The show this week features an interview with science writer Maria Konnikova about her book The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time. We recorded this interview back when the book first came in out in 2016, but it is, perhaps depressingly, still as relevant as ever. While it hasn’t always involved pillow salesmen and crypto billionaires, there have always been people trying to con you. So there’s no better time than right now to brush up on all the ways people get conned, the psychology of why it works, and what you can do to avoid it.

Theoretical physicist and philosopher, Sean Carroll, discusses his book trilogy that aims to simplify complex ideas in the universe for non-physicists. They explore different thinking styles, making equations more accessible, simplifications and insights in physics, the nature of space, and bridging the gap between physicists and philosophers. They also touch on Sean Carroll's new book release and potential HBO series.

This week we’re joined by returning guest, animal behavior scientist, and autism rights advocate Temple Grandin to talk about her latest book Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions.

This week: new research into using nanoparticles and programmable magnets to clean your teeth; a potentially breakthrough study on a drug for Alzheimer's disease featuring the first positive trial ever for a disease of aging; recapping NASA’s recent Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission; and a look into how much control you actually have over what Youtube decides to show you.

This week we talk to theoretical physicist and cosmologist Antonio Padilla about his new book Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity.It’s a book about nine unusual numbers that, once understood, can help you grasp how the universe actually works—from black holes, to gravity, to the passing of time itself.

This week we talk to Alexandra Horowitz from the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College about her new book The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves. Horowitz’s book examines how a dog’s brain works and develops—how it dramatically changes during their first 12 months of life, her shifting perspective on dog cognition, and the vast differences between humans and dogs that we tend to overlook.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds

This week we talk to cognitive neuroscientist Chantel Prat about her new book The Neuroscience of You: How Every Brain is Different and How to Understand Yours. The book is the result of Prat’s decades of work on the biological basis of individual differences in cognition—what makes you you.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds

This week we talk to philosopher and animal ethicist David Peña-Guzmán about his new book When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness. David explores the idea that there really is a subjective world—a dream world—that lights up when animals sleep, what that actually looks like, and its moral implications.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds

This week we’re joined by podcaster, journalist, and author David McRaney to discuss his latest book How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion. It’s a deep look at what we know about what it takes to change someone’s mind and why it’s more complicated than you might think.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds

This week we welcome back James Beard award winning food science writer J. Kenji López-Alt. He talks about growing up around science, studying architecture at MIT, and how, strangely enough, both subjects pertain to cooking. Kenji is the author of the bestselling The Food Lab and the recently released The Wok: Recipes and Techniques.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds