We wade into the heated debate over immigrants’ impact on the labor market. When the number of workers in a city increases, does that take away jobs from the people who already live and work…

(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2019.) In 1794, George Washington decided to raise money for the federal government by taxing the rich. He did it by putting a tax on horse-drawn…

When the vape brand Juul first hit the market back in 2015, e-cigarettes were in a kind of regulatory limbo. At the time, the rules that governed tobacco cigarettes did not explicitly apply to e-cigarettes.…

We’ve lived amongst Elon Musk headlines for so long now that it’s easy to forget just how much he sounds like a sci-fi character. He runs a space company and wants to colonize mars. He…

There’s a behind the scenes industry that helps big brands decide questions like: How big should a bag of chips be? What’s the right size for a bottle of shampoo? And yes, also: When should…

Graphite is sort of the one-hit wonder of minerals. And that hit? Pencils. Everyone loves to talk about pencils when it comes to graphite. If graphite were to perform a concert, they’d close out the…

Most economic textbooks will tell you that there can be real dangers in running up a big national debt. A major concern is how the debt you add now could slow down economic growth in…

For thousands of years, getting light was a huge hassle. You had to make candles from scratch. This is not as romantic as it sounds. You had to get a cow, raise the cow, feed…

There is a constant arms race between law enforcement and criminals, especially when it comes to technology. For years, law enforcement has been frustrated with encrypted messaging apps, like Signal and Telegram. And law enforcement…

We are living in a kind of golden age for online fraudsters. As the number of apps and services for storing and sending money has exploded – so too have the schemes that bad actors…