Victoria Groce is the best trivia contestant on earth. The winner of the 2024 World Quizzing Championship explains the structure of a good question, why she knits during competitions, and how to memorize 160,000 flashcards.

• SOURCE:
  • Victoria Groce, “The Queen” on the television game show The Chase.

• RESOURCES:
  • The Chase, TV series (2013-2015, 2021-present).
  • LearnedLeague.
  • Anki.

• EXTRAS:
  • "Ken Jennings on How a Midlife Crisis Led Him to Jeopardy! (Replay)," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).
  • "Mayim Bialik on the Surprising Risks of Academia and Stability of Show Biz (Replay)," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).

Richard Prum says there's a lot that traditional evolutionary biology can't explain. He thinks a neglected hypothesis from Charles Darwin — and insights from contemporary queer theory — hold the answer. Plus: You won't believe what female ducks use for contraception.

• SOURCE:
  • Richard Prum, professor of ornithology, ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Stop Your Populist Grandstanding Over Wendy’s ‘Surge Pricing’," by Catherine Rampell (The Washington Post, 2024).
  • "Dynamic Pricing Tech May Brighten Retail Bottom Lines and Put Consumers in the Dark," by Kristin Schwab and Sofia Terenzio (Marketplace, 2024).
  • Performance All the Way Down: Genes, Development, and Sexual Difference, by Richard Prum (2023).
  • The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us, by Richard Prum (2017).
  • "Duck Sex and the Patriarchy," by Richard Prum (The New Yorker, 2017).
  • "Dinosaur Feathers Came before Birds and Flight," by Richard Prum and Alan Brush (Scientific American, 2014).
  • "How Chickens Lost Their Penises (And Ducks Kept Theirs)," by Ed Yong (National Geographic, 2013).
  • "Media Attacks Duck Genitalia Research," by Emma Goldberg (Yale Daily News, 2013).
  • "Mate Choice and Sexual Selection: What Have We Learned Since Darwin?" by Adam G. Jones and Nicholas L. Ratterman (PNAS, 2009).
  • "Development and Evolutionary Origin of Feathers," by Richard O. Prum (Journal of Experimental Zoology, 2002).
  • The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, by Richard Dawkins (1986).
  • "Display Behavior, Foraging Ecology, and Systematics of the Golden-Winged Manakin (Masius chrysopterus)," by Richard Prum and Ann Johnson (The Wilson Bulletin, 1987).
  • The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins (1976).
  • The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, by Charles Darwin (1871).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Is Gynecology the Best Innovation Ever?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024).
  • "The Price of Doing Business with John List," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).

Thomas Hildebrandt is trying to bring the northern white rhinoceros back from the brink of extinction. The wildlife veterinarian tells Steve about the far-out techniques he employs, why we might see woolly mammoths in the future, and why he was frustrated the day the Berlin Wall came down.

• SOURCES:
  • Thomas Hildebrandt, head of the department of reproduction management at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and professor of wildlife reproduction medicine at the veterinary faculty of the Freie Universität Berlin.

• RESOURCES:
  • "An Inside Look at the Embryo Transplant That May Help Save the Northern White Rhino," by Jeffrey Kluger (TIME, 2024).
  • "Mud, Bugs, and Dung: How Rhinos Shape Their World," by Rinjan Shrestha (World Wildlife Fund, 2022).
  • "The Last Two Northern White Rhinos On Earth," by Sam Anderson (The New York Times Magazine, 2021).
  • "Embryos and Embryonic Stem Cells From the White Rhinoceros," by Thomas B. Hildebrandt, Robert Hermes, Cesare Galli, et al. (Nature Communications, 2018).
  • "Loss of a Species – A Giant, Extinct," by Thomas Hildebrandt (TED, 2017).
  • Colossal.

• EXTRAS:
  • "Why Do We Still Teach People to Calculate?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024).
  • "What’s Stopping Us From Curing Rare Diseases?" by Freakonomics, M.D. (2023).
  • "We Can Play God Now," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).