TrueSciPhi

Podcast Profile: Big Brains

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212 episodes
2018 to 2026
Median: 28 minutes
Collection: SciPhi-Adjacent

Description (podcaster-provided):

Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):

This podcast features long-form conversations with researchers and other subject-matter experts about work that is reshaping how we understand people, health, technology, and the wider world. Episodes generally translate complex scholarship into accessible explanations, often pairing a clear account of the underlying science or evidence with discussion of real-world implications, ethical tensions, and what remains unknown.

A major throughline is the human mind and behavior. The show frequently examines how we form a sense of self, why people get “stuck” and how behavior changes, how language influences decisions, what makes experiences memorable, and how grief affects both psychology and physiology. It also revisits contested ideas in mental health and cognition, including debates about psychiatric labels, the challenges of treating brain disorders, and how neurodegenerative diseases can alter personality and social behavior. Related conversations explore wellbeing more broadly, such as different dimensions of a “good life,” the cognitive effects of nature exposure, and research on mindfulness and mind–body interactions.

Another recurring focus is emerging biomedical and bioengineering innovation. Topics include advances in imaging and sensing (from next-generation MRI to quantum and biologically inspired sensors), bioelectronics and bioelectricity as tools for healing and regeneration, the promise and limits of pharmaceuticals and drug regulation, and public health questions such as vaccine hesitancy, alcohol risk, microplastics exposure, and the potential for future fungal outbreaks. Aging and longevity research appears often, spanning cellular mechanisms, exceptional cognitive aging, and what animal studies can reveal about lifespan and healthspan.

Technology and society is a third pillar. The podcast explores artificial intelligence’s impact in domains like medicine, law, art, and scientific discovery, including concerns about “human-like” AI, the governance of rapidly advancing models, and tools designed to protect creative work from AI scraping. Social science episodes address inequality and policy-relevant issues—parenting and child development, fertility and non-motherhood, housing and race, gun violence prevention, youth political attitudes, and how genetics may intersect with social outcomes.

Finally, the show regularly turns outward to big-picture science, including planetary habitability, the search for life beyond Earth, Mars’s past and potential futures, disputed measurements of the universe’s expansion, and the science of death and resuscitation.

Episodes:

Can You Improve Your Working Memory and Attention? with Edward Awh 2026-Feb-05 35 minutes

Why Knowing Your True Self Is So Difficult, with Eric Oliver 2026-Jan-22 31 minutes

The Breakthrough Quantum Sensor That Sees Inside Your Cells, with Peter Maurer 2026-Jan-08 35 minutes

How to Manifest Your Destiny with the Late James Doty 2025-Dec-29 31 minutes

What Makes Music Go Viral—From AI to Taylor Swift 2025-Dec-11 35 minutes

How Wearable Tech Will Heighten Our Senses and Abilities, with Pedro Lopes 2025-Nov-24 38 minutes

Why Are More Women Saying No To Having Kids? With Peggy O'Donnell Heffington 2025-Nov-13 32 minutes

How Full-Body MRIs Could Predict Your Long-Term Health, with Daniel Sodickson 2025-Oct-30 34 minutes

Is There Such A Thing As A Psychopath? 2025-Oct-16 35 minutes

Why We Haven’t Solved Brain Disorders—And How To Fix It, with Nicole Rust 2025-Oct-02 36 minutes

Life On Mars: Is It Possible For Humans? with Edwin Kite 2025-Sep-19 30 minutes

How To Use Nature To Restore Your Focus, with Marc Berman 2025-Sep-04 32 minutes

Could Plants Unlock Quantum Medicine’s Potential? with Greg Engel 2025-Aug-21 25 minutes

How Microplastics Are Invading Our Bodies, with Matthew Campen 2025-Aug-07 28 minutes

Why We Get Stuck—And How to Finally Move Forward 2025-Jul-24 34 minutes

Inside the AI Debate: Hope, Hype, Or Harm? A Big Brains Panel Weighs In 2025-Jul-10 47 minutes

Are Your Medications Safe And Effective?, with Jerry Avorn 2025-Jun-26 36 minutes

