24. The Power of Poop

In blue cities across the country, unions and politicians want to ban self-driving cars. In this episode from the Search Engine podcast, PJ Vogt visits Boston to sort the facts from the propaganda. (Part two of a two-part series.) SOURCES: Carl Richardson, ADA coordinator for the ... Show More

How a secret project at Google led to driverless cars on American roads. Freakonomics Radio shares a story from our friends at Search Engine. (Part one of a two-part series.) SOURCES: Alex Davies, author of Driven: The Race To Create the Autonomous Car. Chris Urmson, co-founder a ... Show More

A ruthless (and ruthlessly efficient) industry is using digital tools to supercharge one of the world’s oldest behaviors. We look at how the industry works, and ask the scam-fighters what they’re doing about it. SOURCES: Kati Daffan, former assistant director at the Federal Trade ... Show More

The idea that we aren’t the first advanced civilization to live on Earth sounds like a fringe theory, but it raises a good question: How can we be so sure that a civilization didn’t arise and die on Earth so long ago that any trace of it has been erased?See omnystudio.com/listene ... Show More

There are over 7 billion people living on the earth right now. Tens of millions are born and die each year. Every single one of us leaves signs of our existence in the air, water, soil -- even space.But these signs won't last forever. Our buildings will be gone in a few hundred y ... Show More

Most of us agree that pain is part of life, that none of us can escape it, and that death comes for all of us in the end. And yet many of us feel that life is worth it; that the pleasure of life outweighs the suffering. Anti-natalist philosophy takes a different view. The anti-na ... Show More

Humans’ first attempt at civilization went pretty well for the first thousand years. Important stuff like the wheel, writing, math, art, and diplomacy came out of it. But then, in the blink of an historical eye, it all mysteriously failed. What happened?See omnystudio.com/listene ... Show More

What happens when teenagers are shipwrecked on a deserted island? Can you find the fingerprint of God in warzones? Why was the concept of zero so revolutionary for humanity? A year into a pandemic that has completely upended the lives of people around the world, we look at how we ... Show More

‏People’s emotions and feelings are valid. Even if somehow you did not go through what they went through. We have no right to belittle anyone’s experiences. We can only be there for them. If we can’t show empathy to someone who is going through something bad; what kind of people ... Show More

<p>From dumping raw sewage into rivers to littering the streets with our trash, humans don’t have a great track record when it comes to dealing with our waste. It’s something that CrowdScience listener and civil engineer Marc has noticed: he wonders if humans are particularly pro ... Show More

Is it unethical to eat animals? Can you be a good person if you have spare money and don’t give any of it to charity? What is the moral response to the war in Ukraine? Nuala McGovern is in Los Angeles to talk to Australian Philosopher and Berggruen Prize winner Prof Peter Singer, ... Show More