23%The Deadly Flaw In Our Judgment, With Cass Sunstein
Big Brains · 25m
20%A Scientist’s Beef With The Meat Industry, With Impossible Foods’ Pat Brown
Big Brains · 23m
54%A Surprising Economic Solution To Climate Change With Michael Greenstone
Big Brains · 25m
21%Solving The Biggest Mysteries Of Our Universe, With Dan Hooper
Big Brains · 29m
29%Why You’re Likely Paying An Unfair Share of Property Taxes, with Christopher Berry
Big Brains · 29m
24%Taking Aliens Seriously, with Avi Loeb
Big Brains · 32m
30%The ‘Five Horsemen of the Techpocalypse’ with Kara Swisher
Big Brains · 23m
20%Fighting Poverty And Pandemics, with Nobel Economist Michael Kremer
Big Brains · 31m
25%Why Life After Incarceration Is Just Another Prison, with Reuben Jonathan Miller
Big Brains · 36m
25%Anthony Fauci On What We Need To Get Over COVID-19
Big Brains · 28m
34%The Ethics of COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution, with Laurie Zoloth
Big Brains · 32m
32%The Doomsday Clock’s ‘Historic Wake-Up Call,’ With Rachel Bronson
Big Brains · 34m
26%Unraveling the Mystery of Life’s Origins on Earth, with Jack Szostak
Big Brains · 21m
27%The Urgent Need to Reinvest in American Research, with Barbara Snyder
Big Brains · 26m
26%Getting Out Of The Lab With John List
Big Brains · 27m
21%How Alternate Reality Games Are Changing The Real World with Patrick Jagoda and Kristen Schilt
Big Brains · 32m
23%The Science of Empathy, with Peggy Mason
Big Brains · 20m
24%Big Brains Presents: The "Capitalisn't" Podcast
Big Brains · 47m
33%What Remains Unanswered After The 2020 Election, with William Howell and Luigi Zingales
Big Brains · 34m
23%When Governments Share Their Secrets—And When They Don't, with Austin Carson
Big Brains · 28m
31%How We Can Fix a Fractured Supreme Court, with Geoffrey Stone
Big Brains · 25m
26%Correcting History: Native Americans Tell Their Own Stories
Big Brains · 36m
30%The Future of Voting And The 2020 Election, with Anthony Fowler
Big Brains · 24m
34%Why The Quantum Internet Could Change Everything, with David Awschalom
Big Brains · 25m
24%How Loneliness and Isolation Affect Your Health, with Prof. Linda Waite
Big Brains · 23m
31%The Way You Talk—And What It Says About You, with Prof. Katherine Kinzler
Big Brains · 30m
20%From LSD to Ecstasy, How Psychedelics Are Altering Therapy, with Prof. Harriet de Wit
Big Brains · 19m
20%How Can We Achieve Real Police Reform?
Big Brains · 30m
24%Why We're Obsessed With Conspiracy Theories
Big Brains · 27m
29%Black Lives Matter Protests: Hope for the Future?
