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Search Engine
Search Engine is the podcast that tries to answer the questions that keep you up at night. A podcast made by humans that provides the answers that neither artificial intelligence nor actual search engines really can. Named one of the best podcasts of 2023 by Vulture, Time, The Economist, and Vogue.
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Recent Episodes
Aug. 22, 2025
A Dubai Chocolate theory of the internet
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. Support Search Engine! To learn more about listener data ...
Aug. 15, 2025
Are microplastics really a problem?
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. Supp...
July 25, 2025
What does it feel like to believe in God? (classic)
This week, we try to understand an experience that 74% of Americans routinely report having. The first of many conversations (perhaps?). This one, an interview with Zvika Krieger. Comment on the episode Support the show! To l...
July 18, 2025
The Cuddly Killer (classic)
A question that has launched a battle between bird-loving ecologists and ardent, cat-defending activists. What should we do about an invasive species beloved by many Americans -- cats? We hear from people on both sides of the...
July 11, 2025
Why'd I take speed for twenty years? - Part 2 (classic)
In part two of our story about ADHD medications, we approach the question from a different angle. We meet a doctor who spent two decades convinced that her brain does not work correctly, and who struggled to find someone who ...
July 4, 2025
Why'd I take speed for twenty years? - Part 1 (classic)
One of the millions of millennials given prescription stimulants to treat ADHD decides to quit. And afterwards wonders -- how did these drugs becomes so popular, so fast? This week, the story of amphetamine's birth, life, dea...
What People Say About the Show
"I love explanatory journalism, and it’s explanatory journalism at its best. Simple questions that unfold into wondrous answers and, more than that, explorations."
- Ezra Klein, host of The Ezra Klein Show
"I like that Search Engine is still figuring out what it can do with this new podcast form it's invented, and that every time I download an episode I really don't know what to expect. What's rarer than that? In podcasts or in anything?"
- Ira Glass, host of This American Life
"Search Engine’s particular spark comes from the way the team injects a sense of genuine discovery into the act of unspooling. This is a show that works to give you a good time, always hustling for your attention as it peels back layer after layer."
- Vulture, "Search Engine Is the Spiritual Successor to Reply All"
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