The True Scandal of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound
It could cure any 'female ailment' - even cancer - said the adverts. But Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was, in fact, just a concoction of herbs and alcohol of no proven medicinal merit. That d...
14 Apr 202337min
What if Terrorists Could Weaponize Covid?
Cautionary Conversation: In 1990, a small extremist group launched a nerve gas attack on passengers riding the Tokyo subway. Thousands of people were hurt, more than a dozen died. At the time, such us...
7 Apr 202338min
The Vigilante and the Air Traffic Controller
Air traffic controllers are meant to stop aircrafts from flying into one another... and if they fail, computer systems are installed to warn pilots of a coming collision. But sometimes these humans an...
31 Mar 202334min
America's Mata Hari? The Double Life of Esther Reed
Cautionary Conversation: When a small-town detective gets a tip about a missing woman, he believes he's uncovered a highly-trained chameleon: a foreign spy. Soon, Esther Reed is on the Secret Service'...
24 Mar 202336min
Office Hell: the Demise of the Playful Workspace
In the early 90s, cutting-edge advertising agency Chiat/Day announced a radical plan, aimed at giving the company a jolt of creative renewal. They would sweep away corner offices and cubicles and repl...
17 Mar 202338min
La La Land: Galileo’s Warning (Classic)
With the 95th Academy Awards just around the corner, Tim Harford looks back at a basic lesson. Galileo tried to teach us that adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often m...
10 Mar 202330min
The Scientist and the Swindler
Cautionary Conversation: Celebrated physicist Professor Paul Frampton was on his way to Brussels to meet the love of his life, swimwear model Denise Milani. Or so he thought. When he found himself in ...
3 Mar 202337min
The Hero Who Rode His Segway Off a Cliff
Steve Jobs called It “the most amazing piece of technology since the PC.” According to Jeff Bezos It was not only “revolutionary,” but infinitely commercial. It was a fiendishly clever and massively h...
17 Feb 202335min
