Beschikbare afleveringen

• Predicting elections is getting harder. What did the midterms teach us?

  Famously, polls got the 2016 election wrong. And they’d been off for multiple elections since. So, Monday night, political scientist Jack Rametta nervously refreshed his Senate forecasting model for the final time. Would it be right...

  5 nov 2026 763 sec.

• AI is changing mathematics -- but not how you think

  Math has created some of humanity's oldest intellectual challenges. And AI is completely changing the game. This year AI solved one of math’s most difficult problems. Since then, OpenAI published hundreds of new math results. So is this...

  4 nov 2026 833 sec.

• OpenAI whistleblowers on the fight over AI safety | Machine Gods

  Check out NPR’s newest podcast, Machine Gods. It’s the official podcast of the singularity, meaning — the hypothetical future when machines will outpace our own intelligence…and our control. Whether you think that future is coming or...

  3 nov 2026 1935 sec.

• Could virtual reality speed up learning?

  Does swinging a lightsaber help us learn? New research from Florida Atlantic University and Brown University found that movement dramatically helps with certain kinds of complex learning. The research was published in the journal...

  2 nov 2026 587 sec.

• Is your favorite crime show rooted in fake science?

  If you’ve ever seen a crime show, you probably know how the plot unfolds: A victim is found, an investigation ensues and police conduct a high-stakes search for the culprit. Detectives and crime lab techs collect hair, examine bullet...

  30 okt 2026 881 sec.

• MAHA’s midterm report card

  It’s been just over two years since the rise of Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA. The movement united a coalition of moms, wellness influencers and voters across the political spectrum over concerns about chronic illness and...

  28 okt 2026 788 sec.

• You Can See Everything and the science of spotting liars

  It feels like everyone we know is talking about the new documentary You Can See Everything. It tracks the effort of comedian and documentarian Nathan Fielder to suss out how deceptive Elizabeth Holmes, disgraced founder of the company...

  27 okt 2026 825 sec.

• The battle between matter and antimatter

  At the beginning of our universe, in addition to matter, there was also an equal amount of antimatter, matter's opposite. But today, there's lots more matter than antimatter. So how did that happen? Well, the answer might have to do...

  26 okt 2026 677 sec.

• The dormant viruses in all of us may help explain long COVID

  Virtually every human on Earth has a slew of different types of dormant viruses in our bodies. They are remnants of past infections and are—generally—harmless. Unless they wake up, which can be triggered by extreme stress or something...

  23 okt 2026 865 sec.

• Can planting more trees make allergies worse?

  Trees provide shade and clean air in congested cities, so planting more of them seems like a straightforward solution. But trees also produce a natural pollutant— pollen. In this episode, producer Juan Diego Ramirez reports on the link...

  21 okt 2026 700 sec.

• What are the odds we're not alone in the universe?

  There are hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy we live in. Many of them have their own exoplanets. So why haven’t we found proof of alien life yet? And what’s the probability of us contacting or being contacted anyway? That’s...

  20 okt 2026 895 sec.

• What the world's leading researchers think about saunas

  Saunas have gone from a Scandinavian tradition to a global wellness phenomenon. But how long should a person endure heat? Do saunas actually work? And if so, what are their benefits? NPR health reporter Will Stone goes as deep as the...

  19 okt 2026 826 sec.