The 25 Best Educational Podcasts For Learning What You Missed In School
Most folks love learning, regardless of whether or not school is "their thing." Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right teacher for your learning styleâ€â€or maybe even the right medium. For auditory learners, podcasts can be excellent vehicles for processing knowledge that'd be less digestible in more visual mediums like video or even the written word. The American education systems tends to fail students in myriad ways, requiring continual education after the fact to learn the truth behind what we were taught in history, art, science, language, literature, and math. Privileged gatekeepers deciding who and what gets taught can result in the denial of diverse voices and perspectives. Podcasts radically shift the dynamics around who gets to teach, and who gets to learn. A lot of the most beloved and popular shows, like Radiolab and Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, basically boil down to what you wish your science or history class had been like in the first place. Many others, like 1619 and You're Wrong About, aim to correct the misinformation in many accepted cultural narratives from both our near and distant pasts. Now, obviously, podcasts can't replace a world-class, bonafide, IRL, teacher-to-student relationship. But they can teach us more than a few vital lessons. Here are a few of our most educational favorites.
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'While middle age "misery" reaches its low point in our late 40s, still: There are definitely ways to minimize the effect of a global phenomenon.If you're 30 years old and feel less happy than you did when you were 20, science says you're not alone. If you're 40 years old and feel less happy than when you were 30, science says you're also not alone. And if you're 47.2 years old and feel less happy than you did when you were 40, recent research says you're definitely not alone. Why? Research conducted by Dartmouth professor David Blanchflower on hundreds of thousands of people in 132 countries shows that people around the world experience an inverted, U-shaped "happiness curve." Starting at age 18, your happiness level begins to decrease, reaching peak unhappiness at 47.2 in developed countries and 48.2 in developing countries. The good news is that happiness levels then gradually increase.
If you've been a neuroscientist for two decades and counting, you take notice when your field begins popping up in the mainstream discourse. While this is usually a good thing (it's mostly helpful when one's field receives public attention), it can also go too far, introducing confusion and misunderstanding into an already complex matter. Case in point: dopamine, one of the many, many chemicals (aka neurotransmitters) found in the human brain, where it has many functions. However, if you were to go solely by the context in which dopamine is mentioned in much of modern culture, you'd be forgiven for concluding that it has just one fundamental, very specific, function in the human brain - producing happiness and pleasure. 
The four essential behaviors that help them win the top job and thrive once they get itAt the top of the ladder, the stakes are high and the demands intense. Too many CEOs falter in the job; about a quarter of the Fortune 500 chiefs who leave their firms each year are forced out. Clearly, boards do not always get their hires right. In conducting an analysis of in-depth assessments of 17,000 executives, the authors uncovered a large disconnect between what directors think makes for an ideal CEO and what actually leads to high performance. The findings of their 10-year research project challenge many widely held assumptions. Charisma, confidence, and pedigree all have little bearing on CEO success, it turns out. Instead, top performers demonstrate four specific business behaviors: (1) They're decisive, realizing they can't wait for perfect information and that a wrong decision is often better than no decision. (2) They engage for impact, working to understand the priorities of stakeholders and then aligning them around a goal of value creation. (3) They adapt proactively, keeping an eye on the long term and treating mistakes as learning opportunities. (4) They deliver results in a reliable fashion, steadily following through on commitments.
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi and his cofounders weren't interested in starting a business, and even less interested in making a profit on the tech. Eight years later, at least three are billionaires.Inside a 13th-floor boardroom in downtown San Francisco, the atmosphere was tense. It was November 2015, and Databricks, a two-year-old software company started by a group of seven Berkeley researchers, was long on buzz but short on revenue. The directors awkwardly broached subjects that had been rehashed time and again. The startup had been trying to raise funds for five months, but venture capitalists were keeping it at arm’s length, wary of its paltry sales. Seeing no other option, NEA partner Pete Sonsini, an existing investor, raised his hand to save the company with an emergency $30 million injection.
