If GLP-1 Drugs Are Good for Everything, Should We All Be on Them?
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To read more of Derek's reporting on GLP-1 drugs, you can subscribe to his Substack here. GLP-1 dr...
Charlie Kirk's Killing and America's Age of "Salad-Bar Extremism"
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the past few years, we have witnessed a frightening spiral of political violence. We’ve seen th...
America in the Age of Diagnosis
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
America is sicker than ever. That’s what the data says, anyway. Psychological and psychiatric dia...
Trumponomics Explained, Part 2: The Enshittification of American Power
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the second of our two-episode series on Donald Trump, economics, and power, we talk to Henry Farr...
What Is Trumponomics? Part 1: How Donald Trump Is Breaking American Capitalism
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today is the first of two interviews this week trying to answer this question: What is Trumponomics?...
The Healthiest "Super-Agers" Have One Thing in Common, According to a 25-Year Study
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Memory is the glue of life. Without it, our focus softens, our experience of the world blurs, and ou...
Plain History: How the Transcontinental Railroads Built the Modern World
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s pod is about the economic story of the moment. It’s about new technology that supporters...
The Modern World Is Changing America’s Personality For the Worse
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
According to analysis by Financial Times writer John Burn-Murdoch, something extraordinary has hap...
Will AI Usher In the End of Deep Thinking?
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis published the latest GDP report. It contained a startling...
The New Geography of Housing in America
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe to Derek’s new Substack. In 1991, the median age of first-time homebuyers was 28. Now ...
The Demise of Late-Night TV Is an Omen for American Culture
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Even before the cancellation of 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,' the business of comedy was cha...
If Trump’s Economic Ideas Are So Bad, Why Isn’t the U.S. Economy Doing Much Worse?
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sign up for Derek's Substack here. Harvard economist Jason Furman returns to the show to answer two...
Fertility Needs a Scientific Revolution
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Couples are having kids much later in their lives. As young people spend more of their 20s and 30s g...
The Mysterious Rise of Major Injuries in Professional Sports
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sign up for the Derek Thompson newsletter. In Game 7 of this year's NBA Finals, Indiana Pacers guar...
How Abundance Won in California
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The California housing crisis is a disaster and an emergency. Housing construction per capita has st...
What's Next for the Middle East: War, Peace, or Revolution?
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sign up for Derek Thompson's Substack here! Donald Trump rose to power in the Republican Party as a...
NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani on Abundance, Socialism, and How to Change a Mind
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Before today’s show, a personal announcement. After almost 17 years at The Atlantic, I have just o...
A Grand, Unified Theory of Why Americans Are So Unhealthy
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Americans are unusually overweight and chronically ill compared to similarly rich countries. This ep...
Why Are Americans So Unhealthy? Part I: Is Ultra-Processed Food Killing Us?
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Americans die younger and faster than the residents of almost every other rich country. Why? There's...
What Experts Really Think About Smartphones and Mental Health
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I'm very concerned about the relationship between smartphone use and America's mental health crisis....
Plain History: How Adolf Hitler Destroyed German Democracy in Six Months
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In November 1932, Germany was a republic. By the spring of 1933, it was a dictatorship. How did it a...
Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill Is Great for the "Stealthy Wealthy"
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The tax and spending bill passed by House Republicans last week is the sort of bill that does so m...
The Gene-Editing Breakthrough That Saved a Baby’s Life
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, Kyle and Nicole Muldoon welcomed their baby KJ into the world. Almost immediately, doctor...
The Rules of Attraction and the Psychology of Romance
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Psychology is hard, even when you’re just trying to understand what’s going on with one impossib...
Plain History: How Norman Borlaug Stopped the Apocalypse
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In every generation, important people predict that the end is near and the apocalypse is coming. In ...
Why Do Americans Pay So Much for Drugs?
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order telling drugmakers to slash the price...
Is Pop Culture Worse Than Ever?
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In music, billion-dollar investments in old catalogues are squeezing out new music. In film, Hollywo...
The Job Market for Young Grads Is Flashing Red
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, the unemployment rate for recent college grads surged to nearly 6 percent. Compared to t...
Megapod: The Crisis in American Science
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we are witnessing an unprecedented assault on American science. Thousands of workers have bee...
Is This the Chinese Century?
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the last few weeks, for the first time in my life, I’ve seriously thought about the 21st centur...
What Americans Get Wrong About ADHD
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1937, a Rhode Island psychiatrist named Charles Bradley ran an experiment on 30 child patients wh...
An Astrophysicist Explains the "Strongest Evidence Yet" of Alien Life
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, a team of astrophysicists from the University of Cambridge announced that they had discov...
A Toy Manufacturer Explains How Trump’s Tariffs Could Crush His Industry
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the past three weeks, we've spoken to economists about the tariffs. We’ve spoken to a historian...
Why America Will Lose Its Trade War With China
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. is in the opening innings of a full-blown trade war with China. What does that actually mea...