Are We Making AI Too Human?, with James Evans 2025-Jun-12 31 minutes

Inside The Disease That Changes Your Personality, with Bruce Miller 2025-May-29 26 minutes

Meet The ‘Planet Hunter’ Searching For Alien Life, with Jacob Bean 2025-May-15 34 minutes

How To Stop Gun Violence Before It Starts, with Jens Ludwig 2025-May-01 30 minutes

Can Your DNA Predict Your Future?, with Dalton Conley 2025-Apr-17 34 minutes

Can You Really Die of a Broken Heart? The Hidden Dangers of Grief, with Mary Frances O'Connor 2025-Apr-03 31 minutes

The Science Behind Raising Successful Kids, with Ariel Kalil 2025-Mar-20 31 minutes

Do Animals Understand Death?, with Susana Monsó 2025-Mar-06 32 minutes

Why Measles Is Resurging—And The Rise Of Vaccine Hesitancy, with Adam Ratner 2025-Feb-20 35 minutes

The Little-Known Secrets To A Good Life, with Shigehiro Oishi 2025-Feb-06 33 minutes

How Bioelectronics Could Heal Our Bodies And Minds, with Bozhi Tian 2025-Jan-23 29 minutes

Could A Fungal Pandemic Be “The Last of Us?", with Arturo Casadevall 2025-Jan-09 27 minutes

The "Magic Words" That Turn Resolutions Into Reality 2025-Jan-02 32 minutes

What’s The Truth About Alcohol’s Benefits And Risks? with Tim Stockwell 2024-Dec-19 33 minutes

What Happens When We Die? with Sam Parnia 2024-Dec-05 30 minutes

The Illusion of Moral Decline 2024-Nov-21 32 minutes

Can We Predict The Unpredictable? with J. Doyne Farmer 2024-Nov-14 33 minutes

Unlocking The Secrets Of ‘SuperAgers’, with Emily Rogalski 2024-Oct-31 22 minutes

2024 Nobel Laureate Explains What Makes Countries Fail Or Succeed, with James A. Robinson 2024-Oct-17 29 minutes

Why Can’t Scientists Agree On The Age Of The Universe? with Wendy Freedman 2024-Oct-03 24 minutes

What Are We Getting Wrong About Young Voters?, with Cathy Cohen 2024-Sep-19 28 minutes

Why Are More Women Saying No To Having Kids? With Peggy O'Donnell Heffington 2024-Sep-05 32 minutes

How Homeownership Shaped Race In America, with Adrienne Brown 2024-Aug-22 27 minutes

Fighting Back Against AI Piracy, with Ben Zhao and Heather Zheng 2024-Aug-08 28 minutes

The Bioelectric Future of Regenerative Medicine 2024-Jul-25 28 minutes

Is Mindfulness The Secret To Health? 2024-Jul-11 33 minutes

Feeling Stuck? Here’s How To Achieve a Breakthrough, with Adam Alter 2024-Jun-27 33 minutes

What Makes Something Memorable (or Forgettable?) with Wilma Bainbridge 2024-Jun-13 26 minutes

Learning To Speak To Whales Using AI, with David Gruber 2024-May-30 26 minutes

Storm Warning: Why Hurricanes Are Growing Beyond Measure, with Michael Wehner 2024-May-16 27 minutes

How To Manifest Your Future Using Neuroscience, with James Doty 2024-May-02 31 minutes

Why We Die—And How We Can Live Longer, with Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan 2024-Apr-18 32 minutes

What Dogs Are Teaching Us About Aging, with Daniel Promislow 2024-Apr-04 32 minutes

Where Has Alzheimer’s Research Gone Wrong? with Karl Herrup 2024-Mar-21 29 minutes

Why Breeding Millions of Mosquitoes Could Help Save Lives, With Scott O'Neill 2024-Mar-07 30 minutes

Why Shaming Other Countries Often Backfires, with Rochelle Terman 2024-Feb-22 33 minutes

Can Trump Legally Be President?, with William Baude 2024-Feb-06 36 minutes

What Our Hand Gestures Reveal About Our Thoughts, with Susan Goldin-Meadow 2024-Jan-25 26 minutes

Psychedelics Without Hallucinations: A New Mental Health Treatment? with David E. Olson 2024-Jan-11 32 minutes

The Science Of Happiness 2023-Dec-28 29 minutes

Do We Really Have Free Will? With Robert Sapolsky 2023-Dec-14 34 minutes

A Radical Solution To Address Climate Change, with David Keith 2023-Nov-30 33 minutes

How PFAS “Forever Chemicals” Are Harming Our Health, with Linda Birnbaum 2023-Nov-16 29 minutes

Are We Worse People Than We Used To Be? With Adam Mastroianni 2023-Nov-02 31 minutes

Freakonomics’ Steven Levitt On The Secret To Making Tough Choices 2023-Oct-19 39 minutes

Will Political Violence Destroy Our Democracy?, With Robert Pape 2023-Oct-05 28 minutes

Defending Campus Free Speech In A Polarized Age, with Paul Alivisatos and Tom Ginsburg 2023-Sep-22 32 minutes

Why The Secret To Health Lies In The Mind-body Connection, with Ellen Langer 2023-Sep-07 32 minutes

Phonics Vs. Whole Word: The Science Of Reading, With Adrian Johns 2023-Aug-24 34 minutes

How AI Is Transforming Scientific Research, With Rebecca Willett 2023-Aug-10 31 minutes

How AI Could Change The Law 2023-Jul-27 27 minutes

How AI Can Predict Future Scientific Discoveries 2023-Jul-20 29 minutes

The Uncovered History of Space Travel & Its Privatized Future 2023-Jul-13 28 minutes

The Health Costs of Air Pollution 2023-Jul-06 28 minutes

How Your Brain Benefits From Music, With Larry Sherman 2023-Jun-29 29 minutes

Magic words: Can What You Say Help You Get Your way? with Jonah Berger 2023-Jun-15 31 minutes

Providing Basic Health Insurance For Every American, With Katherine Baicker 2023-Jun-01 31 minutes

Why We Fight, With Christopher Blattman 2023-May-25 28 minutes

The Hidden Truths About Sexuality And Gender In The Medieval World, with Roland Betancourt 2023-May-11 29 minutes

How We Could Regrow Limbs And Organs, with Michael Levin 2023-Apr-27 28 minutes

A Nobelist’s Controversial Approach To Solving Inequality, With James Heckman 2023-Apr-13 32 minutes

How The Food Industry Created Today’s Obesity Crisis, With Marion Nestle 2023-Mar-30 31 minutes

Why Your Gut Health Is So Important, With Cathryn Nagler And Eric Pamer 2023-Mar-16 34 minutes

Why Mourning Is Essential To Our Well-Being, With Jonathan Lear 2023-Mar-02 25 minutes

The History of Black Cinema Re-examined, With Jacqueline Stewart 2023-Feb-16 32 minutes

The Scientific Secret To A Happy Life, With Marc Schulz 2023-Feb-02 29 minutes

Unraveling Sleep’s Greatest Mysteries: The Day Tomorrow Began 2023-Jan-19 34 minutes

Is The U.S. Headed Toward Another Civil War? Feat. William Howell 2023-Jan-05 30 minutes

Follow Through On Next Year's Resolutions Using Science With Katy Milkman 2022-Dec-22 28 minutes

Why Quantum Tech Will Change Our Future: The Day Tomorrow Began 2022-Dec-08 28 minutes

Fighting Global Hunger Through Genetics With Chuan He 2022-Nov-24 23 minutes

The Origins Of Civilization And The Future Of Archaeology: The Day Tomorrow Began 2022-Nov-10 35 minutes

Can We Predict Your Capacity To Focus? With Monica Rosenberg 2022-Oct-28 27 minutes

The 'Legendary' Discovery Of Black Holes: The Day Tomorrow Began 2022-Oct-13 35 minutes

Celebrating Our 100th Episode 2022-Sep-29 17 minutes

The Science Of Speech & Identity With Katherine Kinzler 2022-Sep-22 31 minutes

Life’s Mysterious Origins With Jack Szostak 2022-Sep-15 22 minutes

The Afterlife Of Mass Incarceration With Reuben Jonathan Miller 2022-Sep-08 36 minutes

