The Surprising Science of Why We Laugh (#285)

We think laughter is a response to something funny.A joke. A punchline. A light moment.But listen closely to real conversations, and laughter shows up in places that are far more important than we realize - and often when nothing is funny at all.Neuroscientist Sophie Scott CBE reveals what laughter really signals, how it works, and why it quietly shapes our relationships, our hierarchies, and our sense of belonging.Sophie Scott is a professor at University College London and one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of laughter.

Elon Musk and Geoffrey Hinton warn of an AI-driven job apocalypse.MIT’s David Autor, one of the world’s leading thinkers on how technology reshapes work, says the real danger lies somewhere else.The biggest risk of AI isn’t mass unemployment - it’s whether human skills and expertise will still matter.David explains how AI could expand middle-class opportunity by lowering barriers to high-value work, why past technologies created more new jobs than they destroyed, and what we need to get right to make this moment a hopeful one.

Jack Goldsmith, who once ran the Justice Department office that advises presidents on what they can and can’t legally do, takes on some of the hardest questions about the limits of the president’s power — from changing the government to the use of military force abroad, including the invasion of Venezuela.Drawing on his experience inside the executive branch, he looks at why the limits on presidential power are more fragile than they appear, how precedent quietly expands executive authority, and what that means for the future of the presidency. 

Most people quit their New Year's resolutions by March. The reason why might surprise you.University of Chicago professor Ayelet Fishbach has spent decades studying why we fail at goals. Her finding: willpower is overrated. What matters is something entirely different.In this episode, Fishbach reveals what actually separates those who succeed from those who quit and the strategies that make goals stick.

Some insights change how you see the world.From the White House to the frontiers of AI drug discovery, we’ve gathered the most powerful moments from a year of extraordinary conversations. This 2025 highlights episode brings you the thinkers and leaders who challenged assumptions, revealed hidden patterns, and reframed the biggest questions of our time. - Mark Buchanan (Physicist): The hidden patterns behind catastrophes from wildfires to stock market crashes- Cass Sunstein (Harvard Law Professor): What Facebook’s emotional manipulation experiment really revealed- Susan Magsamen (Johns Hopkins): How your everyday environment is quietly reshaping your brain- Jake Sullivan (U.S. National Security Advisor): What surprised him most about Xi and Putin- Admiral James Stavridis (Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander): Navigating the China challenge- Jon Gray (President, Blackstone): The real key to career success (it’s not what you think)- Bonnie Hammer (Former Vice Chair, NBCUniversal): Redefining what “having it all” really means- Christine Rosen (American Enterprise Institute): The hidden costs of a screen-mediated life- Zanny Minton-Beddoes (Editor-in-Chief, The Economist): American polarization through foreign eyes- David Brooks (New York Times columnist): The mistake people make when they turn to politics- Craig Mundie (Former Microsoft Chief Strategist): AI’s biggest unsolved problem- Dr. David Agus (Founding CEO Ellison Medical Institute): How AI is changing drug discovery- Laura Carstensen (Stanford Center on Longevity): What she wishes people understood about aging- Thomas Chatterton Williams (Author): Moving beyond racial identityThese are the conversations that expanded minds in 2025.

Dr. David Agus, Professor of Medicine and Engineering at the University of Southern California and Founding CEO of the Ellison Medical Institute, treats presidents, CEOs and cultural icons and has spent decades studying one question: What determines how long and well we live?His answer is hopeful: Only 4% is genetic. The other 96% is under your control.In this episode, he reveals why elephants rarely get cancer, why giraffes never get heart disease, and what inflammation does to nearly every organ in your body. He also shares the simple, proven habits that matter more than DNA, and destroys the myths quietly harming millions.Science-backed. Actionable. Hopeful.He is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including The Book of Animal Secrets, The Lucky Years and The End of Illness.

Nicholas Burns spent 2021 to 2025 in Beijing as US Ambassador to China, witnessing up close the forces shaping the world's most dangerous rivalry.Sitting across from Xi Jinping and living in China, he saw firsthand how dangerously close the world is to a crisis. Some of it genuinely terrified him.Our conventional wisdom about China? Outdated. And dangerously wrong.In this episode, he reveals the alarming "nightmare scenario" almost no one is talking about, why a single unanswered phone call could spark disaster, and what we're getting wrong about China and what China is getting wrong about us.All from someone who lived it.

Sleep shapes your mood, memory, immune system, and long-term health, yet most of us aren’t getting enough. Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham sleep scientist Dr. Elizabeth Klerman shares the three easiest science-backed changes proven to improve your sleep tonight, plus the myths that make things worse.  If you’re struggling to fall asleep, waking at 3 a.m., or dragging through the day, this episode is for you. 

In a Paris hospital delivery room, Thomas Chatterton Williams, writer for The Atlantic and author of Self-Portrait in Black and White, held his newborn daughter for the first time. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. And in that instant, everything he thought he knew about race shattered.Thomas lives the questions about race and identity that most of us only debate. The son of a Black father who grew up under Jim Crow and a white mother, he had accepted America's racial categories without question. Until he couldn't.What he decided is radical. Controversial. And will challenge how you think about identity, George Floyd, and the categories we use to define ourselves.

What if fatigue, fear, and even failure aren’t real limits, but signals from the brain trying to protect us?Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic and former Editor-in-Chief of Wired reveals the surprising psychology behind fatigue, focus, and fear and how our biggest limits often come from within.Nick isn’t just one of the most thoughtful leaders in media, he’s also a record-breaking ultramarathoner who’s learned that endurance begins in the mind.This conversation will change how you think about performance, aging, and the power of effort itself.Nick's wonderful new book is The Running Ground.