Search Engine
We try to make sense of the world, one question at a time. No question too big, no question too small. Hosted by PJ Vogt, edited by Sruthi Pinnamaneni. ***Named one of the best podcasts by Vulture, Time, The Economist, & Vogue. (OK, in 2023, but still...)***
Episodes
June 20, 2025 • 56 mins
Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski has heard a disgusting rumor — that the coffee on airplanes is unsafe to drink because the onboard water tanks are only cleaned once a year. We investigate and learn some disgusting lessons along the way. Go to our newsletter to comment on the episode and to see the images referenced in the story.
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June 13, 2025 • 51 mins
A woman gets a disquieting piece of information about her pregnancy, and turns to technology to try to control her future.
Second Life - Amanda Hess (Amazon / Bookshop)
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A playlist of Recommended Search Engine episodes
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June 6, 2025 • 65 mins
A high school teacher has a question, but he wants his skeptical teenage students to answer it. Reporter Garrott Graham rides along as they investigate the motives of an international yogurt brand.
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Best of Search Engine
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May 30, 2025 • 49 mins
This week, we're presenting an episode of a new show we like called What We Spend, one of Vulture's best podcasts of 2025.
Also, news for our Incognito Mode listeners. Today, we're having an online, live event with Heavyweight's Jonathan Goldstein at noon Eastern time.
Sign up for Incognito Mode at searchengine.show. Details about the event in the beginning of the episode!
Listeners' favorite Search Engine episodes
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May 16, 2025 • 52 mins
This week we ask a slightly absurd question – is there technology to stop you from using addictive technology – and get some surprising answers from The Verge's David Pierce. New developments in the anti-technology field, and a partial history of how our phones got so oppressive.
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Listeners' favorite Search Engine episodes
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May 9, 2025 • 50 mins
A small group of Americans becomes convinced they’ve discovered something strange about their iPhones: a forbidden phrase the phone will refuse to transmit. A crack podcasting team searches for answers, wherever they may lead.
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April 25, 2025 • 50 mins
In a moment of deep economic uncertainty created by our tariff-loving president, suddenly, our national debt has become much more important. Important enough that, this week, we have decided to teach ourselves everything about it – how America first created its national debt, and how it got out of control.
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Explore a colonial merchant ledger
Brendan Greeley
Noahpinion
...
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April 18, 2025 • 52 mins
A re-air from August 2023:
Our quest for the answer to this one sends us over a hundred years into the past. We learn about the invisible rules and fights that determine what our neighborhoods look like. We also learn about houses with backyard roller coasters, tiny apartments inside of shopping malls, and then we think a little bit about death. Happy Friday!
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April 11, 2025 • 51 mins
A group of teenagers agrees to allow a filmmaker to record the things they do on their phones for a year-long experiment. To see the world they see through their phones, to encounter their algorithms. The results are honest, at times pretty upsetting, and tell us a lot about the internet that Gen-Z finds itself on. In the middle of our big, confusing, national argument about teenagers and their phones, a few answers.
Lauren Greenf...
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April 4, 2025 • 46 mins
A beloved American rock band’s Spotify page appears to have been taken over by Russian rappers. Is this a scam? A mistake? A strange third act from some beloved alt-rockers? Kelefa Sanneh investigates.
Bye-Bye - Cake, PulyaNaVetru
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March 28, 2025 • 37 mins
Reporter Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi has the story of an unusual website you’ve likely never heard of. A website that has been responsible for rapidly making the world of Dogecoin and other memecoins become even more unhinged, all while generating small fortunes for foul-mouthed children.
The Parable of Peanut the Memecoin
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March 21, 2025 • 45 mins
In the 1930s, two scientists made a very important discovery, but their breakthrough idea failed to spread. In large part because the two were considered so deeply annoying. Reporter Carl Zimmer brings us a story of the scientific process and its very human constraints.
Airborne by Carl Zimmer
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March 14, 2025 • 63 mins
Why it’s so difficult to manufacture something entirely in America, and what happens if you try anyway.
The Smarter Scrubber Grill Brush
Destin Sandlin’s YouTube Channel: Smarter Every Day
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March 7, 2025 • 53 mins
There’s a new president of America, and he’s doing a lot of things. How do you decide what to pay attention to? A story about reporters focusing on one mysterious line item during the DOGE headline storm, and where that led.
Bobby Allyn
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February 28, 2025 • 47 mins
... Or, am I being lied to by a Brooklyn-based musician? At twenty-five, I had a question for The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. This week, I finally got to ask it.
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February 21, 2025 • 44 mins
An adult picky eater, ostracized by his friends, castigated by society, asks the most human question of all: can I change? Our friends Manny, Noah, and Devan, the chicken bone squad, return to answer their own question.
Check out Manny, Noah, and Devan's new podcast, No Such Thing
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February 14, 2025 • 60 mins
A teenager explains why he shouldn’t have to write homework essays anymore. Is there some way for adults to force teens to still do homework? Or to convince them they should want to?
More Than Words - John Warner
Center for Digital Thriving
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February 7, 2025 • 55 mins
We're supposed to be buried there forever, right? Right?? Answers this week from writer David Sloane, who grew up in a cemetery and spent his adult life studying them. The surprising history of the place we go where we die and an answer to what happens when it runs out of money.
Is the Cemetery Dead? by David Charles Sloane
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January 24, 2025 • 51 mins
One of the most routine and uncomfortable miracles many of us experience, flight. Airplanes have gotten increasingly more cramped and less comfortable. What’s it like flying as a fat person, all the invisible negotiations and strategizing. Audio Producer Ronald Young, Jr. reports on the experience, and why it’s been changing.
Check out Weight For It! (We recommend you begin at the beginning, with episode one.)
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January 18, 2025 • 76 mins
What’s going on with Mark Zuckerberg? He recently conspicuously pivoted toward MAGA, meeting quietly with incoming Trump officials, and complaining about the Biden administration on Joe Rogan’s podcast. This week, we trace the story of the Meta CEO, and investigate what his new persona means for the 4 billion people who use his products.
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