The Imbalance In Our Society With Raghuram Rajan 2022-Sep-01 25 minutes

Does Welfare Reduce Crime? With Manasi Deshpande 2022-Aug-18 27 minutes

The Crucial Race To Build A Better Battery With Shirley Meng 2022-Aug-04 26 minutes

Do Animals Dream? With David M. Peña-Guzmán 2022-Jul-21 33 minutes

Extreme Heat Waves: Why Are They Surging? with Noboru Nakamura 2022-Jul-07 22 minutes

Why Air Pollution Is Cutting Years Off Our Lives, With Christa Hasenkopf And Anant Sudarshan 2022-Jun-23 28 minutes

How Tax Dodging And Corporate Secrecy Found A Home In Delaware, With Hal Weitzman 2022-Jun-09 32 minutes

Why Countries Choose War Over Peace, With Chris Blattman 2022-May-26 29 minutes

How Death In America Is Changing With Shannon Lee Dawdy 2022-May-12 26 minutes

Why We Need To Invest In Parents During A Child's Earliest Years, With Dana Suskind 2022-Apr-28 25 minutes

The Troubling Rise Of Antibiotic-resistant Superbugs, With Christopher Murray 2022-Apr-14 23 minutes

Is Scientific Progress Slowing? with James Evans 2022-Mar-31 29 minutes

Could We Vaccinate Against Opioid Addiction? With Sandra Comer And Marco Pravetoni 2022-Mar-17 24 minutes

The Man Who Fought To Sanction Putin And Russian Oligarchs, with Bill Browder 2022-Mar-02 31 minutes

Why Big Ideas Fail To Scale—And How To Fix It With John List 2022-Feb-17 28 minutes

Could Personalizing Laws Make Society More Just? With Omri Ben-Shahar 2022-Feb-03 26 minutes

How To Stick To Your Resolutions, With Ayelet Fishbach 2022-Jan-20 28 minutes

The Overlooked History Of Black Cinema, With Jacqueline Stewart 2022-Jan-06 31 minutes

Engineering A Cure For Cancer With Melody Swartz & Jeffrey Hubbell 2021-Dec-23 26 minutes

Confronting Gun Violence With Data, With Jens Ludwig 2021-Dec-09 39 minutes

Best Of: Why Talking to Strangers Will Make You Happier With Nicholas Epley 2021-Dec-02 25 minutes

Unlocking The Secrets Of Black Holes, With Andrea Ghez 2021-Nov-18 28 minutes

Do Your Genes Determine Your Success In Life? With Kathryn Paige Harden 2021-Nov-04 29 minutes

How The UN Aims To Save Humanity, With Chris Williams And Luis Bettencourt 2021-Oct-21 25 minutes

Combating Our Global Water Crisis Using AI, with Junhong Chen 2021-Oct-07 25 minutes

Revolutionizing Technology at the Nanoscale, with Paul Alivisatos 2021-Sep-23 26 minutes

The Science Behind Forming Better Habits, With Katy Milkman 2021-Sep-09 27 minutes

The Secret Nazi Past and Billionaire Future of U.S. Space Innovation with Jordan Bimm 2021-Aug-19 27 minutes

How a Genetic Breakthrough Could Address Global Hunger 2021-Aug-05 22 minutes

Introducing: Entitled 2021-Jul-29 41 minutes

The Deadly Flaw In Our Judgment, With Cass Sunstein 2021-Jul-15 25 minutes

A Scientist’s Beef With The Meat Industry, With Impossible Foods’ Pat Brown 2021-Jul-01 23 minutes

A Surprising Economic Solution To Climate Change With Michael Greenstone 2021-Jun-17 25 minutes

Solving The Biggest Mysteries Of Our Universe, With Dan Hooper 2021-Jun-03 29 minutes

Why You’re Likely Paying An Unfair Share of Property Taxes, with Christopher Berry 2021-May-20 29 minutes

Taking Aliens Seriously, with Avi Loeb 2021-May-06 32 minutes

The ‘Five Horsemen of the Techpocalypse’ with Kara Swisher 2021-Apr-22 23 minutes

Fighting Poverty And Pandemics, with Nobel Economist Michael Kremer 2021-Apr-08 31 minutes

