What’s the difference between being loved and feeling loved? Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky joins us to discuss the distinction, and how we can create a stronger feeling of closeness in our relationships. Then, in our latest installment of Your Questions Answered, psychologist Greg Walton returns to answer listeners’ questions about negative thought spirals.As individuals and as a society, we often overlook a strategy that can help us to improve our lives. We discuss this tool in a new video on Hidden Brain's YouTube channel. Please check it out, and let us know what you think!
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Ontario Premier Doug Ford tabled legislation requiring high school teachers to factor attendance into final grades. Should students lose marks for missing class? This week academics, teachers and students weigh in from all sides of this debate.
As Canadians debate how to deal with students missing school today, back in 2005 Checkup was taking the country's temperature on whether secondary education is truly serving students.
Global EV sales are also rebounding with rising oil prices. Our AMA expert answers caller questions about EVs, hybrids and everything in between.
There’s something rotten in the cows of Denmark. And Minnesota. And Wisconsin. And Idaho. What could cause a previously thriving herd of majestic dairy cattle to stop drinking water and start drinking … urine? A Danish farmer calls a special investigator, who takes one look at his farm and nopes the heck out of there, refusing to return, citing “bad energy” coming from something nearby … a big building covered in Viking runes.
It’s not magic. It’s an invisible force that’s far more common. And yet deeply mysterious.
This episode plunges producers Matt Kielty and Simon Adler knee-deep in a decades-old dairy farm controversy, rooted in a fundamental suspicion of the invisible streams of electrons that keep our world humming.
Special thanks to Dr. Liz Brock
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Matt Kielty and Simon Adler
with help from - Clara Grunnet and Rebecca Rand
Produced by - Matt Kielty
with help from - Maria Paz Gutierrez
Original music from - Jeremy Bloom and Matt Kielty
Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
Mixed by - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Angely Mercado and Sophie Samiee
and Edited by - Pat Walters
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
The Great Energy Transition: America from 1876 to 1929 (https://zpr.io/3PStsDgidpj5), by David Nye
Powering American Farms: The Overlooked Origins of Rural Electrification (https://zpr.io/GdQ4pMCy4DAV), by Richard Hirsch
Beyond the Barn – Dodging Cow Patties for 50 Years by a Country Vet (https://zpr.io/S8qS9HLEQBJe), by Don Sanders a memoir about his long career.
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One possibility: a leading hypothesis pursued by researchers (and funders) was built on science that now appears to be fraudulent. Stephen Dubner speaks with the scientist and the journalist who blew the whistle.
SOURCES:
Charles Piller, investigative journalist for Science, author of Doctored.
Matthew Schrag, associate professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
RESOURCES:
Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's, by Charles Piller (2025).
"The brain makes a lot of waste. Now scientists think they know where it goes," by Jon Hamilton (NPR, 2024).
"The history of Alzheimer’s disease," by Lisa Kiani and Richard Hodson (Nature, 2024).
EXTRAS:
"Can Marty Makary Fix the F.D.A.?" by Freakonomics Radio (2026).
"Are You Ready for the Elder Swell?" by Freakonomics Radio (2025).
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First up on the podcast, quantum computers require extremely low temperatures—less than 1°C away from absolute zero. But getting down to those temperatures has usually required dilution fridges using the extremely rare and increasingly expensive isotope helium-3. Freelance science journalist Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss up-and-coming technologies that can drive down temperatures while staying helium-3–free.
Next on the show, Nizan Packin, a professor of law at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, talks about prediction markets as a public health threat. Early on, prediction markets were proposed as a way to make reliable forecasts from crowdsourced wisdom. With the appearance of commercial, for-profit prediction markets linked with cryptocurrency and sports betting, Nizan and colleagues ask what studies should be done to better understand potential harms to the public.
Finally, in a Working Life column this week, recent Ph.D. graduate Filippo Dall’Armellina wrote about how his foray into science podcasting helped him regain enjoyment of research. He talks about why having a science-adjacent hobby was life changing.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
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Last time on The Normals, we learned that in the 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) wanted to recruit many healthy volunteers for basic research. Two peace churches, the Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren, had an excess of healthy human volunteers. The “Normals” recruited from these Anabaptist churches were surprisingly happy, even as they went through sometimes painful procedures.
In this follow-up episode, we hear about how the sources of normal human subjects changed in the 1960s and why NIH researchers felt they needed to expand their search for normal people. We also learn about the first death in the program and the shifting motives on the parts of the researchers and volunteers. Final episode drops next Tuesday, April 21.
All Normals episodes
In this episode:
Laura Stark, history professor at the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University
Ken Naas, former Normal patient
Cindy Jansen, former Normal patient
Dale Horst, former Normal patient
Sarah Crespi, Science Podcast senior host and producer
Additional resources:
The Normals: A People’s History of Modern America in Five Human Experiments by Laura Stark
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Does power truly flow from the barrel of a gun? Pop culture and conventional history often teach us that violence is the most effective way to produce change. But is that common assumption actually true? Political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who has studied more than 100 years of revolutions and insurrections, says the answer is counterintuitive. Then, Ranjay Gulati answers listener questions on how to cultivate courage.
Hidden Brain is now on YouTube! Check out our first three videos, which explore how to cope in high-pressure situations, the secret behind artistic masterpieces, and an unexpected driver of bravery in our everyday lives.
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Canada elected a minority parliament - but five floor crossers have brought Prime Minister Mark Carney just 1 seat away from a majority government. Our question: Is floor crossing a fair path to a majority government?
This isn't the first time that future of Canada's passenger rail system has been the centre of public debate. On August 17, 1980, Cross Country Checkup asked callers: "Should we abandon our passenger trains?" Here are some highlights from that show.