Plain History: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the Great Depression
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 1920s and the 2020s share a special kinship. One hundred years ago, the U.S. was grappling with ...
Trump’s Trade War Is Like Nothing America’s Ever Seen
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump's tariff plan has set global markets on fire. What are they for? What are they trying t...
Trump’s Plan to Smash the Global Economic Order
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump's second term has been a breakneck whirlwind: tariffs announced, tariffs unannounced, t...
Plain History: The Gilded Age
24 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Corruption. Class wars. Technological splendor. The dawn of a new age of business and government. Ro...
ABUNDANCE! With Ezra Klein
Mon, 17 Mar
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Donald Trump is serving up a scarcity agenda to America. He and the White House say we don’t have ...
ABUNDANCE! With Ezra Klein
17 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump is serving up a scarcity agenda to America. He and the White House say we don’t have ...
How Gen Z Sees the World
Wed, 12 Mar
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Generation Z, which was born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, has a unique economic, poli...
How Gen Z Sees the World
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Generation Z, which was born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, has a unique economic, poli...
Can a Vaccine Cure the World’s Deadliest Cancer?
Fri, 07 Mar
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Cancer is not a singular disease but a category of hundreds, even thousands, of rare diseases with d...
Can a Vaccine Cure the World’s Deadliest Cancer?
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cancer is not a singular disease but a category of hundreds, even thousands, of rare diseases with d...
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Tue, 04 Mar 2025 11:00:00 -0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Artificial intelligence tools for musicians are getting eerily good, very fast. Their work can be ma...
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence tools for musicians are getting eerily good, very fast. Their work can be ma...
The End of Reading
Fri, 28 Feb
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Something alarming is happening with reading in America. Leisure reading by some accounts has declin...
The End of Reading
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Something alarming is happening with reading in America. Leisure reading by some accounts has declin...
'How Progressives Froze the American Dream' (Live)
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you had to describe the U.S. economy at the moment, I think you could do worse than the word stu...
Plain History: The Astonishingly Successful Presidency of James K. Polk
Fri, 21 Feb
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Who is the most successful president in American history? George Washington secured American indepen...
Plain History: The Astonishingly Successful Presidency of James K. Polk
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who is the most successful president in American history? George Washington secured American indepen...
The Trump-Musk Doctrine: F-ck Around and Find Out
Tue, 18 Feb 2025 11:00:00 -0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
For the past month, chaos and confusion have gripped Washington and the federal government. Elon Mus...
The Trump-Musk Doctrine: F-ck Around and Find Out
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For the past month, chaos and confusion have gripped Washington and the federal government. Elon Mus...
Is There a Scientific Case for Believing in God?
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is a conversation I've wanted to have for a long time. It's about the decline of religion in Am...
Fraud, Scandal, and Failure in the Fight Against Alzheimer's Disease
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why is it so hard to find a cure for Alzheimer’s? A simple answer is that the brain and its disord...
The Energy Story of the Moment: The Unstoppable Rise of Solar Vs. the Unmovable Demand for Global Fossil Fuels
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fans of green energy like me face some inconvenient truths about the global energy picture. First, c...
The 5 Types of Wealth
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Wealth isn’t just about financial security, according to today’s guest, Sahil Bloom. It’s abou...
Are GLP-1 Drugs "the Greatest Medical Breakthrough of the 21st Century"?
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the past few years, we've learned that GLP-1 drugs don’t just help with diabetes or increase pe...
Tech Talk: AI Supremacy, TikTok’s Fate, and Crypto Decadence
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, tech talk with an old friend of the pod, Kevin Roose of The New York Times, who is also host ...
Plain History Volume 1: Who Killed President James Garfield?
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first episode of a little experiment we’re trying this year, a podcast within a podcas...
What's the Truth About Alcohol, Cancer, and Your Health?
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today's episode has been a long time coming. For years, more scientists and health influencers have ...
The L.A. Fires: How They Happened, Climate Change’s Role, and What the City Must Do Now
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With so many confusing narratives unfolding around a fire that is still raging out of control, I wan...
‘The Anti-Social Century’: America’s Epidemic of Solitude—and How to Fix It
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My new feature for The Atlantic magazine is called "The Anti-Social Century." It's a long articl...
The Big 2025 Economy Forecast: AI and Big Tech, Nuclear’s Renaissance, Trump vs. China, and What’s Eating Europe?
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Happy new year! And what better way to celebrate the freshly torn calendar page than by welcoming on...
The Year's Biggest Breakthroughs in Science and Tech (Feat.: OK, But Seriously, What Is Quantum Computing?)
31 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our final episode of the year is also my favorite annual tradition: conversations with scientists ab...
A Mysterious Health Wave Is Breaking Out Across the U.S.
27 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do Americans die younger than citizens of other rich countries? The most important reason is tha...
The Productivity Paradox: Why Less Is More With Oliver Burkeman
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So, here’s a scenario: It’s Monday. And you open up whatever calendar or planner or to-do list y...
