Decoder Ring

You may never have thought very hard about scratch-off tickets, but that’s part of their power. They’re a form of gambling that’s simply a pedestrian part of American life. But not so long ago, they w...

12 Feb 202533min

When we got multiple listener emails asking about the swing revival of the late 1990s, host Willa Paskin’s first, knee jerk reaction was just: no. She lived through it, and remembers it as being so in...

29 Jan 202559min

The storage container is a stealthy star of the modern home. It’s something we use to organize more of our stuff than ever before, and also something other people use to organize their stuff for our v...

15 Jan 202539min

People often say that money can't buy you happiness. Sometimes, if you ask them to tell you more about it, they'll mention a famous 2010 study by Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton. ...

1 Jan 202530min

It’s our annual mailbag episode! We get a lot of wonderful reader emails suggesting topics for the show — and at the end of the year we try to answer some of them. This year, we’re tackling four fasci...

18 Des 202445min

The mullet, the love-to-hate-it hairstyle, is as associated with the 1980’s as Ronald Reagan, junk bonds, and breakdancing. But in at least one major way, we are suffering from a collective case of fa...

4 Des 202446min

In 1980, a variety show debuted on NBC called Pink Lady and Jeff. Its stars were a pair of Japanese pop idols known for catchy, choreographed dance numbers. Pink Lady was inescapable in Japan: selling...

20 Nov 202457min

The fear that the Earth could be destroyed by a killer asteroid is an anxiety that pops up all the time in fiction and is grounded in fact. But funnily enough—actually being pancaked by a giant space ...

6 Nov 202436min