This week Craig talks about police searches and seizures. Now, the fourth amendment says that you have the right to be protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures" but what exactly does this mean? Well, it's complicated. The...

To get out of the mess we're in, we need a new story that explains the present and guides the future, says author George Monbiot. Drawing on findings from psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology, he offers a new vision for...

Today, Craig is going to finish up our discussion of the First Amendment with freedom of the press. Like an individual's right to free speech, the press has a right, and arguably responsibility, to tell the public what the government is...

Developing a vaccine usually takes five to 10 years, costs about a billion dollars and has a failure rate of 93 percent. Under the pressure of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists are being asked to speed that timeline up to 12 to 18...

Surprising, but true: More women now die of heart disease than men, yet cardiovascular research has long focused on men. Pioneering doctor C. Noel Bairey Merz shares what we know and don't know about women's heart health -- including the...

From populist demagogues, we will learn the indispensability of democracy, says novelist elif Shafak. "From isolationists, we will learn the need for global solidarity. And from tribalists, we will learn the beauty of cosmopolitanism." A...

Greece has been the poster child for European economic crisis, but former Prime Minister George Papandreou wonders if it's just a preview of what's to come. “Our democracies," he says, "are trapped by systems that are too big to fail, or...

Now that we’ve talked a little bit about how sociology works, it’s time to start exploring some of the ideas of the discipline’s founders. First up: Émile Durkheim. We’ll explain the concept of social facts and how Durkheim framed...

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here... Inscribed above the Gate of Hell, this prophecy sets into motion an epic journey for salvation. Written over 10 years, Dante Alighieri's three-part narrative poem "Divine Comedy" is both an...

In spring 2019, more than 17,000 Europeans from 33 countries signed up to have a political argument with a complete stranger. They were part of "Europe Talks," a project that organizes one-on-one conversations between people who disagree...

Many people think the lines on the map no longer matter, but Parag Khanna says they do. Using maps of the past and present, he explains the root causes of border conflicts worldwide and proposes simple yet cunning solutions for each.

The developed world holds up the ideals of capitalism, democracy and political rights for all. Those in emerging markets often don't have that luxury. In this powerful talk, economist Dambisa Moyo makes the case that the west can't...

India is fast becoming a superpower, says Shashi Tharoor -- not just through trade and politics, but through "soft" power, its ability to share its culture with the world through food, music, technology, Bollywood. He argues that in the...

In which John Green teaches you about the War of 1812. The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and its former colonial overlord England. It started in, you guessed it 1812. The war lasted until 1815, and it resolved very...

In which John Green teaches you about Reconstruction. After the divisive, destructive Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had a plan to reconcile the country and make it whole again. Then he got shot, Andrew Johnson took over, and the...

What does a disgusting image have to do with how you vote? Equipped with surveys and experiments, psychologist David Pizarro demonstrates a correlation between your sensitivity to disgusting cues -- a photo of feces, an unpleasant odor...

Former Republican member of the u.S. Congress Bob Inglis shares an optimistic message about how conservatives can lead on climate change and other pressing problems -- and how free enterprise (and working together across ideologies) hold...

Robb Willer studies the forces that unite and divide us. As a social psychologist, he researches how moral values -- typically a source of division -- can also be used to bring people together. Willer shares compelling insights on how we...

What is social deviance? Who defines what is deviant and how to people come to behave that way? Today we’re going to explore biological and psychological approaches to explaining deviance, including what each perspective can bring to the...

What accounts for our polarized public life, and how can we begin to heal it? Political philosopher Michael Sandel offers a surprising answer: those who have flourished need to look in the mirror. He explores how "meritocratic hubris"...

Hacking, fake news, information bubbles ... all these and more have become part of the vernacular in recent years. But as cyberspace analyst Laura Galante describes in this alarming talk, the real target of anyone looking to influence...

Thanks to modern science and technology, we can predict what the weather will be like in 5 days, but it’s still a bit more challenging to predict what will happen to us and our societies.

Nations can now attack other nations with cyber weapons: silent strikes on another country's computer systems, power grids, dams that leave no trace behind. (Think of the Stuxnet worm.) Guy-Philippe Goldstein shows how cyberattacks can...

How do you make a great public space inside a not-so-great building? Liz Diller shares the story of imagining a welcoming, lighthearted -- even, dare we say it, sexy -- addition to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. (From The Design...