A member of an unusual Bay Area community decides to try to have a baby in an unusual way – by putting out a very large prize for anyone who can help her find a mate. How the internet shaped one person’s decision-thinking. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
Garbage Day's Ryan Broderick traces the rise of this goopy green chocolate, and explains how Chinese social media is beginning to tug on US culture in unexpected ways. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
We interview Jonathan Goldstein about sobriety, his strange relationship with McDonald's, and other issues of the day. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
Our listener Louisa is very annoyed by her sister’s preoccupation with keeping her children away from microplastics. Louisa wonders: are people with microplastics anxiety kind of overdoing it? Search Engine investigates. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
A journalist finds out that many of his vaunted mentors are seeing a psychic. The same psychic. He decides to pay her a visit. Check out the 10% Happier podcast See more of Dan's work at DanHarris.com 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
A woman gets a disquieting piece of information about her pregnancy, and turns to technology to try to control her future. Second Life - Amanda Hess (Amazon / Bookshop) 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
A high school teacher has a question, but he wants his skeptical teenage students to answer it. Reporter Garrott Graham rides along as they investigate the motives of an international yogurt brand. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
This week we ask a slightly absurd question – is there technology to stop you from using addictive technology – and get some surprising answers. New developments in the anti-technology field, and a partial history of how our phones got so oppressive. Comment on this episode! 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
A small group of Americans becomes convinced they’ve discovered something strange about their iPhones: a forbidden phrase the phone will refuse to transmit. A crack podcasting team searches for answers, wherever they may lead. Comment on this episode! 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
In a moment of deep economic uncertainty created by our tariff-loving president, suddenly, our national debt has become much more important. Important enough that, this week, we have decided to teach ourselves everything about it – how America first created its national debt, and how it got out of control. Submit a quesitonComment on this episodeNoah Smith's Substack 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
A group of teenagers agrees to allow a filmmaker to record the things they do on their phones for a year-long experiment. To see the world they see through their phones, to encounter their algorithms. The results are honest, at times pretty upsetting, and tell us a lot about the internet that Gen-Z finds itself on. In the middle of our big, confusing, national argument about teenagers and their phones, a few answers.Lauren Greenfield's documentary series, Social StudiesSearch Engine merch 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
A beloved American rock band’s Spotify page appears to have been taken over by Russian rappers. Is this a scam? A mistake? A strange third act from some beloved alt-rockers? Kelefa Sanneh investigates.Bye-Bye - Cake, PulyaNaVetru 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
Reporter Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi has the story of an unusual website you’ve likely never heard of. A website that has been responsible for rapidly making the world of Dogecoin and other memecoins become even more unhinged, all while generating small fortunes for foul-mouthed children.The Parable of Peanut the Memecoin 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
In the 1930s, two scientists made a very important discovery, but their breakthrough idea failed to spread. In large part because the two were considered so deeply annoying. Reporter Carl Zimmer brings us a story of the scientific process and its very human constraints.Airborne by Carl ZimmerApply to work with Search Engine 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
Why it’s so difficult to manufacture something entirely in America, and what happens if you try anyway.The Smarter Scrubber Grill BrushDestin Sandlin’s YouTube Channel: Smarter Every Day 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
There’s a new president of America, and he’s doing a lot of things. How do you decide what to pay attention to? A story about reporters focusing on one mysterious line item during the DOGE headline storm, and where that led.Bobby Allyn 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
An adult picky eater, ostracized by his friends, castigated by society, asks the most human question of all: can I change? Our friends Manny, Noah, and Devan, the chicken bone squad, return to answer their own question.Check out Manny, Noah, and Devan's new podcast, No Such Thing. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
A teenager explains why he shouldn’t have to write homework essays anymore. Is there some way for adults to force teens to still do homework? Or to convince them they should want to?More Than Words - John WarnerCenter for Digital Thriving 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
We're supposed to be buried there forever, right? Right?? Answers this week from writer David Sloane, who grew up in a cemetery and spent his adult life studying them. The surprising history of the place we go where we die and an answer to what happens when it runs out of money.Is the Cemetery Dead? by David Charles Sloane 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
One of the most routine and uncomfortable miracles many of us experience, flight. Airplanes have gotten increasingly more cramped and less comfortable. What’s it like flying as a fat person, all the invisible negotiations and strategizing. Audio producer Ronald Young, Jr. reports on the experience, and why it’s been changing.Check out Weight For It! (We recommend you begin at the beginning, with episode one.) If you want to support Search Engine, you can sign up to be a premium subscriber over at searchengine.show. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription
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