Last week, we looked at the hidden beliefs that can leave us feeling stuck in life. This week, in the second part of our conversation with behavioral scientist Dave Evans, we talk about radical acceptance. Dave shares why accepting reality as it is can be so difficult — and why it's an essential first step in building a meaningful life. Then, in the latest installment of Your Questions Answered, psychologist Sarah Schnitker returns to answer listeners' questions about patience.
When something terrible happens in your life, are you destined to fall apart? In our latest YouTube video, we explore decades of research about how humans respond to grief, loss, and tragedy. Check it out, and subscribe so you don't miss any of our videos!
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This is the abbreviated version of Checkup's call-in where we ask whether a career in the trades, or a university degree is the way to go in 2026. The federal government wants to hire 100-thousand trades workers. Want some advice for the young person in your life? Our experts weigh-in on where the job market of tomorrow is headed.
The deadline to collect signatures has passed for the Stay Free Alberta petition. The leaders of the separatist movement say they have the support to force a referendum, but a court injunction may stop the process. Should Alberta hold a vote on separating from Canada? From separatists to federalists -- we hear the answer to that question from every possible perspective.
The federal government says it will hire 100-thousand tradespeople to help build it's promised infrastructure projects. Canadians are twice as likely to advise young people to go into the trades -- but is the right call? We'll hear the arguments for both, as well as the advice of a career councillor.
It was ten years ago this week that a wildfire started raging southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta. It would lead the largest wildfire evacuation in Canadian history. On ICYMI, from Checkup's show on May 8th, 2016, we hear from two evacuees shortly after they left the their homes behind.
In 2017, Wayne Hsiung and a crew of animal rights activists from Direct Action Everywhere broke into a Utah pig farm run by Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork distributors in the world. They were there to capture video of what they say were thousands of mistreated and abused animals kept in tiny metal cages barely bigger than their bodies. As they were leaving, they took two sick piglets out with them.
Prosecutors in Utah charged Wayne with burglary and theft. What came next was the court battle that he wanted all along. During his trial, Wayne made a truly bizarre argument that forced the jury, and all of us, to stare straight at our complicated, sometimes uncomfortable relationship with animals. This week on the show, we grapple with the impossible question at the center of it: What is the value of a piglet?
Special thanks to Kim Nederveen Pieterse, Nathan Peereboom, Jo Eidman, Sam Kozloff, Rachel Gross, Alex Allaux, and Joan Schaffner.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan and Jae Minard
Produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan
with help from - Pat Walters
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly
and Edited by - Alex Neason and Pat Walters
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles -
A Rabbit, is a rabbit, is a rabbit… Not under the Law (https://zpr.io/ezUPRE36VZVk) by Schaffner, J. E. in The Global Journal of Animal Law
Animal Rights Activists Are Acquitted in Smithfield Piglet Case (https://zpr.io/ayaV9gDneNsw) by Andrew Jacobs in The New York Times
Meet the Activists Risking Prison to Film VR in Factory Farms (https://zpr.io/HEXdpf5Q7VAB) by Andy Greenberg in Wired
Audio -
VR Puts Viewers Inside the Grisly Reality of Factory Farms (https://zpr.io/pMHq5RVkzUM3) a 2-part podcast by Wired
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That’s what the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang wanted to learn. So he turned Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations into an oratorio. We tag along as Lang’s piece heads toward its world premiere with the New York Philharmonic. (Part one of a two-part series.)
SOURCES:
Fleur Barron, opera singer and mezzo-soprano.
David Lang, composer and professor at the Yale School of Music.
RESOURCES:
"Finally, an Opera About Economics," by Stacey Vanek Smith (Bloomberg, 2026).
"The Little Match Girl Passion," by David Lang (2023).
The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith (1776).
EXTRAS:
"In Search of the Real Adam Smith," series by Freakonomics Radio (2022).
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First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a batch of fun stories with podcast host Sarah Crespi—from spider hearts racing when traffic gets loud to a disease-preventing house. Staff Writer Adrian Cho hops in to help discuss the possibility of black holes without singularities at their center.
Next on the show, epigenetics has become a hot topic in pop science but the ethical conversation is not keeping up. The idea that parents can pass down epigenetic marks from environmental toxins or trauma to their children—without changes in DNA—has been around for decades but the research in people is lacking. Jackie Leach Scully, a professor of bioethics and director of the Disability Innovation Institute at the University of New South Wales, discusses where the research actually is and the concerns that may arise if such marks do appear to impact the young.
Last up this week, we are launching our 2026 biography books series with books host Angela Saini and Science books editor Valerie Thompson. The pair discusses the difficulty of picking biographies and what can be learned about science, fame, and researchers as people from reading these types of books.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
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