My grandpa recently turned 88 years old. When I gave him a call on his birthday, he was as energetic as ever. I know he's a disciplined man who relies on very strict routines. But I realized I never asked him about his habit-forming process. He's been doing the same things for all of his adult life. Back then, there were no books and blogs on habits. For example, he's been going to bed and waking up at the same time for ages. Another thing he does is going for a daily walk. And he recently got a stationary bike that he also uses every day. One of the things I've been writing about for years is that you don't need to look at scientific research on habits to figure out what to do. If you have a healthy grandparent or elderly family member, just look at what they do. You'll see the patterns. Look at the good things they do and copy them. That’s what I've been doing with my grandfather as well. So asked him, "Gramps, I know your habits are really important to you. How did you go about forming your habits?" Here's his process.
Research shows it can reduce inequality and improve productivity.Inequality in the U.S. has been getting worse for decades: The richest 1% own a majority of all business wealth, and the top 10% own more than 90%. It has become clear that companies need to address the problem. One place to start is by expanding employees' ownership stakes in companies, giving workers a path to building wealth. There’s incentive for companies, too: Businesses with 30% or more employee ownership are more productive, grow faster, and are less likely to go out of business than their counterparts.
"Whenever you cannot decide what you should do, choose the action that represents a change."Changing your life is a big deal. It takes a lot of work and emotional energy. And it's often very difficult to predict if a dramatic turn will actually make us happier and more fulfilled, or if it will be the biggest mistake ever and we'll shrivel up into little raisins of regret. So we waffle over whether or not to quit a job, change careers, start a business, or go back to school, weighing endless pros and cons. In behavioral economics, this phenomenon is known as status quo bias. People are generally predisposed to favor sticking with their current circumstances, whatever they may be, instead of taking a risk and bushwhacking their way toward a different life. That's an instinct we should fight against, according to the findings of a new study by Steven Levitt, University of Chicago economist and Freakonomics co-author, published in Oxford University's Review of Economic Studies.
It seems we know a lot about the contents of our own minds. We know, for instance, that we want our friends and family to be healthy, that we intend to pay this month's electricity bill, that we believe Myanmar was formerly called Burma, or that we're experiencing a particular sensation, such as pain. Philosophers have a term for such (alleged) knowledge of facts about our own minds: self-knowledge. Dating back at least to René Descartes in the 17th century, it has seemed to a number of philosophers that not only do we possess self-knowledge, but that there's also something special about the nature of some of the self-knowledge we possess. We can begin to see why by investigating our knowledge of other people's minds.
Too few babies - not overpopulation - is likely to be a major problem this century. The 20th century saw the greatest population surge in human history, rising globally from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000. That trend is over. The majority of demographic data suggest that, despite previous concerns about overpopulation crises, the bigger problem for most parts of the planet will be too few babies. Data clearly reflects this phenomenon. In Japan, people buy more diapers for the elderly than babies. China, which long enforced a one-child policy, recently raised its child limit to three; the nation expects its population to peak and then decline in 2030. And the population growth rate in the U.S. is at historic lows, reminiscent of the Great Depression era. A new study published in npj Urban Sustainability explores the future of underpopulation and how it's likely to affect sustainability goals. Using demographic data from United Nations reports, the study argues that the underpopulation problem is dynamic and twofold: Populations are simultaneously shrinking and ageing. 
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The psychological reasons why novelty - from visiting new places to socializing - makes us happier and healthier people.Early on in the pandemic, when I spent most of my days confined to my apartment, I noticed something strange start to happen. Even the most mundane new experiences made me feel genuinely elated. When the trees bloomed in spring, they looked psychedelic. Seeing the sun glint on a nearby lake was as pleasurably disorienting as peering into a kaleidoscope. Taking a walk to a different neighborhood I had never explored might as well have been a trip to Marrakesh. Before this, I would not describe myself as a person who enjoyed "the simple pleasures." Previous springtimes were not spent thinking fuck yeah, look at that tree! whenever I saw a cool tree. I had historically chased down constant newness out of abject fear of boredom. So when comparatively minor experiences that otherwise wouldn't have registered made me exhilarated, I wanted to know exactly what was going on in my brain - and how I could make that feeling last.
