Innovation Hub

First: American universities minted hundreds of thousands of savvy professionals in the latter half of the 20th century. We explore how those educated, creative thinkers may have - inadvertently - caused America’s decades-long decline. Next: We talk with Harvard University professor Elizabeth Hinton about whether free education for people in prison makes sense. Then: Do you think you’re smart? Probably. But are you rational? There’s a difference between the two, and it matters more than you think.

Our trust in government is at historic lows. Inequality is at historic highs. Americans are more pessimistic about the future. It can seem like the United States is in decline. And Steven Brill, author of “Tailspin: The People And Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall - And Those Fighting To Reverse It.” says that’s true… though not for the reasons you might think.

Despite having less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison population. According to Elizabeth Hinton, an associate history professor at Harvard University, America’s prison system is unlike anything the world has ever seen. She says it’s crucial that we focus on rehabilitating inmates through educational activities inside prisons. We talked with her about the past, and the uncertain future, of prison education in America.

Have you ever taken an IQ test? Think about the results. Did you do well? You might have gotten a high score, but, often, intelligence doesn’t have anything to do with rationality. There is a marked difference between the two, although we often conflate them. We talk with York University associate professor Maggie Toplak and Boston University professor Carey Morewedge about why even smart people do irrational things.

First: We ask a couple of public opinion experts how technology has made polling more convenient but less consistent - and what they see coming in 2018. Then: Have you ever wondered who really owns that quaint craft beer you love? We investigate why large corporations often buy out their smaller, less-efficient competitors - and how limiting competition is bad news for both consumers and workers. Finally: Economist John Quiggin tells us why he thinks generational labels like baby boomer and millennial are completely meaningless.

If you ever watch, listen, or read the news, you’ll hear about political polls. There are polls for almost everything: Special congressional races, the popularity of the Iran Nuclear Deal, and, of course, the president’s approval rating. According to polling experts Courtney Kennedy and Fred Yang, the barriers to conducting wide-reaching polls have diminished over the past several years, allowing new pollsters to enter the fray. We look at why not all polls are created equal.

If you go to your local liquor store or beer cellar, it may seem like you have thousands of options. And there’s certainly a lot of beer on the shelves. Not just Michelob or Miller Lite, but smaller-batch brews with names like Spitting Hobo or Dead Dragon. But though there might be a huge number of beer varieties, the American beer industry is mostly controlled by a handful of breweries that control nearly 90 percent of the American beer market. And this consolidation isn’t only a story of beer. The biggest four U.S. airlines reap 65 percent of the industry’s revenue, compared to ten years ago, when they only took in 41 percent. To find out more about why corporations are getting more powerful, we talked with David Wessel, a senior fellow in economic studies at The Brookings Institution, and author of the recent Harvard Business Review article, “Is Lack of Competition Strangling the U.S. Economy?”

Economist John Quiggin wants to change the way we talk about millennials. That is, he thinks we should stop talking about them altogether. In a recent New York Times editorial, Quiggin argued that the notion of generations is a pop-culture myth. He thinks we should focus on how people are affected by more significant traits like class, gender, and age.

First up, our family tree; or rather, our family web. According to geneticist Adam Rutherford, investigating the human genome can answer a lot of questions about human history. And the answers aren’t always expected. From mixing our genes with Neanderthals, to genetic lineages that would make Jaime Lannister proud, to the link (or lack thereof) between race health, Rutherford tells us all about the surprising secrets of our species. Then: The modern workplace wasn’t designed for women. And that’s a problem. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, author of the article “If you Can’t Find a Spouse Who Supports Your Career, Stay Single,” talks about the barriers that prevent women from achieving their full potential. She also walks us through how high-achieving couples can actually maintain a balance between work and family. And, finally: If your life has become unsatisfying, confusing, and purposeless… consider designing a better one. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, who teach a course at Stanford about constructing the life yo

As scientists apply our new understanding of the human genome to genetics, we’re getting answers to big-picture questions about our species. What is race? How did humanity spread around the globe? How should we pick a mate (genetically speaking)? We talk with Adam Rutherford, geneticist and author of “A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes,” about the history of our genes, and what they reveal about our species.

