The Nice Guy, the Bully and the Kiss
Leo Durocher would stop at nothing to win. The baseball player-turned-manager was a skilled tactician and famously tough. But he also cheated, intimidated umpires and was violent; he was even known to...
13 Sep 202439min
Tim's Tolkien Obsession & Amazon Prime's The Rings of Power
Tim Harford's life has been building up to this moment. In this Cautionary Conversation, he discusses the works of his favorite author J.R.R. Tolkien and the social science at play in Amazon Prime's s...
30 Aug 202445min
The Human Guinea Pigs of Camp Lazear
Young doctor Jesse Lazear has deadly Yellow Fever. He thrashes around and convulses in his sick bed, and his vomit is black. He is just 34 when he dies. Curiously, mosquito expert Lazear was researchi...
16 Aug 202440min
Embracing the Escape Fire (with Adam Grant)
Cautionary Conversation: Steve Jobs hated his phone so much that he smashed it against a wall. He also referred to mobile carriers as "orifices". Yet he went on to invent the world's most popular smar...
2 Aug 202436min
Cautionary Tales Presents Vultures from Lost Hills: Dark Canyon
The disappearance and death of Mitrice Richardson remains Malibu, CA’s most baffling unsolved case. It’s been nearly 14 years since her remains were discovered in a remote canyon, and still, no one ha...
25 Jul 202437min
Flying Too High: AI and Air France Flight 447
Panic has erupted in the cockpit of Air France Flight 447. The pilots are convinced they’ve lost control of the plane. It’s lurching violently. Then, it begins plummeting from the sky at breakneck spe...
19 Jul 202440min
Run, Switzer, Run: The Women Who Broke the Marathon Taboo
Until the 1960s, it was deemed too "dangerous" for women athletes to run distances longer than 200m - and a marathon would kill them, or leave them unable to have children. Rubbish, of course. But whe...
5 Jul 202436min
Adidas v Puma: A Battle of Boots and Brothers
Adi and Rudi Dassler made sports shoes together - until a feud erupted between them. They set up competing companies, Adidas and Puma, and their bitter rivalry divided the sporting world, their family...
21 Jun 202439min
