Big Brains

What if we could predict the economy the way we predict the weather? What if governments could run simulations to forecast the effects of new policies—before they happen? And what if the key to all of...

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 m...

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...

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 e...

One of the biggest questions of every election is: What’s going on with young voters? There is endless speculation on the news about what young people care about, but very little good research examini...

More and more women in the United States are saying no to motherhood. Alarmingly, in 2023, the U.S. fertility rate reached the lowest number on record. But the idea of non-motherhood is actually not a...

Race has played a huge role in the creation of mass homeownership in the United States. Discriminatory housing practices including redlining, exclusionary zoning and whitewashing led to great disparit...

If you’ve spent any time playing with modern AI image generators, it can seem like an almost magical experience; but the truth is these programs are more like a magic trick than magic. Without the hum...

In the near future, birth defects, traumatic injuries, limb loss and perhaps even cancer could be cured through bioelectricity—electrical signals that communicate to our cells how to rebuild themselve...

Can you heal faster just by tricking your brain? Could you lose weight with only a change of mindset? Could you think yourself into being younger? If you think the answer to all these questions is no,...