My jaw dropped when I first looked up Huberman Lab, the wildly popular science podcast hosted by Stanford University neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, and saw that most episodes run at least a couple hours long. How in the world, I wondered, does this guy get millions of people to listen to him talk about science for hours on end?
It was that question that led me to travel to Palo Alto, Calif., this spring to interview Huberman. I wanted to know how—at a time when attention spans are short, trust in scientists is declining, and misinformation runs rampant—a scientist has become one of the biggest names in podcasting. Was it the health advice he doles out? Did his listeners simply want to feel smart?
Even Huberman isn’t totally sure, he told me, but he thinks it’s because most people genuinely want to learn. All he’s doing is giving them the tools to get started.
"What every major medical organization and expert in the United States will tell you is that there is a direct relationship between the health of people, communities, women and families, and the ability to access comprehensive reproductive health care."
—Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward
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Today's newsletter was written by Jamie Ducharme and Haley Weiss, and edited by Angela Haupt.
