Latest Stories

a band performs on stage
Articles

Music critic and author Kalefa Sanneh says "pop music" is no longer a pejorative label. He traces the rise of "Poptimism" and discusses the challenges of being a pop music critic.

Length: 
12:54
A five year vertical of Bourbon County Brand Stout.
Photo Gallery

Back in 1995, Goose Island created one of the most iconic craft beers of all time — Bourbon County Stout. Which — as Chicago Tribune beer writer Josh Noel explains — was why it was such a shock when they sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch.

Length: 
12:29
Michael Twitty
Articles

Michael Twitty can trace his family’s food history back to the slave cabins and Antebellum kitchens of the South. Honoring his diasporic heritage — he’s both black and Jewish — lead Twitty to the practice of identity cooking. He calls it Kosher/Soul.

Length: 
16:04
Salt, fat, acid, heat
Articles

Chef, author, and Netflix star Samin Nosrat developed her own philosophy of cooking, based on a few universal principles: salt, fat, acid and heat. She says it allows us to cook by following our taste buds, rather than a recipe book.

Length: 
12:43
Feilding
Audio

In the years when psychedelic science had been shut down, Amanda Feilding helped jump-start research into altered states of mind. Today, she's in her 80s and remains active in psychedelic research with her Beckley Foundation.

Length: 
7:58
David Nutt
Audio

David Nutt believes psychedelics will revolutionize the treatment of mental disorders. A neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London, he says psychedelic therapy can help people resolve their buried traumas.

Length: 
7:16
Kristof Koch
Audio

Neuroscientist Christof Koch has pioneered the scientific investigation of consciousness. Recently, he had a mind-blowing experience — both terrifying and ecstatic — with 5-MeO-DMT,  also known as toad venom.

Length: 
21:44
Umbrellas as art
Sonic Sidebar

Celebrated curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has a vision: get art out of galleries and into the real world.

Length: 
8:02
Making music online and off
Audio

If you’re a music-loving teen in a tiny town with no music scene, Bandcamp is a lifesaver. JJ Skolnik, senior editor of the Bandcamp Daily, weighs the pros and cons of online music communities.

Length: 
9:17
Uptown Theatre
Photo Gallery

Photographer Matt Lambros takes us inside America’s abandoned movie palaces.

Length: 
7:35
cover of "The Negro Travelers' Green Book"
Audio

Lawrence Ross delved into the "Green Book," a 1957 handbook to help black motorists find safe stops along the highway, and used it to shape a contemporary road trip that celebrated black history, culture, and business.

Big trucks
Audio

Finn Murphy talks about his career as a long-haul driver who moves people's possessions across the country.

"The Elephant's Journey" by Julie Schumacher
Bookmarks

"Dear Committee Members" author Julie Schumacher recommends Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago's retelling of a true tale.

Manal al-Sharif
Audio

Manal al-Sharif on how the most transgressive thing a Saudi woman could do was learn to drive.

Length: 
9:56
Galactic kidneys
Articles

Missy Makinia donated her kidney to whoever might need it. Her transplant surgeon — Josh Mezrich — invited Shannon into his operating room to see firsthand what it takes to remove and transport a human kidney.

Length: 
26:01
The amazing brain, without a horn.
Articles

Gavin Francis is fascinated by the complexity and beauty of the human body, which is so finely engineered that it can seem almost miraculous.

Length: 
13:37
Broken body
Audio

Porochista Khakpour has been fighting a mystery illness for as long as she can remember. Eventually, she got a diagnosis — late-stage Lyme disease — but a diagnosis hasn't given her much resolution.

Length: 
8:56
A raven on a tree
Audio

Our producer Charles Monroe-Kane has a passion for ravens.  The raven has meaning for him from legend and art, to the point where he’s had one tattooed on his forearm.

Length: 
7:15
A hummingbird drinks nectar
Audio

Christopher Benfey tells Anne Strainchamps why there was a hummingbird craze in 19th century Massachsetts, how artists and poets used them as symbols, and why they seem like winged jewels.

Length: 
11:39
A great horned owl
Articles

Jennifer Ackerman writes in her new book "What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds" about how owls are cryptic, hard to find, and difficult to understand. Speaking to Shannon Henry Kleiber, she said that’s part of the attraction.

Length: 
17:45
person and dog
Articles

Ecofeminist philosopher Donna Haraway has a reputation for tackling the big intellectual questions of our time. She’s also obsessed with dogs — their biological, cultural, political and personal history.

Length: 
10:58
Stained glass in the chapel on Dog Mountain
Photo Gallery

If you are now or have ever been a dog lover, there’s a place you need to go — Dog Mountain in Northern Vermont. 150 acres of hills, trails, and ponds just for pups, plus a dog chapel for memorializing lost pets and an annual summer dog party.

Length: 
7:58
a dog on the trail howls
Articles

Dogsledders Blair Braverman and Quince Mountain have built an outdoor adventure life in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, where they train teams of dogs to race. But for the husband-and-wife team, the pack is also part of their family.

Length: 
17:27
Jenny Odell
Articles

Lately it’s been feeling like time is speeding up.  Whether it’s the news cycle, social media, the information economy or global warming, the pace of life is accelerating beyond what many of us can handle. Jenny Odell blames the clock. 

Length: 
18:02
David Rooney.
Audio

Clocks control us – but who controls clocks? David Rooney gives us a brief political history of clocks. And a look at their future.

Length: 
30:27
crocodile eye
Audio

The feminist eco-philosopher Val Plumwood was one of the few people to survive a crocodile's death roll. The attack reoriented her thinking about life, death, and what it means to be human.

Length: 
8:20
eyes
Articles

Squirrels and pigeons share our sidewalks and park benches. Crows pick through our trash, rabbits munch on our lawns. They watch us; we ignore them. What would change if we actually met their eyes? 

owl
Audio

Dogs, cats, birds, frogs, even insects watch us. Each with a different kind of eye. What, and how, do they see? Ivan Schwab is an ophthalmologist who’s been fascinated by that question for a long time.

Length: 
7:44
The Museum of Everyday Life is in Clare Dolan’s barn.
Articles

"Museum of Everyday Life" founder and curator Clare Dolan calls it "an ongoing, revolutionary experiment" — a celebration of "the mysterious delight embedded in the banal but beloved objects we touch everyday.

Length: 
12:12
washing machine in a house.
Articles

In her new book, author Eula Biss reckons with a new phase in her life, moving from an apartment in Chicago to the first house her family owns. While that dream is about as American as the proverbial apple pie, Biss ruminates on the reality that it’s an impossible dream for many people.

Length: 
11:56

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