The number of women running Fortune 500 companies is higher than it’s ever been. And yet, there are only 32 female CEOs on that list. So… why aren’t there more high-powered women in positions of power? There are a multitude of reasons, but according to Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, author of the article “If you Can’t Find a Spouse Who Supports Your Career, Stay Single,” part of the issue lies with the support these women are receiving.

We all want fun and rewarding careers and personal lives. But, we never really learn how to achieve our life goals in college. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Stanford professors and co-authors of “Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life,” invented a college course to change just that.

You don’t have to fish for tuna to have a dangerous job. Stanford’s Jeffrey Pfeffer tells us why toxic workplaces lead to an enormous number of health problems. How weaving rugs can empower Afghan women. Everything is online nowadays. But what does that mean for the one in five Americans who can’t reliably access the internet?

When you think of dangerous work, you probably conjure up images of crab fishermen braving the frigid Atlantic, lumberjacks operating chainsaws, or truckers navigating icy roads. You probably don’t think of late nights at the office, or working overtime at the cash register. But maybe you should. Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, argues that seemingly-innocuous workplaces have become increasingly bad for our health over the past few decades. He’s the author of “Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance - and What We Can Do About It.”

When Connie Duckworth visited Afghanistan in 2003, she was struck by two things: the deep poverty that engulfed the country and, by contrast, her own wealth and comfort. The former Goldman Sachs executive decided she needed to help and saw an opportunity in a skill many of the women already possessed: rug making. Duckworth created ARZU, a non-profit that employs Afghan women and gives them access to resources like education and healthcare. We talked with Duckworth about how this model might fit into the broader scope of international development.

If you’re reading this, you almost certainly have access to the internet, which means you can check email anytime, do online banking, or investigate whether your kid’s rash is worthy of a trip to the doctor. But, across the country, about one in five people don’t have access to those tools. According to Angela Siefer, the executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, there are three main reasons why people don’t have internet connections: it’s unaffordable, it’s physically unavailable, or the household lacks digital literacy. Siefer talks about efforts to bridge this gap, and get everyone across the country connected.

Robert Sapolsky explains why it’s hard to act as if free will is an illusion… even if you believe that free will is an illusion. How the Keeling Curve, one of the most recognizable pieces of evidence of global warming, came to be. Corporations aren’t a minority group, but Adam Winkler says businesses have spent 200 years arguing for their civil rights.

Humanity is simultaneously incredibly kind and incredibly violent. We commit indescribable atrocities, but also acts of incomprehensible compassion. There is both horror and beauty in our history. Which leads to the question… how do we reconcile this inherent contradiction? It all goes back to our biology, according to Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist at Stanford and author of the book “Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst. In fact, all questions about human behavior are, at their core, about biology.

For thousands of years, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere fluctuated relatively consistently (air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice provide a record of the past). But, since around the 19th century, CO2 levels have been rising and haven’t really stopped. We know this partly because of the work of Charles Keeling. Keeling developed the first technique for accurately measuring CO2 in the air. He set-up a continuous measurement of CO2 on a volcano in Hawaii in 1958. When you plot out the data collected over years of CO2 observations, you can see a steady upward curve. It became known as the “Keeling Curve” and was an easy-to-understand piece of evidence for global warming. Ralph Keeling, Charles’ son, has now taken over his father’s work and serves as the Principal Investigator for the Atmospheric Oxygen Research Group at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. He spoke to us on the 60th anniversary of his father’s CO2 measurements.

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney famously declared that “corporations are people” while on the campaign trail in 2011. The Iowa State Fair crowd jeered him and Romney launched into a stammering defense. But, if you look at Supreme Court cases from the past 200 years, Romney’s assessment wasn’t too far off. Corporations may not be people, but they enjoy many of the same basic rights we do. We talk with UCLA law professor Adam Winkler about his new book, “We The Corporations: How American Businesses Won their Civil Rights.”