Shows / HigherIQ
HigherIQ
One fascinating thing, every morning, in 5 minutes. Why is boarding a plane so slow, and do airlines like it that way? How did Teflon end up everywhere? Who invented kindergarten, and why? HigherIQ is a daily show for curious people who want something worth sharing at dinner tonight. No doom, no politics, no 40-minute commitment. One story, well told, that makes you the most interesting person in the room. New episodes every weekday morning. Press play and learn something.
Episodes
- HigherIQ
The Day of Two Noons
00:00 — Introduction 00:36 — The Day of Two Noons 03:45 — Wrap Up Sources: - HISTORY - Railroads Create the First Time Zones, November 18, 1883…
- HigherIQ
Innocent Until Proven Harmful
00:00 — Introduction 00:07 — Innocent Until Proven Harmful 01:49 — Wrap Up Sources: - TIME - Why Some Food Additives Banned in Europe Aren't in the U.S…
- HigherIQ
The Club That Doesn't Need You
00:00 — Introduction 00:07 — The Club That Doesn't Need You 08:08 — Wrap Up Sources: - Wikipedia - Augusta National Golf Club…
- HigherIQ
The Deal That Replaced Gold
00:00 — Introduction 00:05 — The Deal That Replaced Gold 00:54 — Wrap Up Sources: - Wikipedia - Petrocurrency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrocurrency -…
- HigherIQ
The Question That Breaks Every Answer
00:00 — Introduction 00:18 — The Question That Breaks Every Answer 08:13 — Wrap Up Sources: - Wikipedia - Why Is There Anything at All?…
- HigherIQ
Your Brain's Pharmacy
00:00 — Introduction 00:04 — Your Brain's Pharmacy 01:12 — Wrap Up Sources: - Science/AAAS - The Rising Placebo Effect…
- HigherIQ
Thirty Nine Days
00:00 — Introduction 00:35 — Thirty Nine Days 01:22 — Wrap Up Sources: - NPR - U.S. and Iran Agree to 2-Week Ceasefire (April 7, 2026)…
- HigherIQ
The Fear of Falling Behind
00:00 — Introduction 00:22 — The Degree That Ate Your Savings 00:22 — Wrap Up Sources: - Saving for College - History of Student Loans: The Bennett Hypothesis…
- HigherIQ
The Rate Your State Can't Touch
00:00 — Introduction 00:07 — The Rate Your State Can't Touch 00:07 — Wrap Up Sources: - Wikipedia - Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corp…
- HigherIQ
The Holiday That Belongs To Everyone
00:00 — Introduction 00:31 — The Holiday That Belongs To Everyone 05:42 — Wrap Up Sources: - Smithsonian Magazine - The Ancient Origins of the Easter Bunny…
- HigherIQ
The Businesses That Can’t Afford To Exist
00:34 — The Businesses That Can’t Afford To Exist 00:58 — Wrap Up Sources: - The Local France - How Does Paris Sustain So Many Independent Shops?…
- HigherIQ
The Fifty Four Year Gap
00:00 — Introduction 00:39 — The Fifty Four Year Gap 01:20 — Wrap Up Sources: - NASA - Liftoff! NASA Launches Astronauts on Historic Artemis Moon Mission…
- HigherIQ
The Accident That Built American Healthcare
00:00 — Introduction 00:07 — The Accident That Built American Healthcare 04:21 — Wrap Up Sources: - Wikipedia - Stabilization Act of 1942…
- HigherIQ
The Tax You're Not Supposed To See
00:00 — Introduction 00:35 — The Tax You're Not Supposed To See 00:54 — Wrap Up Sources: - ProPublica - Inside TurboTax's 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From…
- HigherIQ
Picks and Shovels
00:00 — Introduction 00:01 — The Blog Post That Moved Billions 02:16 — Wrap Up Sources: - CNBC - A Google AI Breakthrough Is Pressuring Memory Chip Stocks…
- HigherIQ
The Number That Runs the World
00:00 — Introduction 00:02 — The Number That Runs the World 00:08 — Wrap Up Sources: - Bloomberg Economics via World Oil - Saudi Fiscal Breakeven at $94/bbl…
- HigherIQ
The Sleep We Lost
00:00 — Introduction 00:20 — The Sleep We Lost 08:30 — Wrap Up Sources: - Roger Ekirch - Sleep Research, Virginia Tech…
- HigherIQ
The Seven Dollar Cup
00:00 — Introduction 00:10 — The Seven Dollar Cup 07:57 — Wrap Up Sources: - ArtHNova - How Starbucks Created a Third Place Between Home and Work…
- HigherIQ
The Rock That Was Never Rare
