Talk Cocktail

The sports betting explosion has unleashed a $500 billion monster that engulfs everything game its path. Since the Supreme Court opened the floodgates in 2018, betting and its betting apps bombard fans during every game, turning each play into another chance to wager. As millions will trade their paychecks for the dopa

How did America transform from a nation of self-aware optimists to one of angry cynics in less than two decades? In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I talk with political scientist Yascha Mounk, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins’s School of Advanced International Studies. He witnessed this cultural metamorphosis fi

  David Pakman, host of his eponymous podcast and program, joins me to talk about his book "The Echo Machine" and how right-wing extremism has methodically undermined America's shared information ecosystem over decades. Pakman and I discuss the deliberate fragmentation of media from talk radio through social media, exp

Renowned evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin joins me for an epic journey to Earth's most extreme polar frontiers. The author of the new book 'Ends of the Earth, explains why scientists are willing to brave bone-chilling environments where flesh freezes in seconds. Shubin shares with me stories of daring historical expe

Is China’s unstoppable rise actually a carefully constructed illusion? In this recentWhoWhatWhy podcast, I talk with Timothy Heath, a senior international defense researcher at RAND Corporation who spent over 15 years in the US government analyzing military and political issues related to China. Heath peels back layers

As the embers go cold, the smoke clears and the ashes are carted off in Los Angeles a stark reality emerges: not just winds but climate change played a significant role in this deadly and destructive event. A new World Weather Attribution study found that human-caused climate change increased the likelihood of extreme