
How playing poker can help you make decisions
06/24/20 • 26 min
3 Listeners
On this week’s podcast, life lessons from poker, and keeping things civil during peer review.
In this episode:
00:44 Deciding to play poker
When writer Maria Konnikova wanted to better understand the human decision making process, she took a rather unusual step: becoming a professional poker player. We delve into her journey and find out how poker could help people make better decisions. Books and Arts: What the world needs now: lessons from a poker player
09:12 Research Highlights
A sweaty synthetic skin that can exude useful compounds, and Mars’s green atmosphere. Research Highlight: An artificial skin oozes ‘sweat’ through tiny pores; Research Highlight: The red planet has a green glow
11:21 Developing dialogues
The peer-review process is an integral part of scientific discourse, however, sometimes interactions between authors and reviews can be less than civil. How do we tread the fine line between critique and rudeness? Editorial: Peer review should be an honest, but collegial, conversation
18:47 Briefing Chat
We take a look at some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time we talk about research into racism, and a possible hint of dark matter. Nature News: What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work; Nature News: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings; Quanta: Dark Matter Experiment Finds Unexplained Signal
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
On this week’s podcast, life lessons from poker, and keeping things civil during peer review.
In this episode:
00:44 Deciding to play poker
When writer Maria Konnikova wanted to better understand the human decision making process, she took a rather unusual step: becoming a professional poker player. We delve into her journey and find out how poker could help people make better decisions. Books and Arts: What the world needs now: lessons from a poker player
09:12 Research Highlights
A sweaty synthetic skin that can exude useful compounds, and Mars’s green atmosphere. Research Highlight: An artificial skin oozes ‘sweat’ through tiny pores; Research Highlight: The red planet has a green glow
11:21 Developing dialogues
The peer-review process is an integral part of scientific discourse, however, sometimes interactions between authors and reviews can be less than civil. How do we tread the fine line between critique and rudeness? Editorial: Peer review should be an honest, but collegial, conversation
18:47 Briefing Chat
We take a look at some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time we talk about research into racism, and a possible hint of dark matter. Nature News: What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work; Nature News: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings; Quanta: Dark Matter Experiment Finds Unexplained Signal
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode

Coronapod: Dexamethasone, the cheap steroid that could cut coronavirus deaths
In this episode:
00:37 Lessons from the Ebola outbreak
We get an update on the pandemic response in the African countries still reeling from the 2014 Ebola crisis. Resource strapped and under pressure – can the lessons learned from Ebola help keep the coronavirus under control?
15:32 Dexamethasone, a breakthrough drug?
A UK-based drugs trial suggests that a cheap steroid could cut deaths by a third among the sickest COVID patients. We discuss what this could mean for the pandemic.
News: Coronavirus breakthrough: dexamethasone is first drug shown to save lives
20:06 One good thing
Our hosts pick out things that have made them smile in the last week, including altruistic bone marrow donors, and skateboarding.
22:48 The numbers don’t lie
A huge amount of projections, graphs and data have been produced during the pandemic. But how accurate are numbers and can they be relied upon?
News: Why daily death tolls have become unusually important in understanding the coronavirus pandemic
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Next Episode

Coronapod: The state of the pandemic, six months in
In a few weeks, we’ll be wrapping up Coronapod in its current form. Please fill out our short survey to let us know your thoughts on the show.
In this episode:
03:13 What have we learnt?
We take a look back over the past six months of the pandemic, and discuss how far the world has come. It’s been a period of turmoil and science has faced an unprecedented challenge. What lessons can be learned from the epidemic so far to continue the fight in the months to come?
Financial Times: Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as countries start to reopen
Wellcome Open Research: What settings have been linked to SARS-CoV-2 transmission clusters?
12:55 Unanswered questions
After months of intensive research, much is known about the new coronavirus – but many important questions remain unanswered. We look at the knowledge gaps researchers are trying to fill.
Nature Medicine: Real-time tracking of self-reported symptoms to predict potential COVID-19
20:36 How has lockdown affected fieldwork?
The inability to travel during lockdown has seriously hampered many researchers’ ability to gather fieldwork data. We hear from three whose work has been affected, and what this means for their projects.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Featured in these lists
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/nature-podcast-38265/how-playing-poker-can-help-you-make-decisions-1808954"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to how playing poker can help you make decisions on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy