SCIENCE FOR PEOPLE WHO GIVE A SHIT

Videos

May 26, 2025

How This Indian City Beat Deadly Heat Waves (And You Can Too)

Picture a city that beats brutal heat waves with cool tree-lined streets, slashes household energy bills, and cuts carbon pollution by as much as 80%, without waiting for these miracle technologies. That future-positive vision is already taking shape in fast-growing places like Ahmedabad, India, where community-designed cooling plans and demand-side…

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May 19, 2025

How Saving Salamanders Could Save Us All

In every flood scarred bend of an Appalachian river sits a chance to rebuild something stronger, cleaner water for people, and room for a 160 million-year salamander to thrive again. Hurricane-shaped chaos is unveiling a surprising truth when we restore stream banks, fund green storm water projects, and protect keystone…

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May 15, 2025

Will Parents EVER Sleep Well Again?!

Hatch alarm clocks Bed Jet cooling/heating system Feals sleep gummies Sleep mediation machines for kids Merlin sleep suit Follow us: Subscribe to Quinn's newsletter at importantnotimportant.com Subscribe to Claire's newsletter at https://www.evilwitches.com/ Try a free 30 day free trial of the Important Membership here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/upgrade. Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notrightnowpodcast/…

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May 12, 2025

Essay: What's in a name?

This week: There are a million legitimate reasons why standing up to bullies may require a pseudonym (and a cowl), or even anonymity. As has been clear for centuries, and even more so in this moment of inescapable mass surveillance, some of us — by nature of our birth nation,…

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May 8, 2025

I Had So Many Opinions About Parenting (Then I Became One)

This week, we talk about the humbling experience of parenthood and how reality shatters expectations. We cover: The gap between pre-parenting fantasies (museum trips and Christmas traditions) versus post-kid realities (barbecue chip crumbs in the car) Why buying your postpartum wife lingerie is a terrible idea How having children affects…

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May 5, 2025

How Positive Abortion Language Can Change Everything | The Abortion Positivity Project

63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and yet here we are. So what can we do to make the language around abortion more positive? My guest today is Sophie Nir. Sophie is the CEO of the Abortion Positivity Project. The Abortion Positivity Project…

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May 1, 2025

Q&A: Questions We're Not Qualified to Answer (But We'll Try Anyway)

In our first bonus Q&A episode, Quinn and Claire tackle listener questions with their signature blend of honesty, humor, and zero judgment. Topics covered: • Making parent friends: Is it a real connection or just shared misery? What makes friendship work during the parenting years, the importance of finding your…

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April 24, 2025

Family Travel Survival Guide: Lower Your Expectations & Pack More Snacks

This week, Quinn and Claire dive into traveling with kids. They share personal stories about family trips from their own childhoods and with their children now, covering everything from dealing with jetlag to bathroom emergencies at 30,000 feet. Also discussed: the myth of "vacation" with children (let's just call it…

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April 14, 2025

Table To Farm

Sometimes you buy organic, sometimes you hit a restaurant that's plant-based, or at least you choose the veggie option. Maybe the fish option at the market or the restaurant is marketed as being sustainable. Maybe you compost. It's all useful. But we've been doing it for a while and it's…

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April 10, 2025

The Truth About Youth Sports

This week, Claire and Quinn dig into the minefield of youth sports: understimulated kids who are getting on everyone's nerves vs. overscheduled families who have no time to breathe, the horrors of early-season kid-pitch baseball, the importance (or not) of having "hustle", and what is the point of kids sports,…

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April 7, 2025

The Pandemic Lessons We Keep Missing

We've spent the last few years learning up close how a crisis like a global pandemic reveals and deepens all of our faults, inequalities, biases, and outright failures of empathy. But here's the kicker: it's not the first time. Plagues and epidemics have always shown us who we really are.…