Big Brains · 40m
29%What Historic Pandemics Could Teach Us About Coronavirus, with Ada Palmer
Big Brains · 29m
21%A Crisis Management Expert’s Advice on Handling Coronavirus
Big Brains · 27m
32%How Students and Schools Can Recover From Coronavirus, with Elaine Allensworth
Big Brains · 19m
30%Trump, Coronavirus and the Cost of Ineffective Government, With William Howell
Big Brains · 27m
29%How Coronavirus Is Exposing Our Racial Disparities, with Monica Peek
Big Brains · 17m
32%Coronavirus Shows Why We Need To Rethink Health Care, with Kate Baicker
Big Brains · 15m
20%What Rats Can Teach Us About Empathy and Racism, with Peggy Mason
Big Brains · 20m
23%Why the Coronavirus Could Send China’s Economy Back to the 1980s With Chang-Tai Hsieh
Big Brains · 18m
28%Why The Doomsday Clock Is Closer To Apocalypse Than Ever With Rachel Bronson
Big Brains · 25m
33%Vladimir Putin’s Number One Enemy With Bill Browder
Big Brains · 25m
34%How Google and Facebook Are Ruining Capitalism, with Luigi Zingales
Big Brains · 26m
36%How Quantum Technology Could Change Our Future With David Awschalom
Big Brains · 19m
20%The Myths Of Millennial Voters With Cathy Cohen
Big Brains · 20m
33%Why Some Nations Prosper and Others Fail, with James Robinson
Big Brains · 27m
23%The Hunt for Alien Life and Exoplanets, with David Charbonneau
Big Brains · 21m
31%Why Chasing The Good Life Is Holding Us Back With Lauren Berlant
Big Brains · 24m
29%Saving Our Cities By Studying A Million Neighborhoods With Luis Bettencourt
Big Brains · 23m
24%Why Talking to Strangers Will Make You Happier With Nicholas Epley
Big Brains · 24m
24%Leading Presidential Scholar Analyzes Trump Impeachment
Big Brains · 19m
31%The Politics of Archaeology In Iraq With Christopher Woods
Big Brains · 24m
19%Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg On Polarization, Discrimination and Her Favorite Dissent
Big Brains · 57m
23%Why Your Social Life is a Matter of Life and Death with Linda Waite
Big Brains · 22m
28%Revolutionizing Economics By Studying People In The Real World With John List
Big Brains · 28m
22%The Unknown History Of The White Power Movement With Kathleen Belew
Big Brains · 27m
34%The Missing Link In Evolution with Neil Shubin
Big Brains · 26m
35%Guest Show - No Jargon
Big Brains · 30m
32%Trump and the Changing Power of the Presidency with William Howell
Big Brains · 26m
31%How the Loss of Community Threatens Society With Raghuram Rajan
Big Brains · 23m
21%The Science of Conspiracy Theories And Political Polarization With Eric Oliver
Big Brains · 26m
28%A Modern Medical Miracle with Drs. Valluvan Jeevanandam and Talia Baker
Big Brains · 22m
21%An Archaeological Riddle In The Sahara With Paul Sereno
Big Brains · 26m
37%Tiny Creatures, Big Discoveries With Nipam Patel
Big Brains · 27m
29%The Hidden Dangers of Artificial Intelligence with Ben Zhao
Big Brains · 21m
34%Lessons From Our Country’s Largest School Closing with Eve L. Ewing
Big Brains · 26m
38%Simple Solutions To Address Social Issues with Harold Pollack
Big Brains · 21m
34%What We’re Getting Wrong About Millennials With Cathy Cohen
Big Brains · 20m
23%What Ripples in Space-Time Tell Us About the Universe with Daniel Holz
Big Brains · 22m
25%Vietnam and the Rise of the White Power Movement with Kathleen Belew
Big Brains · 27m
26%Climate Change’s Human Cost With Michael Greenstone
Big Brains · 22m
25%David Axelrod on Why ‘Democracy is Messy’ and the Future of Politics
Big Brains · 25m
29%How Talk Builds Babies’ Brains with Dana Suskind
Big Brains · 21m
24%What Makes Us Uniquely Human with Neuroscientist Bobby Kasthuri
Big Brains · 24m
75%From Sci-Fi to Reality, Quantum Technology with David Awschalom
Big Brains · 21m
20%Future of Higher Education and College Access with Robert J. Zimmer
Big Brains · 34m
24%The Hidden Abuse of U.S. Immigration with Claudia Flores
Big Brains · 18m
30%SCOTUS Nears Unimaginable Era with Geoffrey Stone
Big Brains · 24m
28%Special University of Chicago Convocation Podcast featuring Valerie Jarrett and Marianne Bertrand
Big Brains · 41m
34%Special University of Chicago Convocation Podcast with Student Speaker Andrea Popova
Big Brains · 22m
23%Economist’s Journey to the Nobel with Richard Thaler
Big Brains · 44m
22%Future of Energy Innovation with Michael Polsky
Big Brains · 23m
26%The Expanding Universe with Wendy Freedman
Big Brains · 23m
21%Nature’s Design Secrets with Rama Ranganathan
Big Brains · 25m
24%Mind of a Virtuoso Composer with Augusta Read Thomas
Big Brains · 25m
23%Myths of U.S. Health Care with Katherine Baicker
Big Brains · 26m
29%Discovering the Missing Link with Neil Shubin
Big Brains · 27m
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