One Friday afternoon at a party, I'm sitting next to a mother of two. Her baby is only a couple of weeks old. They'd taken a long time, she tells me, to come up with a name for their second child. After all, they'd already used their favorite name: it had gone to their first. On the scale of a human life, it's small-fry, but as a metaphor I find it significant. I think of the proverbs we have around second times - second choice, second place, second fiddle, eternal second. I think of Buzz Aldrin, always in the shadow of the one who went before him, out there on the moon. I think of my sister and my son: both second children.
Expect fewer hierarchies and more hope, the Outliers author saysMalcolm Gladwell believes that the post-Covid world will be a much better and more hopeful place than it was before the pandemic. He explained his reasoning in a thought-provoking talk at last month's virtual Adobe Summit. Gladwell is best known for his bestsellers Outliers and The Tipping Point, and recently published The Bomber Mafia about World War II. He began by noting that "only a fool makes predictions, especially about the future," and that his vision of what's coming could turn out to be wrong. But, he said, "I thought it would be interesting at least to give this one a shot." Gladwell began by talking about the difference between hierarchies and networks. For example, he said, Martin Luther King's campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama was organized as a hierarchy. King was very much in command and planned the campaign very carefully. Compare that with last summer's Black Lives Matter protests, which Gladwell said was a network. The BLM movement has a collective of leaders instead of just one, and those leaders weren't necessarily front and center, nor were they commanding the troops. Unlike King's well disciplined marchers who followed precise instructions, BLM protesters were asked to remain peaceful and given guidelines for staying safe, but could express themselves however they chose. The hierarchy has a long history; the network is a more modern arrangement, he said. 
People who work from home get fewer raises and promotions. But there might be a way to avoid the remote-work penalty.America's CEOs have a message for people who love working from home: Your happy days are numbered. Remote work is "suboptimal," Jonathan Wasserstrum, the CEO of the New York commercial-real-estate company SquareFoot, told me. "I believe that work is better when most of the people are in the office most of the time together," he said. As if to prove his point, at that moment our phone connection grew fuzzy, prompting him to sarcastically add, "Oh, because remote is so great, right?" What really gets Wasserstrum's goat is when people say no one should come into the office, because that would be more fair to the people who don't want to come into the office. He said that although he wouldn't fire someone for asking to work remotely full-time, SquareFoot is a real-estate company. "If somebody didn't believe in the value of an office at least one day a week, they probably shouldn't be at the company anyway," he said. At a recent Wall Street Journal conference, WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani cheered cubicle life even louder, saying that the most "engaged" workers are those who want to work from the office most of the time. "People are happier when they come to work," he added confidently. 
There's a school of thought that you should spend down all your assets in retirement and "bounce the check to the undertaker," as Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, our publisher, likes to say. But not many Americans subscribe to that school of thought. A fascinating survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute explores how people feel about spending in retirement. It doesn't fit with finance theory. "There's just something we're not getting quite right in understanding how people navigate retirement," Lori Lucas, the president and chief executive officer of EBRI, said March 24 in announcing the results. Only 14.1% of respondents think they'll spend down all their assets. 57% plan to grow their assets in retirement, leave them untouched, or spend down only a little. 
Two philosophers of science diagnose our age of fake news. "I can't see them. Therefore they're not real." From which century was this quote drawn? Not a medieval one. The utterance emerged in February 2019 from Fox & Friends presenter Pete Hegseth, who was referring to ... germs. The former Princeton University undergraduate and Afghanistan counterinsurgency instructor said, to the mirth of his co-hosts, that he hadn't washed his hands in a decade. Naturally this germ of misinformation went viral on social media. The next day, as serendipity would have it, the authors of The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread - philosophers of science Cailin O'Connor and James Owen Weatherall - sat down with Nautilus. In their book, O'Connor and Weatherall, both professors at the University of California, Irvine, illustrate mathematical models of how information spreads - and how consensus on truth or falsity manages or fails to take hold - in society, but particularly in social networks of scientists. The coathors argue "we cannot understand changes in our political situation by focusing only on individuals. We also need to understand how our networks of social interaction have changed, and why those changes have affected our ability, as a group, to form reliable beliefs."
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