Latest Stories

stove
Sonic Sidebar

To The Best Of Our Knowledge producer Doug Gordon explains what it’s like to live with obsessive compulsions.

Length: 
3:04
Scythians at the Tomb of Ovid c.1640 (CC0)
Audio

When Donna Zuckerberg noticed references to classical writers popping up on neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites, she decided to investigate. Why are they so invested in the classics?

Length: 
09:06
Black Lives Matter is just one movement whose online presence took root among black Twitter users.
Audio

One person’s bubble can be another person’s safe space — a place where you don’t have to pretend and where you can feel supported and understood. For many black Americans, that place is Twitter. Media scholar Meredith Clark explains why.

Length: 
10:33
Phos-chek drop during the 2013 Springs Fire
Articles

Reflecting on the devastating fires in California, we revisit a conversation with a longtime "hotshot" crew firefighter, Mary Pauline Lowry.  

Length: 
11:08
The Foo Show set, in virtual reality.
Video

What's it like to host a talk show in virtual reality? We talk avatars with Will Smith, host of “The Foo Show.”

Length: 
14:31
Wooden Japanese figures
Articles

Author Min Jin Lee grew up Korean-American and she thought she knew her ancestors.  But when she moved to Tokyo, she discovered a history she didn’t know. The history of Koreans in Japan.

 Kazuo Ishiguro
Articles

Kazuo Ishiguro just won the Nobel prize. Here's the best stuff he's said to us.

Plastic crochet corals from the "Crochet Coral Reef" project by Christine and Margaret Wertheim and the Institute For Figuring.
Articles

What if the geometric structure of the universe has been hidden, for centuries, in crochet? Margaret Wertheim can help you get there with a ball of wool, a crochet hook, and some non-Euclidean geometry.

The beauty of nature.
Articles

Frank Wilczek is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at MIT. He's kind of obsessed, in his own way, with understanding the universe. Specifically, he’s interested in what he calls “the beautiful question." Is the universe naturally, inherently beautiful?

Torah and jad - exhibits in Big Synagogue Museum, Wlodawa - Poland. (CC BY 2.5)
Audio

The story of one famous mathematician’s obsession with the ancient and mystical and numerical world of the Kabbalah, from Shlomo Maital of the podcast "Israel Story."

Student activist and Raza studies student Pricila from the film "Precious Knowledge."
Articles

Teachers Curtis Acosta and Jose Gonzalez explain the origins of Tucson's Mexican-American Studies program—and how their personal histories in school led them to teach these courses.

Length: 
16:38
Philip K. Dick sitting in chair
Sonic Sidebar

Jonathan Lethem considers Philip K. Dick one of his literary heroes.  Lethem talks about how Dick was able to combine his brilliant imagination with his original mainstream ambitions to produce the groundbreaking literary science fiction that he's known for.

Length: 
4:48
hall of mirrors
Articles

The central question of Philip K. Dick's fiction is "What is reality?" Literary critic Umberto Rossi explains that Dick's work often contains many possible realities.

Length: 
12:44
Chuck Klosterman
Articles

When you talk about people's personalities, he says, there's not many things more interesting than what they really want and can't get.

Flowering headphones
Articles

NPR music critic Ann Powers reflects on how Americans have used music to talk around their awkward feelings related to sex and race.

Football game
Articles

Author Steve Almond wrestles with the ugly undertones of America's favorite sport.

Still from  "The Glass Castle"
Articles

It's a rite of passage to find our parents embarrassing, particularly as we start to carve out distinct identities in those early years away from home. For Jeannette Walls, the moment was a bit more extreme. 

Length: 
11:07
Traveling into the phone
Articles

Doug Rushkoff believes personal technology is having an insidious effect on our relationship with time. He calls it “present shock.”

Super punch.
Dangerous Ideas

After spending time with a real-life superhero in Seattle called Phoenix Jones, author Jon Ronson wonders if people like him can actually fight crime.

Length: 
3:03
Anne interviews Rick McIntyre during a wolf watching session.
Photo Gallery

Wolf biologist Rick McIntyre took a moment from his own wolf watching to explain the lives of Yellowstone wolves, one he's observed first hand almost every day for 22 years.

Piles and piles of books
Articles

With her decision to step down as the chief book critic for the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani sent the book world reeling. In this piece from our archive, authors reflect on the impact of the NYT's' infamous head book critic.

Dangerous Ideas

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.

Twitterstorm of bots
Articles

Computer scientist Filippo Menczer has evidence of a bot campaign targeting one of Twitter's biggest power users: President Trump.

American flag
Audio

Journalist Zach Beauchamps guides us through what he calls the "Russiasphere," the online world of liberal fake news.

Dangerous Ideas

Philosopher Jason Brennan offers a provocative idea: let's bring back flogging as an alternative to imprisonment.

Length: 
2:08
Tommy Caldwell, at his base camp in the middle of the Dawn Wall.
Articles

Tommy Caldwell talks about his lifelong obsession with climbing.

Length: 
16:06
Li
Articles

Author Yiyun Li on leaving behind her health and native language to write.

Length: 
12:24
violin
Articles

Composer William Brittelle's music crosses so many boundaries, it's hard to categorize.

Length: 
10:21
John Waters
Articles

John Waters might not be an ideal role model— so why let him give a commencement address?

Length: 
13:34
House on the Rock Carousel
Articles

Author Neil Gaiman on the magic beyond the House on the Rock's walls.

Pages