Big Brains

By: University of Chicago Podcast Network
  • Summary

  • Translating groundbreaking research into digestible brain food. Big Brains, little bites. Produced by the University of Chicago Podcast Network & Winner of CASE "Grand Gold" award in 2022, Gold award in 2021, and named Adweek's "Best Branded Podcast" in 2020.
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Episodes
  • Unlocking The Secrets Of ‘SuperAgers’, with Emily Rogalski
    Oct 31 2024

    https://haarc.center.uchicago.edu/We used to think aging inevitably led to memory loss, but a small group of people—known as SuperAgers—are defying the odds. These individuals, all over 80, have the memory performance of someone in the 50s. The question is: how?

    One of the leading experts studying SuperAgers is University of Chicago neurologist Emily Rogalski. She explores the fascinating science behind SuperAgers—uncovering what makes their physical brains different and how their lifestyle choices could be the key to a having a sharper, healthier brain well into old age.

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    23 mins
  • 2024 Nobel Laureate Explains What Makes Countries Fail Or Succeed, with James A. Robinson
    Oct 17 2024

    On Big Brains, we get to speak to a lot of groundbreaking scholars and experts, but some conversations we walk away knowing we’ve just heard from someone who is really changing the world. We certainly felt that way years ago after talking to University of Chicago scholar James Robinson, and it turns out…the Nobel Prize committee agreed in 2024 when it awarded him a share of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

    Robinson was honored for the exact work that we talked to him about nearly five years ago. The author of numerous best-selling books, including Why Nations Fail (2012) and The Narrow Corridor (2019), he won the Nobel this year because his work researching what makes nations succeed and…what makes them fail. There’s no better time to refamiliarize ourselves with his important research and celebrate his Nobel win.

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    29 mins
  • Why Can’t Scientists Agree On The Age Of The Universe? with Wendy Freedman
    Oct 3 2024

    How old is the universe—and how fast is it expanding? These are part of one of the biggest—and most contested—questions in science, and the answers could change our understanding of physics.

    In this episode, we talk with renowned UChicago astronomer Wendy Freedman, who’s spent decades trying to solve these very questions. There are two ways to measure how fast the universe is expanding, also known as the Hubble constant; Freedman has done groundbreaking research to calculate this number using stars, but the problem is, her numbers don’t match up with scientists using a different method. And the implications of that difference are massive, because it could indicate that our Standard Model of physics could be broken.

    Yet Freedman’s latest research, using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, might finally give us a clearer answer. In our conversation, we explore the age of the universe, the mysteries of dark matter and what all this could mean for the future of physics—and maybe even the discovery of life beyond Earth.

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    24 mins

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insightful interviews with some of the top researchers in scientist in the business

I like to listen to big brains, it gives me a broad reach to some of the best research and interviews across a wide spectrum of industries.

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