Episodes
Christie Aschwanden interviews the author of "American Eclipse," by David Baron.
Published 08/11/17
The Sparks gang discusses "American Eclipse" by David Baron, and the solar eclipse coming to the U.S. later this month.
Published 08/10/17
Jody discusses the rise of forensic DNA with Erin Murphy, professor at New York University and author of the book "Inside the Cell."
Published 07/27/17
Jody interviews Adam Conover of TruTV's Adam Ruins Everything on how his show covers stats heavy topics.
Published 07/18/17
Christie Aschwanden talks to journalist Charles Ornstein about how he reports on how money can influence doctors.
Published 07/07/17
The Sparks crew discusses how politicians and scientists wrestle with conflicts of interest, and what the science says about how conflict of interest can change our decisions.
Published 07/06/17
Anna Maria Barry-Jester talks to Bob Holmes, the author of "Flavor: The science of our most neglected sense."
Published 06/02/17
FiveThirtyEight's science team discusses "Flavor: The science of our most neglected sense," a book by Bob Holmes. They also go flavor tripping.
Published 06/01/17
Rae Wynn-Grant, a conservation researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, discusses her work tracking black bears in the American West.
Published 05/18/17
FiveThirtyEight's Christie Aschwanden interviews the author of "The Hunt for Vulcan."
Published 05/05/17
What does it take to revise a cold, hard science fact? This monthas Sparks podcast explores that question in the context of aThe Hunt for Vulcana by Thomas Levenson.
Published 05/04/17
Jody interviews Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller, authors of "The Only Rule Is It Has To Work," a chronicle of their summer spent as general managers for the Sonoma Stompers.
Published 04/20/17
Anna Maria Barry-Jester interviews the author of "An American Sickness: How healthcare became big business and how you can take it back."
Published 04/12/17
Our science podcast crew discusses the state of American health care, and what consumers can do about it. This month's book: "An American Sickness" by Elisabeth Rosenthal.
Published 04/06/17
Jody interviews Arvind Narayanan about the latest in online tracking, and what you can do to shield yourself.
Published 03/23/17
Jody Avirgan and Carl Bialik discuss research into how we get information and what information we trust.
Published 03/09/17
FiveThirtyEight's Maggie Koerth-Baker discusses The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome with author Alondra Nelson.
Published 03/03/17
This month, we're discussing Alondra Nelson's The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome.
Published 03/02/17
What cell phone metadata can reveal about the patterns of daily live -- and the effect of drone strikes.
Published 02/17/17
From the archives, Jody Avirgan and James Hamblin discuss modern medicine, personal health tracking, and why health journalism is broken.
Published 02/02/17
FiveThirtyEight's Maggie Koerth-Baker talks with author Will Storr about his book "The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the enemies of science."
Published 01/26/17
FiveThirtyEight's science team discusses Will Storr's book, "The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the enemies of science."
Published 01/19/17
Jody Avirgan and Kate Larue discuss the postcards we received for our "Dear Data" project, and then rerun our original conversation. Check it out: fivethirtyeight.com/deardata
Published 12/22/16
This month we're discussing Michael Lewis's new book "The Undoing Project." Here he talks with Nate Silver about his work. Be sure to check out part 1!
Published 12/16/16