Big Brains

It’s not your imagination, summers have been getting hotter and hotter with extreme heatwaves occurring earlier and more frequently. But why is this happening and can we better predict heatwaves in advance to give people time to prepare? In June of 2021, an unprecedented heatwave shocked the Pacific Northwest and Canada. It ended up being one of the most deadly extreme weather events in the region. But no one could figure out how it occurred, until one Professor of Geophysical Science at the University of Chicago, Noboru Nakamura, saw it as an opportunity to test a new theoretical framework he had developed for understanding atmospheric phenomena. On this episode, we discuss the science of heatwaves, the mystery behind the Pacific Northwest heatwave, and how Nakamura’s framework can be used to better understand and predict climate change and other extreme weather events. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We can’t always see the consequences of air pollution around us, but it’s costing us years off our lives. According to a new Air Quality Life Index report from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), air pollution is taking 2.2 years off the average global life expectancy. In some of the most polluted regions in the world, residents are expected to lose an average five years of their lives, if the current high levels of pollution persist. While smog seem like a difficult problem to tackle, some countries have proven it’s possible to clean up the air. In the past seven years, China has reduced air pollution as much as the United States has in the past three decades. And since India’s Gujarat state launched the world's first clean air market in 2019, they’ve been successful in cutting particulate pollution by at least 20 percent. In this episode, we speak with EPIC’s Air Quality Programs Director Christa Hasenkopf and EPIC’s South Asia Director Anant Sudarshan about why we need to treat air pollution as a global health threat—and what we can do about it. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When you think about corporate secrecy, nefarious shell companies and conspiratorial tax dodging, the state of Delaware probably doesn’t come to mind. We often think of exotic places like Panama or Bermuda, but the research of University of Chicago Adjunct Professor Hal Weitzman shows how it’s all happening right here in the United States. In his new book, What’s The Matter With Delaware?, Weitzman goes down the complex Delaware rabbit hole to discover how this tiny U.S. state became the incorporation capital of the world—uncovering everything from criminal conspiracies to wealthy tax avoidance to political dark money. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

War is costly, deadly and destructive. So, why do we do it? In his new book Why We Fight: The Roots of War and The Paths to Peace, Prof. Chris Blattman of the University of Chicago lays out the five main reasons why countries go to war—and why building peace is actually a lot easier than we may think. Blattman is an economist and political scientist who studies global conflict, crime and poverty. As a seasoned peacebuilder, he has worked in a number of countries to help mitigate conflict between gang leaders, political enemies and ethnic villages. He argues that one of the keys to finding peace is using a tool called the bargaining range to give both sides a piece of what they want. In this episode, Blattman discusses how wars come to be, the incentives to stop them and what it will take for Putin to stop the fighting in Ukraine. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What does our relationship with the dead tell us about the living? Anthropologists learn about ancient cultures by studying their burial sites, but could we do the same with contemporary America? Those are the questions that University of Chicago anthropologist and historian Shannon Lee Dawdy set out to answer in her new book, American Afterlives: Reinventing Death In The Twenty-first Century. What she uncovered was a discreet revolution happening around American death rituals and practices, especially the rise in cremation after the tragedies of Sept. 11. According to one funeral director, there have been more changes in the death industry in the last ten years than the last hundred. And those changes reveal all sorts of societal and cultural shifts in response to climate change, COVID-19 and the personalization of everything, including DIY funerals and green burials. Dawdy also produced a documentary, "I Like Dirt.", during her research with director Daniel Zox. Much of the audio used in this episode comes from that documentary. You can find out more about "I Like Dirt." Directed by Daniel Zox and Shannon Lee Dawdy, Zox Films, 2020 at http://ilikedirtfilm.com and find Dawdy's book at https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691210643/american-afterlives Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The United States is an outlier when it comes to parents. Compared to similar countries, the U.S. has the largest happiness gap between the 63 million parents and the child-free. This statistic is not shocking when you consider how other societies support parents with things like paid parental leave and high-quality child care. In her new book, Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child's Potential, Fulfilling Society's Promise, Prof. Dana Suskind of the University of Chicago makes the case for how America can—and should—improve societal support for parents during the early childhood period. Through her work as director of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Program and co-director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative, Suskind has observed why the first three years of a child's life are the most crucial for their brain development. She argues that investing in early childhood by supporting parents—notably, paid parental and family leave—is not only beneficial for them, but it's also beneficial for our economy and society. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For nearly a decade, public health experts have been warning that bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. In 2014, the World Health Organization even said the post-antibiotic era is near. Despite these warnings, the problem has only worsened: Antibiotic-resistant superbugs like MRSA are rising—and faster than expected. University of Washington Professor Christopher Murray co-authored a 2019 study in The Lancet, which found that antibiotic-resistant infections directly killed over a million people worldwide. The study also found that superbugs might have played a role in five million more deaths worldwide. Murray explains what's causing this troubling trend—and how we can combat it. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There are far more scientists in today’s world, and they’re publishing research papers at a much faster pace. However, all of this growth hasn’t translated to more scientific progress. As University of Chicago Professor James Evans argues, scientists are overloaded by the flood of research papers they have to read, which is causing them to cite the same few papers over and over again. This dilemma is leaving newly published papers with less of a chance to disrupt existing work. Evans directs the Knowledge Lab at UChicago, which is trying to reimagine the scientific process by providing better pathways for new scientific ideas to be shared with others. He explains how we can get back to advancing science again. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The United States recently hit a grim milestone: More than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses between May 2020 and April 2021. The majority of those deaths were due to synthetic opioids, which have become more widely available in recent years. While medical interventions exist, the rise of opioid addiction has been difficult to prevent, let alone cure. Now, there could be a new promising solution: a vaccine, developed by Prof. Marco Pravetoni of the University of Washington, who leads the Center for Medication Development for Substance Use Disorders. The vaccine is currently in the first phase of clinical trials, being led by Prof. Sandra Comer of Columbia University, who directs the university’s Opioid Laboratory. Together, Pravetoni and Comer hope to provide a new pathway toward recovery from opioid addiction. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As Vladimir Putin continues his invasion of Ukraine, Western nations have come together in unprecedented fashion to condemn his actions, in the form of economic sanctions against Putin and his Russian oligarchs. But how were these sanctions implemented so quickly, and what was the international legal infrastructure than enabled us to target the oligarch’s assets in the west? A major tool western nations have used to enact sanctions is called the Magnitsky Act. Two years ago, we interviewed the man responsible for the creation of this act: Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and a University of Chicago alum. We think it’s worth re-airing that interview in the current context to get a deeper understanding of the sanctions against Russia, Putin’s regime and how a few brave people forged a pathway to hit him where he he’s weakest. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.