Latest Stories

a woman waiting for a job interview
Audio

Andrea Dobynes Wagner is legally, but not obviously, blind. Every time she sits down for a job interview, Andrea weighs the pros and cons of disclosure. Will telling people she has a disability help or hurt her chances?

Length: 
14:50
Gul Dolen
Articles

Gül Dölen is a pioneering neuroscientist who's investigating the “critical periods” of psychedelics, including studies where she's given MDMA — also known as “Molly” — to octopuses.

Length: 
50:54
A house in orange
Audio

There are small, novel, concrete and grassroots ways to provide aid to the unhoused. Actress Annabelle Gurwitch was part of an experiment, a home-stay program, where individuals share their houses with people who need a place to live.

Length: 
08:15
Still of Wendell Barry from "Wait and See"
Photo Gallery

Aside from acting and woodworking, Nick Offerman has another obsession — the Kentucky writer Wendell Berry. Offerman told Steve Paulson that his admiration of Berry is rooted in their shared belief in the enduring value of craftsmanship and hard work.

Sara working in her shop.
Articles

Sara Dahmen is a professional coppersmith – one of the only women in the country practicing the trade. She makes pots and pans – simple basic timeless cookware – out of copper, iron and tin.

Length: 
19:11
Monroe with Dick’s bunkbed ladder and sawbuck. Photo by Elan Robinson.
Photo Gallery

Naturalist Dick Proenneke led a legendary life alone in the Alaskan wilderness. After Proenneke's death in 2003, master craftsman Monroe Robinson painstakingly reproduced everything Dick made to preserve a piece of that life for future generations.

Length: 
17:33
a woman with tears
Audio

Behavioral neurologist Michael Trimble takes us on an evolutionary journey to unpack one of the few things that make Homo sapiens unique — we cry emotional tears. 

Length: 
12:32
Britney Spears and the #FreeBritney movement
Audio

When the "Free Britney" movement started, it was initially treated as a joke. But the fan movement has drawn attention to exploitative conservatorship arrangements that celebrities like Britney Spears have been subjected to. Filmmaker Samantha Stark tells us the story of how the fans saved Britney's life.

Length: 
11:31
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
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
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
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
tea set
Audio

Journalist Adam Minter wrote a whole book about what happens to our things when we don’t want them anymore. It’s called “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale” Angelo asked him: why don’t we think more about the things we donate?

Length: 
12:12
an illustration of a man who's mind is being expanded by psychedelics
Articles

Bill Linton is on a mission. He wants to get FDA approval for using psychedelics to treat depression and addiction. So he co-founded his own nonprofit psychedelic center, Usona Institute, to help revolutionize the treatment of mental illness.

Length: 
26:53
Aylet Waldman
Audio

Writer Ayelet Waldman recounts many stories about what she calls "the perils and joys of trying to be a decent mother in a world intent on making you feel like a bad one."

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