What We Learned From Podcasts This Week

Restaurant Survival; Heat Deaths; Weed Weakness

People listen to or watch podcasts for different reasons, from education to confirmation bias, and from entertainment to new knowledge. Podcasting’s roots are firmly rooted in learning and absorbing facts, concepts, and exquisite detail not available on one-sided news networks that treat facts as fungible entities.

There’s a good reason a podcast like Stuff You Should Know has been one of the most popular shows for years. Moreover, Everything, Everywhere, Daily has aired more than 2,000 episodes. The podcast explores short, engaging stories about history, science, geography, mathematics, technology, and culture.

Today, we have three examples of how podcasting can help us to become more informed.

An Existential Threat To Neighborhood Restaurants

Organized Money is a podcast about how the business world really works, and how corporate consolidation and monopolies are dominating every sector of our economy. Writers and journalists Matt Stoller and David Dayen host the series, and both are thought leaders in the antimonopoly movement.

The August 25th show — An Existential Threat To Neighborhood Restaurants — discussed an extinction-level event in the restaurant industry. Dan Jacobs, chef, restaurant owner, and active member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, discussed a looming threat to neighborhood restaurants: the proposed merger between the food giant Sysco and the cash-and-carry Restaurant Depot.

Restaurants already operate on thin margins, but this merger threatens to cut off a major source of restaurant bargaining power and a competitive check on the market. As a result, this merger could reverberate through the restaurant industry and local economies, forcing limited menus, thinner margins, and even closures. The episode also discusses how restaurants are being squeezed by post-pandemic changes in food prices and the labor market, child care needs, and credit card swipe fees.

If you don’t want your Mushroom Swiss Burger and Fries to cost $40 the next time you visit a friendly neighborhood restaurant, tell the government no merger!

Deaths from Heat Grossly undercounted

New discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines — in just under 15 minutes. That’s Short Wave. It’s science for everyone, using a lot of creativity and a little humor. Join hosts Emily Kwong and Regina Barber for science on a different wavelength.

A new investigation from NPR and Boston University finds that roughly 9,000 Americans die from heat-related causes each year — more than five times what federal statistics show.

In Maricopa County alone, home to Phoenix, the number of heat-linked deaths consistently exceeds the entire annual toll across the U.S. from weather disasters like hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes.

For those climate deniers out there: Does it matter why our climate is heating up? We need to do something before we have to rely on three things we need to live — food, water, and a functioning AC unit (s).

Normal Curves Podcast Questions Studies On the Brain Benefits of Cannabis

Normal Curves is a podcast about sexy science & serious statistics. Ever try to make sense of a scientific study and the numbers behind it? Listen in to a lively conversation between Professors Regina Nuzzo and Kristin Sainani as they discuss papers, dissect the data, challenge the claims, and arm us with tools to assess scientific studies on your own.

On the August 24th episode — Can weed protect your brain as you get older? — the hosts unpack a study linking lifetime cannabis use to larger brain volumes and better cognitive test scores in older adults — and investigate how those findings became headlines. What the two statistics professors found was collapsing categorical variables, confounding, clinically versus statistically significant results, multiple testing, and a press release subtly changed a story.

In effect, this study didn’t show any demonstrable benefit to brain health for middle-aged and older Americans. However, clinical studies do show that cannabis sparks a strong desire to eat regardless of a person’s weight, sex, or when they last ate. Fritos anyone? I make my own dip.

The “Want To Know More” Indie Podcast: Want to know more about the hidden heroes of History? Check out the Trapped History podcast where hosts Oswin Baker (the founder) and Carla O’Shaughnessy tell the stories of the forgotten — of people who have been ignored by the history we’ve been taught in school.