00:00 — Introduction 00:19 — The Rock That Was Never Rare 01:47 — Wrap Up Sources: - Wikipedia - De Beers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers - Wikipedia -…
- HigherIQ
The Opinion That Broke the Government
00:00 — Introduction 00:16 — The Opinion That Broke the Government 00:55 — Wrap Up Sources: - TIME - The Man Who Invented the Government Shutdown…
- HigherIQ
The Seat That Costs Four Different Prices
00:00 — Introduction 00:19 — The Seat That Costs Four Different Prices 08:40 — Wrap Up Sources: - Wikipedia - Robert Crandall…
- HigherIQ
The Date That Means Nothing
00:00 — Introduction 00:09 — The Date That Means Nothing 00:39 — Wrap Up Sources: - NRDC / Harvard Law - The Dating Game: How Confusing Food Date Labels Lead…
- HigherIQ
The Invention of Doing Nothing
00:00 — Introduction 00:20 — The Invention of Doing Nothing 05:36 — Wrap Up Sources: - HISTORY - The 5-Day Work Week: How We Got Here…
- HigherIQ
The Spoon in Your Brain
00:00 — Introduction 00:15 — The Spoon in Your Brain 01:21 — Wrap Up Sources: - Levine, Swan et al. - Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and…
- HigherIQ
The Train They Voted Against
00:00 — Introduction 00:10 — The Train That Divided a City 01:20 — Wrap Up Sources: - How Racial Discrimination Shaped Atlanta's Transportation Mess…
- HigherIQ
The Number That Runs Your Life
00:00 — Introduction 00:40 — The Number That Runs Your Life 01:29 — Wrap Up Sources: - The History of the FICO Score (myFICO)…
- HigherIQ
The Billion-Dollar Amateur Hour
00:00 — Introduction 00:02 — The Billion-Dollar Amateur Hour 02:27 — Wrap Up Sources: - March Madness TV Rights Top $1B as NCAA Diversifies Revenue Streams…
- HigherIQ
Do More With Less
00:00 — Introduction 00:05 — The Do-More-With-Less Machine 00:05 — Wrap Up Sources: - Meta stock climbs nearly 3% on report of planned layoffs to offset AI…
- HigherIQ
The Accidental "Retirement Plan"
00:00 — Introduction 00:05 — The Accident That Became Your Retirement 02:51 — Wrap Up Sources: - A brief history of the 401(k), which changed how Americans…
- HigherIQ
The Shadow Fleet
00:00 — Introduction 00:57 — The Sanctions That Built a Shadow Navy 04:44 — Wrap Up Sources: - Trump administration allows for Russian oil sales as energy…
- HigherIQ
Permission to Build
00:00 — Introduction 00:03 — Why America Stopped Building Houses 00:03 — Wrap Up Sources: - Here's What's In the Sweeping Housing Bill the Senate Passed…
- HigherIQ
The Tip That Became a Wage
00:00 — Introduction 00:16 — The Tip That Became a Wage 00:22 — Wrap Up Sources: - The Racist History Behind America's Tipping Culture (Shriver Center on…
- HigherIQ
Inflation Is About to Get Worse
00:00 — Introduction 00:08 — The Last Clean Reading 00:08 — Wrap Up Sources: - CPI inflation report February 2026: CPI rose 2.4% annually, as expected (CNBC)…
- HigherIQ
You're Not Ticketmaster's Customer
00:00 — Introduction 00:24 — The Fee That Built an Empire 02:34 — Wrap Up Sources: - Live Nation settles antitrust case with DOJ, avoids Ticketmaster breakup…
- HigherIQ
The Price of Everything
00:00 — Introduction 00:49 — The Cascade 01:01 — Wrap Up Sources: - Stock Market Today: Recap for March 9, 2026 (TheStreet)…
- HigherIQ
Fake Studies, Real Prescriptions
00:00 — Introduction 00:58 — The Research That Isn't Real 01:05 — Wrap Up Sources: - Scientists warn fake research is spreading faster than real science…
- HigherIQ
The Store That Shops You
00:00 — Introduction 00:05 — The Store That Shops You 00:05 — Wrap Up Sources: - Surviving the Sneaky Psychology of Supermarkets (National Geographic)…
- HigherIQ
We Used to Fuel the World with Whales
00:00 — Introduction 00:40 — The Oil Industry Before Oil 00:55 — Wrap Up Sources: - Whale oil (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_oil - Sperm…
- HigherIQ
People are Financing Dinner
00:00 — Introduction 00:12 — Financing Dinner 00:51 — The Disappearing Middle 00:51 — Wrap Up Sources: - How Many Families Take on Debt to Pay for Groceries?…
- HigherIQ
The Three-Kilometer Lifeline
