Plain English with Derek Thompson

Cancer is not a singular disease but a category of hundreds, even thousands, of rare diseases with different molecular signatures and genetic roots. Cancer scientists are looking for a thousand perfec...

7 Maalis 202547min

Artificial intelligence tools for musicians are getting eerily good, very fast. Their work can be maddening, funny, ethically dubious, and downright fascinating all at the same time. TV and podcast co...

4 Maalis 202557min

Something alarming is happening with reading in America. Leisure reading by some accounts has declined by about 50 percent this century. Literacy scores are declining for fourth and eighth graders at ...

28 Helmi 202559min

If you had to describe the U.S. economy at the moment, I think you could do worse than the word stuck. The labor market is stuck. The low unemployment rate disguises how surprisingly hard it is to fi...

25 Helmi 202554min

Who is the most successful president in American history? George Washington secured American independence. Abraham Lincoln preserved the union and ended slavery. Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the Depres...

21 Helmi 20251h 3min

For the past month, chaos and confusion have gripped Washington and the federal government. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have served as an iron fist of the Trump adm...

18 Helmi 20251h 1min

This is a conversation I've wanted to have for a long time. It's about the decline of religion in America, the value of faith, the case for belief, and the rational reasons to believe in God. My guest...

14 Helmi 20251h 6min

Why is it so hard to find a cure for Alzheimer’s? A simple answer is that the brain and its disorders are complicated. But as today’s guest, Charles Piller, writes, there’s another, more sinister fact...

11 Helmi 202555min