Why Life After Incarceration Is Just Another Prison, with Reuben Jonathan Miller 2021-Mar-25 36 minutes

Anthony Fauci On What We Need To Get Over COVID-19 2021-Mar-08 28 minutes

The Ethics of COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution, with Laurie Zoloth 2021-Feb-25 32 minutes

The Doomsday Clock’s ‘Historic Wake-Up Call,’ With Rachel Bronson 2021-Feb-11 34 minutes

Unraveling the Mystery of Life’s Origins on Earth, with Jack Szostak 2021-Jan-28 21 minutes

The Urgent Need to Reinvest in American Research, with Barbara Snyder 2021-Jan-14 26 minutes

Getting Out Of The Lab With John List 2020-Dec-22 27 minutes

How Alternate Reality Games Are Changing The Real World with Patrick Jagoda and Kristen Schilt 2020-Dec-10 32 minutes

The Science of Empathy, with Peggy Mason 2020-Nov-25 20 minutes

Big Brains Presents: The "Capitalisn't" Podcast 2020-Nov-20 47 minutes

What Remains Unanswered After The 2020 Election, with William Howell and Luigi Zingales 2020-Nov-11 34 minutes

When Governments Share Their Secrets—And When They Don't, with Austin Carson 2020-Oct-29 28 minutes

How We Can Fix a Fractured Supreme Court, with Geoffrey Stone 2020-Oct-15 25 minutes

Correcting History: Native Americans Tell Their Own Stories 2020-Oct-01 36 minutes

The Future of Voting And The 2020 Election, with Anthony Fowler 2020-Sep-17 24 minutes

Why The Quantum Internet Could Change Everything, with David Awschalom 2020-Sep-03 25 minutes

How Loneliness and Isolation Affect Your Health, with Prof. Linda Waite 2020-Aug-27 23 minutes

The Way You Talk—And What It Says About You, with Prof. Katherine Kinzler 2020-Aug-13 30 minutes

From LSD to Ecstasy, How Psychedelics Are Altering Therapy, with Prof. Harriet de Wit 2020-Jul-30 19 minutes

How Can We Achieve Real Police Reform? 2020-Jul-16 30 minutes

Why We're Obsessed With Conspiracy Theories 2020-Jul-02 27 minutes

Black Lives Matter Protests: Hope for the Future? 2020-Jun-18 40 minutes

What Historic Pandemics Could Teach Us About Coronavirus, with Ada Palmer 2020-Jun-08 29 minutes

A Crisis Management Expert’s Advice on Handling Coronavirus 2020-May-21 27 minutes

How Students and Schools Can Recover From Coronavirus, with Elaine Allensworth 2020-May-12 19 minutes

Trump, Coronavirus and the Cost of Ineffective Government, With William Howell 2020-Apr-30 27 minutes

How Coronavirus Is Exposing Our Racial Disparities, with Monica Peek 2020-Apr-21 17 minutes

Coronavirus Shows Why We Need To Rethink Health Care, with Kate Baicker 2020-Apr-03 15 minutes

What Rats Can Teach Us About Empathy and Racism, with Peggy Mason 2020-Mar-10 20 minutes

Why the Coronavirus Could Send China’s Economy Back to the 1980s With Chang-Tai Hsieh 2020-Feb-25 18 minutes

Why The Doomsday Clock Is Closer To Apocalypse Than Ever With Rachel Bronson 2020-Feb-12 25 minutes

Vladimir Putin’s Number One Enemy With Bill Browder 2020-Jan-27 25 minutes

How Google and Facebook Are Ruining Capitalism, with Luigi Zingales 2020-Jan-13 26 minutes

How Quantum Technology Could Change Our Future With David Awschalom 2019-Dec-30 19 minutes

The Myths Of Millennial Voters With Cathy Cohen 2019-Dec-16 20 minutes

Why Some Nations Prosper and Others Fail, with James Robinson 2019-Dec-02 27 minutes

The Hunt for Alien Life and Exoplanets, with David Charbonneau 2019-Nov-18 21 minutes

Why Chasing The Good Life Is Holding Us Back With Lauren Berlant 2019-Nov-04 24 minutes

Saving Our Cities By Studying A Million Neighborhoods With Luis Bettencourt 2019-Oct-23 23 minutes

Why Talking to Strangers Will Make You Happier With Nicholas Epley 2019-Oct-07 24 minutes

Leading Presidential Scholar Analyzes Trump Impeachment 2019-Sep-27 19 minutes

The Politics of Archaeology In Iraq With Christopher Woods 2019-Sep-23 24 minutes

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg On Polarization, Discrimination and Her Favorite Dissent 2019-Sep-09 57 minutes

Why Your Social Life is a Matter of Life and Death with Linda Waite 2019-Aug-26 22 minutes

Revolutionizing Economics By Studying People In The Real World With John List 2019-Aug-12 28 minutes

The Unknown History Of The White Power Movement With Kathleen Belew 2019-Jul-29 27 minutes

The Missing Link In Evolution with Neil Shubin 2019-Jul-15 26 minutes

Guest Show - No Jargon 2019-Jul-01 30 minutes

Trump and the Changing Power of the Presidency with William Howell 2019-Jun-17 26 minutes

How the Loss of Community Threatens Society With Raghuram Rajan 2019-Jun-03 23 minutes

The Science of Conspiracy Theories And Political Polarization With Eric Oliver 2019-May-20 26 minutes

A Modern Medical Miracle with Drs. Valluvan Jeevanandam and Talia Baker 2019-May-06 22 minutes

An Archaeological Riddle In The Sahara With Paul Sereno 2019-Apr-15 26 minutes

Tiny Creatures, Big Discoveries With Nipam Patel 2019-Apr-01 27 minutes

The Hidden Dangers of Artificial Intelligence with Ben Zhao 2019-Mar-18 21 minutes

Lessons From Our Country’s Largest School Closing with Eve L. Ewing 2019-Mar-04 26 minutes

Simple Solutions To Address Social Issues with Harold Pollack 2019-Feb-18 21 minutes

What We’re Getting Wrong About Millennials With Cathy Cohen 2019-Feb-04 20 minutes

What Ripples in Space-Time Tell Us About the Universe with Daniel Holz 2019-Jan-21 22 minutes

Vietnam and the Rise of the White Power Movement with Kathleen Belew 2019-Jan-07 27 minutes

Big Brains: Back in 2019 2018-Dec-23 less than a minute

Climate Change’s Human Cost With Michael Greenstone 2018-Dec-10 22 minutes

David Axelrod on Why ‘Democracy is Messy’ and the Future of Politics 2018-Nov-26 25 minutes

How Talk Builds Babies’ Brains with Dana Suskind 2018-Nov-12 21 minutes

What Makes Us Uniquely Human with Neuroscientist Bobby Kasthuri 2018-Oct-29 24 minutes

From Sci-Fi to Reality, Quantum Technology with David Awschalom 2018-Oct-15 21 minutes

Future of Higher Education and College Access with Robert J. Zimmer 2018-Oct-01 34 minutes

The Hidden Abuse of U.S. Immigration with Claudia Flores 2018-Sep-17 18 minutes

SCOTUS Nears Unimaginable Era with Geoffrey Stone 2018-Sep-05 24 minutes

Special University of Chicago Convocation Podcast featuring Valerie Jarrett and Marianne Bertrand 2018-Jun-12 41 minutes

Special University of Chicago Convocation Podcast with Student Speaker Andrea Popova 2018-Jun-12 22 minutes

Economist’s Journey to the Nobel with Richard Thaler 2018-Jun-04 44 minutes

Future of Energy Innovation with Michael Polsky 2018-May-21 23 minutes

The Expanding Universe with Wendy Freedman 2018-May-14 23 minutes

Nature’s Design Secrets with Rama Ranganathan 2018-May-07 25 minutes

Mind of a Virtuoso Composer with Augusta Read Thomas 2018-Apr-30 25 minutes

Myths of U.S. Health Care with Katherine Baicker 2018-Apr-23 26 minutes

Discovering the Missing Link with Neil Shubin 2018-Apr-16 27 minutes

Big Brains Trailer 2018-Apr-05 1 minute