00:00 — Introduction 00:02 — The Three-Kilometer Lifeline 02:39 — Wrap Up Sources: - 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis (Wikipedia)…
- HigherIQ
The Betting Market for War
00:00 — Introduction 00:09 — The Betting Market for Everything 00:09 — Wrap Up Sources: - Prediction market trader 'Magamyman' made $553,000 on death of Iran's…
- HigherIQ
The Economics of Catching 'Em All
00:00 — Introduction 00:50 — How a Handheld Game Built a Network 01:19 — The Dual Market That Fuels Compounding 01:24 — How Cardboard Became Capital 01:24 —…
- HigherIQ
Your Gym Is Betting You Don't Show Up
00:00 — Introduction 00:19 — The Two Gyms That Explain the Whole Economy 00:19 — Your Body Ages on a Schedule 00:19 — Wrap Up Sources: - Planet Fitness, Inc…
- HigherIQ
Why You're Nostalgic for 2016 (But Should Be Nostalgic for 2006)
00:00 — Introduction 00:38 — What a Big Mac and a Diploma Tell You About Twenty Years 00:38 — The Internet Used to Have Edges 04:01 — Why the Nostalgia Cycle…
- HigherIQ
The Ozempic Economy
00:00 — Introduction 00:36 — The Drug That Changed Everything 00:47 — Wrap Up Sources: - What's next for GLP-1s? (Harvard Gazette)…
- HigherIQ
Why Nobody's Dating Anymore
00:00 — Introduction 00:06 — The Dating Recession 00:06 — Wrap Up Sources: - State of Our Unions 2026: The Dating Recession (Institute for Family Studies)…
- HigherIQ
A High School Student Just Beat 100 PhD Teams
00:00 — Introduction 00:00 — Story_1 00:01 — Story_2 00:09 — Story_3 00:13 — Story_4 00:29 — Wrap Up Sources: - Benchmarking large language models for…
- HigherIQ
The Real Reason Half the World Is Going Nearsighted
00:00 — Introduction 00:41 — The Light Your Eyes Are Missing 00:41 — A Thousand Dollars and a Calculator 00:59 — The Vaccine That Forgot to Be Specific 04:26 —…
- HigherIQ
You're Probably Eating Too Much Protein
00:00 — Introduction 00:14 — The Last Macronutrient Standing 00:20 — The Math Problem 00:20 — The Vegetarian Question 00:20 — The Outcome Questions 00:20 — The…
- HigherIQ
AI Was Supposed to Save Us Time. It Didn't
00:00 — Introduction 00:32 — The Berkeley Study 02:05 — The Washing Machine Pattern 02:05 — The Hidden Tax 02:05 — Takeaway 02:05 — Wrap Up Sources: - AI…
- HigherIQ
Why Your Brain Blocks Self-Tickling
00:00 — Introduction 00:34 — The Memo System 01:50 — The Tickle Robot 02:52 — The Exception 04:27 — The Giggling Rats 06:49 — Takeaway 06:57 — Wrap Up Sources…
- HigherIQ
Pigeons: The Original Neural Network
00:27 — The Pigeon-AI Connection 00:43 — Skinner's Pigeons Built Modern AI 02:20 — Cancer Detection and Art Critics 02:20 — Wrap Up Sources: - Can pigeons…
- HigherIQ
You Used to Speak Every Language
00:00 — Introduction 00:51 — The Sound Pruning 04:08 — The Language That Doesn't Have Left 04:56 — Wrap Up Sources: - Patricia Kuhl: The Linguistic Genius of…
- HigherIQ
Who Pays for AI?
00:00 — Introduction 00:43 — The Night the Grid Almost Broke 00:43 — The Jobless Boom 00:43 — Wrap Up Sources: - Virginia narrowly avoided power cuts when 60…
- HigherIQ
Why Some American Parents Don't Want Sons
00:00 — Introduction 00:17 — The Returning Soldier Effect 00:39 — When Humans Get to Choose 00:57 — Wrap Up Sources: - Best quality vs. sex selection – an…
- HigherIQ
The Curse That Starts Today
00:00 — Introduction 00:06 — The Fire Horse Curse 01:56 — The Algorithm That Creates What It Predicts 02:05 — Wrap Up Sources: - The Year of the Fire Horse…
- HigherIQ
Stop Letting AI Do Your Push-Ups"
00:00 — Introduction 00:25 — The Skill You're Losing By Not Struggling 00:28 — Wrap Up Sources: - How AI Impacts Skill Formation (arXiv (Shen & Tamkin, 2026))…
- HigherIQ
Why Your Best Ideas Come in the Shower
00:00 — Introduction 00:47 — Your Brain Has Two Problem Solvers 00:59 — What You Can Actually Do With This 03:02 — Wrap Up Sources: - ADHD Symptoms Predict…
- HigherIQ
The Senses You Didn’t Know You Had (Spoiler: We Might Have More Than 5)
00:00 — Introduction 00:36 — You Have Way More Than Five Senses 05:44 — Life Started in the Freezer 05:57 — Wrap Up Sources: - Humans could have as many as 33…