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April 3, 2025

Kids & Clutter: The Crisis No One Talks About

This week, Claire and Quinn lament on the endless influx of STUFF that children seem to magically manifest in your home. From mysterious bouncy balls to apple juice containers full of sand to fantasies of cleansing fires, they explore the anxiety and dread created by attempting to manage the unmanageable…

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March 28, 2025

Essay: Give A Little

This week: You’ve never had a better opportunity to improve one person’s life than you do right now. I would argue, in fact, that there’s never been a better time to improve one person’s life than there is today. Sounds crazy, right, considering all the destructive nonsense? Here's What You…

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March 27, 2025

The #1 Rule of Solo Parenting: Lower Your Expectations (Immediately)

This week, Claire and Quinn unpack the often messy, often thankless job of solo parenting while your partner is away. We cover why you should never, EVER call your partner with "options" while the kids are listening, the cursed timing of arriving home during bedtime (just drive a few extra…

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March 24, 2025

Don't Move The Goalposts

One of the ways this Trump administration is different from the last is, relatively at least, how much more unconstitutional, how much more organized and comprehensive the attacks on our institutions, particularly the scaffolding we built for ourselves the most precious parts of of our societies: immigration, agriculture, the VA,…

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March 20, 2025

What Songs Would You ACTUALLY Let Your Kids Listen To?

This week, Claire and Quinn take a break (mostly) from their existential dread to talk about the awkward, hilarious world of music and parenting. From deciding if Freak Like Me is appropriate for the carpool to facepalming when your kid asks if Beyoncé is still alive, they navigate the terrain…

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March 17, 2025

Going Quietly Is Not An Option

We didn't always call our work science for people who give a shit. But ever since we did, we've welcomed at least two types of people to our flock. The first is people who are deeply invested in science, but are unsure how to tie it into measurable action on…

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March 13, 2025

Coping with Kids in Uncertain Times

This week, Claire and Quinn dive into the messy reality of all the different ways we cope with parenting, while everything else is happening. From that stomach-dropping moment when your kid asks you "Did you get a call from school?" to balancing mental health with the news cycle, they explore…

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March 6, 2025

How to Explain DISASTERS To Your Kids Without Terrifying Them

This week, Claire and Quinn explore the impossible question many parents are facing more frequently: how do you explain disasters, displacement, and uncertainty to your kids? From the Los Angeles wildfires to home insurance nightmares to tornado drills in the basement, they tackle the tough conversations about our changing world…

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March 3, 2025

What Can We Do About Land Power?

What can we do about land power? It's the most important question and my guest today is Mike Albertus. Mike is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He's the author of the new book, Land Power. Who has it? Who doesn't? And how that determines the…

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Feb. 27, 2025

NOT RIGHT NOW: The Phrase Every Parent Needs

This week Claire and Quinn dive into how the show got its name - the eternal parental struggle of "Not Right Now" - from TikTok bans and VPN-savvy kids to fighting for five minutes alone in the bathroom. Plus: the special horror of watching your kids figure out technology faster…

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Feb. 25, 2025

Essay: The Story of Not Right Now

This week: Not. Right. Now. I hope you enjoy our new show. It’s super, super informal, and fun, and full of profanity, and personal, and — I hope — something you or a parent in your life can identify with, and maybe get some relief from. It’s intentionally and decidedly…

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Feb. 20, 2025

Push Them Down

In our debut episode, Claire (Evil Witches) and Quinn (Important, Not Important) dive into the chaotic reality of raising tiny humans in these wild times. From behavioral reflection forms and schoolyard diplomacy to the eternal question of "how many water bottles does one child need?", we explore the messy, hilarious,…

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Feb. 14, 2025

Introducing: Not Right Now

Not Right Now is a new podcast for parents navigating the impossible task of raising kids while *gestures wildly at everything*. Join Quinn Emmett (Important, Not Important (https://www.importantnotimportant.com/) ) and Claire Zulkey (Evil Witches (https://evilwitches.substack.com/) ) for honest conversations about parenting in an era of climate change, artificial intelligence, social…

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