Why American Health Care Is a "Broken System"
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot to death outside a hotel in Manhattan by a y...
Is Crypto Entering a New Golden Age—or Just a New Era of Failed Promises?
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The crypto industry seems poised for a new golden age. But what exactly does that mean? Who would be...
Megapod: Why Is There So Much BS in Psychology?
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the last decade, several major findings in social psychology have turned out to be hogwash—or, ...
Vaccine Conspiracies, Fluoride Myths, and America’s Broken Public-Health Discourse
22 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Oster, professor of economics at Brown University, joins the show to talk about Robert F. Kenn...
The Self-Driving Revolution Is Real—and It Could Be Spectacular
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What would a world of self-driven cars look like? How would it change shopping, transportation, and ...
How Trump Won: Young Men’s Red Wave, the Blue-City Flop, and the Incumbency Graveyard
08 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Derek shares his big-picture theory for Trump's victory. Then, Republican pollster Kristen Soltis An...
How to Watch Election Night Without Falling for Conspiracy Theories or False Hope
04 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s guest (our final preelection guest) is David Wasserman, political analyst with the Cook Po...
This Small Pennsylvania Town Explains the 2024 Election
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, a close look at the history of a Pennsylvania town and how that history contains within it th...
Why Is Every Recent Presidential Election So Close?
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
My favorite sort of social phenomenon is something that seems normal to modern eyes that is actually...
Is Radical Human Life Extension Possible?
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1900, the average US life expectancy was 47 years old. That's the current age of Tom Brady, Ryan ...
America's Young Men Are Falling Behind—and Shifting Right
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today: the state of men and what's really happening in the gender divide in politics. Many young men...
Is the Middle East on the Verge of All-Out War?
04 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Since October 7, 2023, many have feared that the conflict between Israel and Hamas would bloom into ...
The Surprising Science of Cynicism (Plus: The Policy Paradox of the 2024 Election)
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Derek shares his biggest frustrations about the 2024 election, like the lack of a policy debate an...
A Sports Mystery: What Happened to the NFL Quarterback?
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, a mystery about what some people consider the most important position in sports: What the hel...
How AI Could Help Us Discover Miracle Drugs
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We may be on the cusp of a revolution in medicine, thanks to tools like AlphaFold, the technology fo...
The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories
06 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Are conspiracy theories more popular than ever? Are Americans more conspiratorial than ever? Are con...
"Exercise May Be the Single Most Potent Medical Intervention Ever Known"
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Exercise is a conundrum. On the one hand, physical activity is clearly one of the best interventions...
Democrats Are Euphoric. But This Election Is Much Closer Than They Think.
23 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Derek offers a short but sweet review of the Democratic National Convention, the science of post-con...
The Four Biggest Myths About Political Persuasion
16 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today's episode is about how we change our minds—and what political science tells us about the bes...
How to Be Happy and the Science of Cognitive Time Travel
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Santos is a superstar in the crowded field of happiness research. She is a cognitive scientis...
Market Meltdown FAQ: Recession Fears, Global Stock Wipeout, and the Case for Calm
05 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a special emergency-ish episode, Bloomberg's Conor Sen joins the show to discuss a buffet of econ...
Why Are Robocalls So Hard to Stop? (Plus: Kamala and the Gender Wars.)
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Derek offers his thoughts on Kamala Harris, the new 2024 reality, and gender polarization in the "bo...
Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Progressives?
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is a general rule of thumb that richer societies are happier societies. This is true across count...
Harsh Truths About 2024 and the Future of the U.S. Economy
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On today's episode: the state of American politics and the future of America's economy. Derek discus...
"The Weirdest Housing Market in Recent History"
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Skyrocketing rates, shrinking affordability: The U.S. housing market is a mess. It's also a bit of a...
"People Feel Lied To": The White House, the Media, and the Joe Biden Blame Game
05 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance has created a crisis for the Democratic Party and a set of...
Whatever Happened to Serial Killers?
28 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the first five decades of the 20th century, the number of serial killers in the U.S. remained at ...
The Radical Cultural Shift Behind America's Declining Birth Rate
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We've done several podcasts on America's declining fertility rate, and why South Korea has the lowes...
Breathing Is Easy. But We’re Doing It Wrong.
14 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is about the science of breathing—from the evolution of our sinuses and palate, ...
The News Media’s Dangerous Addiction to ‘Fake Facts’
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What do most people not understand about the news media? I would say two things. First: The most imp...
Microplastics Are Everywhere. How Dangerous Are They?
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Plastic is a life-saving technology. Plastic medical equipment like disposable syringes and IV bags ...
Why the New NBA Deal Is So Weird. Plus, How Sports Rights Actually Work.
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In an age of cults, sports are the last gasp of the monoculture—the last remnant of the 20th centu...
What America’s Bold New Economic Experiment Is Missing
24 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The news media is very good at focusing on points of disagreement in our politics. Wherever Democrat...