Bestselling author James Nestor believes that we can improve our lives by changing the way we breathe. He’s persuasive enough to get Steve taping his mouth shut at night. He explains how humans dive to depths of 300 feet without supplemental oxygen, and describes what it’s like to be accepted into a pod of whales.

• SOURCES:
  • James Nestor, author and journalist.

• RESOURCES:
  • Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor (2020).
  • Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves, by James Nestor (2014).
  • "Open Your Mouth and You’re Dead," by James Nestor (Outside Magazine, 2012).
  • "The Brain on Sonar — How Blind People Find Their Way Around With Echoes," by Ed Yong (National Geographic, 2011).
  • "How I Held My Breath for 17 Minutes," by David Blaine (TED Talk, 2009).
  • Project CETI.
  • datascience4everyone.org.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals founder Ingrid Newkirk has been badgering meat-eaters, fur-wearers, and circus-goers for more than 40 years. For a woman who’s leaving her liver to the president of France in her will, she sounds quite sensible when she tells Steve what we can learn from animals, why she supports euthanasia, and who’ll get her other organs.

• SOURCE:
  • Ingrid Newkirk, founding president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Paradoxical Gender Effects in Meat Consumption Across Cultures," by Christopher J. Hopwood, Jahn N. Zizer, Wiebke Bleidorn, et al. (Nature Scientific Reports, 2024).
  • "PETA President Bequeaths Her Rump to a Reality Show," (PETA.org, 2023).
  • Animalkind: Remarkable Discoveries about Animals and Revolutionary New Ways to Show Them Compassion, by Ingrid Newkirk (2020).
  • "One Last U.S. Medical School Still Killed Animals to Teach Surgery. But No More," by Darryl Fears (The Washington Post, 2016).
  • "The Naked and the Dead," by Katie Glass (The Times, 2013).
  • "The Betrayal of 'No-Kill' Sheltering," by Ingrid Newkirk (PETA YouTube channel, 2013).
  • "The Lab-Monkey Controversy That Launched the Animal-Rights Movement," by Caroline Fraser (The New Yorker, 1993).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Suleika Jaouad’s Survival Mechanisms," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024).
  • "Jane Goodall Changed the Way We See Animals. She’s Not Done," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).
  • "Peter Singer Isn’t a Saint, But He’s Better Than Steve Levitt," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).
  • "Bruce Friedrich Thinks There’s a Better Way to Eat Meat," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).
  • Project Donor.

Revisiting Steve’s 2021 conversation with the economist and MacArthur “genius” about how to make memories stickier, why change is undervalued, and how to find something new to say on the subject of scarcity.

• SOURCE:
  • Sendhil Mullainathan, university professor of computation and behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Fictional Money, Real Costs: Impacts of Financial Salience on Disadvantaged Students," by Claire Duquennois (American Economic Review, 2022).
  • "Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?" by Supreet Kaur, Sendhil Mullainathan, Suanna Oh, and Frank Schilbach (NBER Working Paper, 2022).
  • Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less, by Leidy Klotz (2021).
  • "Heads or Tails: The Impact of a Coin Toss on Major Life Decisions and Subsequent Happiness," by Steve Levitt (NBER Working Paper, 2016).
  • Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir (2013).
  • "The End of History Illusion," by Jordi Quoidbach, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Timothy D. Wilson (Science, 2013).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Leidy Klotz on Why the Best Solutions Involve Less — Not More," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).
  • "Sendhil Mullainathan Explains How to Generate an Idea a Minute," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).