Carlo Rovelli's white holes, where time dissolves

Audio

Physicist Carlo Rovelli travels to the core of a black hole, where the arrow of time reverses and a white hole is born.   More

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The Critical Zone of Science and Politics: An Interview with Bruno Latour

Bruno Latour
Articles

Bruno Latour straddles disciplines, from sociology to philosophy, and for the last four decades has been a formidable intellectual presence around the world. His new book digs deeply into debates about nature, culture, and the Anthropocene.

Why We're Alone Even When We're Together

ignored on the phone
Sonic Sidebar

For three decades, MIT professor Sherry Turkle's been looking at the ways we interact with machines. She believes our digital devices are taking a toll on our personal relationships.

The Many Movements Toward Oblivion Tracked By The Doomsday Clock

The original 1947 cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Articles

In 2018, we have a lot more to be anxious about than just nuclear weapons.

Why Are We So Interested In Time Travel?

Time
Articles

James Gleick, a science writer with a special interest in the cultural impact of technology, recently sat down with Steve Paulson to talk about the cultural history of time travel and its enduring appeal.

How Coyotes Won The War We've Waged On Them

Coyote in Yellowstone
Articles

Unlike their canine relatives, coyotes have thrived in the U.S. Despite having been hunted just as intensely as wolves, coyotes have survived.  Somehow, coyotes just spread, everywhere. Dan Flores told Steve Paulson how.  

Ursula K. Le Guin on a Literature of Ideas

Ursula K. Le Guin
Articles

The trailblazing author passed away this week at the age of 88. She was known for marrying the tropes of science fiction and fantasy to big ideas drawn from spirituality, economics, sociology and beyond. That eclectic mix made for impactful and relevant stories that transcended genre.

Length: 
7:59

Separating Man From Monster

Still from "My Friend Dahmer"
Articles

So can we empathize with people who become monsters? Derf Backderf — whose teenage self appears in Meyers' film — certainly thinks so.

Length: 
8:40

Your Archenemy Turned Out To Be a Hero. Now What?

basketball rivals
Sonic Sidebar

During basketball camp in Fargo, North Dakota, cultural critic Chuck Klosterman made an enemy — for life. And maybe that was a bad idea.

Length: 
3:37

The Innkeeper Hidden In The Walls

Still from trailer for "Voyeur" (Netflix)
Audio

A couple of years ago, journalist Gay Talese published “The Voyeur’s Motel,” the true story of a motel owner who spent more than 30 years spying on his guests while they had sex. The case is now the subject of a Netflix documentary called “Voyeur.”

Life Beneath the Electric Eyes

Eyes everywhere
Articles

The personal devices we live with and depend on — our computers, tablets, smartphones and more— all share information about us. Randolph Lewis tells more stories about how we’re being watched in a book called “Under Surveillance.”

The American Guards Who Kept Saddam Hussein Safe Until His Execution

The Trial of Saddam
Articles

The young American soldiers who protected Saddam Hussein during his trial spent hours alone with the “Butcher of Baghdad” and unexpectedly grew to like him. They were devastated by his execution and its violent aftermath. 

Length: 
20:53

Why You're Spending Time Thinking About the Future in the Present

A portal to the future
Articles

Science journalist Claudia Hammond unlocks the weirdness of how we experience time — including our fixation on the future — in a book called "Time Warped."

Length: 
12:58

Why Are We Obsessed with the Future?

Gazing into the future, forever
Audio

Canadian cultural critic Hal Niedzviecki makes the case that as a culture, we may for the first time in history be more focused on what is going to happen in the future than on what is happening right now.

Length: 
10:19

From the Monkees to Country Rock: The Remarkable Career of Michael Nesmith

Nesmith and the guys
Articles

If you’re old enough, you’ll remember the Monkees, the pop group with a hit TV show. Michael Nesmith wore the green stocking cap. Since then, he’s reinvented his career several times over. He (sort of) invented country rock. And the music video.

Length: 
12:41

Making Peace With My Father, With Help From Dante

Cross in the sky
Articles

Writer Rod Dreher on how his faith compelled him to return home in search of forgiveness.

Length: 
10:37

The Four Key Steps To Forgiveness

Street arrow
Articles

Psychologist Robert Enright breaks down cognitive steps to letting go of trauma.

Length: 
10:38

The Tale of a Mute Piano Performance

Not playing
Articles

John Cage’s "4’33” was first performed on August 29th, 1952, by pianist David Tudor. He came out on stage, sat at the piano, and did not play. The audience was not impressed. Kyle Gann tells the story in “No Such Thing as Silence."

Human Vices Help Drive Evolution

A whiskey drink
Dangerous Ideas

Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert argues that human vices are just as important as human virtues in shaping evolution.

Alone in Antarctica, Trapped With Your Harasser

Tents of scientists during Antarctic summer
Audio

When Jane Willenbring was a young scientist working in Antarctica, she was the target of constant hazing by her team leader. Years later, she filed a complaint. David Marchant was recently found guilty of sexual harassment by Boston University.

Length: 
4:36

America's Most Produced Playwright Is Rewriting the History of Female Scientists

Ada and the Memory Engine.
Video

Lauren Gunderson is currently the most produced playwright in America. And she has written at least half a dozen plays about the forgotten women who changed science. She says we're living in a golden age for these remarkable stories.

Length: 
11:06

Jet Lag? More Like Life Lag.

Jet Lag
Articles

Christopher J. Lee says jet lag has become more than a temporarily scrambled body clock. It’s become a way of life.

What's Your Perfect Saturday Night Tune?

Jukebox hero
Sonic Sidebar

In 1985, The New Yorker writer Susan Orlean started traveling around the country to find out how Americans spend their Saturday nights. One thing she discovered? How many Saturday night songs there are.
 

Tracing the Patterns of an Obsessive Mind

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

Since When Are White Supremacists Classics Buffs?

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

The Blend Of Jokes and Social Justice That Is Black Twitter

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

Fighting Wildfires As One Of The Few Women On A Hotshot Crew

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

Where We're Going, We Don't Need Talk Show Sets

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

What It Means To Be A Permanent Outsider

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.

Our Five Favorite Literary Insights from Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro
Articles

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

Crocheting the Unknowable Geometry of Spacetime

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.

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