Amid handwringing about AI’s effect on jobs, creativity, trust, and the environment, a new study shows the technology’s profound impact on scientific productivity. Aidan Toner-Rodgers, a Ph.D. candidate at MIT, recounts his research that shows the benefits and drawbacks of using AI to discover new scientific materials. 

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What makes someone a NIMBY? The prevailing theory suggests that people support or reject new housing in their neighborhood based on what’s best for them personally. The political scientist David Broockman provides a different explanation—one based on people’s beliefs about important symbols such as cities or tall buildings, rather than self-interest.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to lead the Department of Health and Human Services under President-Elect Donald Trump. He has said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” but Dr. Rachael Bedard, a pro-vaccine and left-leaning physician, says opponents should still seek common ground with him. 

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Are young men becoming radicalized? Could they be further to the right than even their fathers and grandfathers? These questions have yet to be answered definitively, but in some countries, electoral results and polls suggest that a meaningful group of young men may be finding a home in radical spaces. In this encore episode, host Jerusalem Demsas speaks to Dr. Alice Evans, a researcher at King’s College London, who has been traveling the world, trying to uncover the reason some societies are more equal than others. Her insights help explain why some young men may be turning against the tide of egalitarianism.

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The key idea behind democracy is that if politicians pass good policy, people will reward them with votes. But is that actually true? The political scientist Hunter Rendleman looked at what happened when governors extended a social-welfare benefit that has lifted millions of working-class Americans out of poverty.

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New Zealand was in a major housing crisis. But then the Pacific nation actually took ambitious steps to address it. The researcher Eleanor West recounts the policy wins and political pitfalls of what happened—and what lessons the United States and other countries could learn. 

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Four years ago, the murder of George Floyd—and the international protests that followed—amplified calls to defund or abolish the police. But what do we actually know about the relationship between policing and public safety?

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Last year, nearly half of childless adults under 50 told the Pew Research Center that they didn’t want kids. As the birth rate in the United States continues to decline, the philosopher Anastasia Berg wanted to know: Where is this ambivalence coming from?

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Was leaving behind our nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles a mistake? If so, why did so many different groups of people make the switch to farming? The researcher Andrea Matranga spent more than a decade looking at the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era and found that humanity’s decision to settle down was driven by climactic shifts and the need to insure against famines. 

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What exactly happened to the Kamala Harris campaign in this year’s presidential election? Host Jerusalem Demsas and Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist and the host of The Bulwark Podcast, tick through the competing narratives about why the Democrats lost and which ones actually hold up.

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Do higher levels of immigration lead to lower wages? The Atlantic staff writer Rogé Karma breaks down the misconception that immigration creates an economic burden—when actually the opposite is true: Immigrants are a source of economic growth.

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