Latest Stories

A knight at the gates
Bookmarks

A girl, a horse, and a magical sword save a kingdom in Robin McKinley's young adult classic, "The Blue Sword" — a book beloved by women of all ages. "Hild" author Nikola Griffith explains why. 

Length: 
4:00
children's book illustration of a city street
Bookmarks

There’s a book that author Ada Calhoun thinks of as both one of her favorites to read out loud with her son, as well as one that has inspired her own writing. It’s “A Street Through Time: The 12,000 Year Journey Along the Same Street ” — a story of one street, leading the reader through historical events and the passage of time, with the street itself starring as the main character.

Length: 
3:41
Apps
Articles

Sara Wachter-Boettcher warns that failing to account for the unintended ways technology shapes our lives can cause us pain that might be avoided if we think about how we design digital platforms and apps differently.

Length: 
10:56
Elizabeth Feinler, Radia Perlman, and Stacy Horn.
Articles

You know the Apple origin story with the two Steves in the garage. You know the Facebook origin story with Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm. But journalist Claire Evans argues, if you want to tell the internet origin story, you have to talk about women.

Length: 
13:20
The Schlitz Bottling Floor, c. 1666.
Video

Milwaukee has a reputation as America's "Brew City." But why? Historian Ben Barbera lays out the economic forces and acts of God that built the houses of Miller, Pabst and Schlitz.

Length: 
5:18
The Len-Der, our boat for the Milwaukee River
Video

Milwaukee historian John Gurda takes us on a boat ride down the Milwaukee River as we learn how the city nearly lost its river, and what Milwaukee is now doing to preserve it.

Length: 
5:40
Claudia Rankine
Audio

In her book "Citizen: An American Lyric," poet Claudia Rankine challenges readers to explore their underlying assumptions about race. She tells Charles Monroe-Kane what compelled her to write the book, and about visiting Ferguson, Missouri.

Oakwood residents and singers
Articles

"To the Best of Our Knowledge" producer Shannon Henry Kleiber shares a story about her mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease two years ago, and the power of music.

Length: 
14:50
man reviewing photograph
Articles

Anne Basting has found asking people with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia open-ended queries, rather than pointed yes or no questions that require remembering something specific, can create powerful connections.

Length: 
17:17
Wheat
Articles

Kamut is arguably the oldest grain in the world. Bob Quinn, who runs the multi-million dollar nonprofit Kamut International, argues that it's an example of what can be right in a very wrong American agricultural world.

Length: 
10:34
Flint corn
Articles

Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer says there is a reason so many around the world consider corn to be sacred. We give it life, and in return, it gives us life. She says the industrial-scale farming of America has lost control of that balance.

Length: 
10:43
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Audio

If a disaster wiped out our ability to grow crops, how would the survivors rebuild civilization? Back in the 1990’s Cary Fowler wondered the same thing. So he created the Svalbard Global Seed Vault – otherwise known as the Doomsday vault.

Length: 
8:21
jefferson
Articles

For years it was rumored that Thomas Jefferson had a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings. Then legal historian Annette Gordon-Reed proved it. She tells the complicated story of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship.

Length: 
17:03
Half brothers Robert Lafayette Gee (right) and Henderson Gee (left)
Articles

Rev. Alex Gee is fascinated by genealogy. So he took a DNA test and discovered one of his ancestors was a white slave owner. Then he went down to New Orleans to meet his white relatives — and that meeting sparked a slew of complicated emotions.

Length: 
16:03
spirals
Articles

With help from Freud, neuropsychologist Mark Solms locates consciousness in choice.

Person at the Institute for American Indian Arts.
Articles

A wide range of writers — now celebrated with commercial and critical success — work to celebrate an evolving literary canon without limiting it. 

A powwow in 2015 at the Institute for American Indian Arts.
Articles

Tommy Orange's debut novel “There There” was one of the big breakout books of 2018. He told Steve that with his novel, he hoped to better represent modern Native Americans that have grown up living in cities.

Length: 
14:44
Paul Wendell Jr.
Articles

Rapper Tall Paul uses hip-hop to reclaim his Native language—and he's not the only musician remixing Native culture.

Length: 
9:17
divers
Articles

Jill Heinerth nearly died when she was trapped by ocean currents inside an Antarctic iceberg. She's one of the world's most accomplished underwater cave divers, often exploring caves no one's ever been in, which show her "the veins of the Earth."

Length: 
14:58
cave paintings
Audio

Renowned filmmaker Werner Herzog was awe-struck when he saw the Chauvet cave paintings dating back 32,000 years. "You can see clearly that this is the beginning of modern man," he says.

Length: 
3:41
chess fight
Articles

Chess has a reputation as a highly-intelligent, elegant game. But sportswriter Brin-Jonathan Butler says it’s also addictive — and sadistic.

Length: 
11:30
Carin Bondar
Video

Biologist Carin Bondar has devoted her career to exploring the myriad ways animals mate in the wild, and shared a few of the ingenious ways animals find each other, breed, and rear offspring.

Length: 
7:51
Dasha Kelly Hamilton
Video

Performer Dasha Kelly Hamilton explains why all women need to be intimately familiar with the challenge and thrill of catching a fly.

Length: 
5:19
AI hand from space
Articles

Futurist Amy Webb tells us we can have a utopian future — if we are vigilant.

Length: 
9:29
Steve Paulson, Jeff Schloss and David Sloan Wilson
Video

Evolutionary biologists Jeff Schloss and David Sloan Wilson joined Steve Paulson to explore how group selection can explain altruism.

Length: 
18:56
Love in 36 Questions
Video

Can you fall in love with anyone?  Maybe, if you ask the right questions.

Length: 
5:42
Anne Strainchamps and Lisa Diamond
Video

Psychologist Lisa Diamond offers a radical new understanding of sexual orientation, arguing that it’s much more fluid than previously believed.

Length: 
12:24
Life springs eternal
Sonic Sidebar

Even facing the bleakest outcomes that climate change might inflict on our planet, we have to have faith in a new future. That’s something writer Anne Lamott has been struggling with too.

Length: 
2:22
AI robots and dragons
Articles

Victor LaValle is the editor of a collection of short stories where — even in dire situations and terrifying futures — everyone has a place, and a chance at being the hero.

Length: 
11:08
Common
Articles

Rapper Common is eager to talk about hope – specifically, how we can make hope in our lives.

Length: 
11:58

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