Science and Technology

David Olson in his lab.

Could you get the same therapeutic benefits of a psychedelic drug without actually tripping? Neuroscientist David Olson wants to re-engineer psychedelic molecules to remove the trip. If successful, he might revolutionize the treatment of mental disorders.More

Charles Raison

Psychedelic therapy has shown great promise for treating depression, but it's still unclear why exactly it works. Psychiatrist Charles Raison wants to know if it's the drug or the trip that makes psychedelics so potent. Is it biology or consciousness?More

Rachel Harris

The news about psychedelics tends to focus on clinical trials and lab research. But there’s a long tradition of underground guides working with plant medicines who refer to "unseen beings" and plants as "teachers." Psychologist Rachel Harris talked with many women elders in the psychedelic underground. She calls them "spiritual warriors."More

Honey Rose

Honey Rose is part of the next generation of witches. They perform traditional magic on TikTok, do tarot readings via email, and seek to control social media algorithms with spells. Producer Angelo Bautista wanted to learn more.More

an online number going up

When producer Angelo Bautista was growing up, he dreamed of being in the internet. Not on the internet, but inside of it. Now, he's torn about social media. He's still addicted to scrolling, but posting about his own life — that's another story. But if nobody sees you on the internet, do you exist? More

Journalist Sebastian Junger had nearly died when reporting from war zones around the world, but nothing prepared him for the ruptured aneurysm that almost killed him. He's now trying to explain a mysterious encounter he had with his dead father.More

Steve Paulson conducting an onstage interview with Dr. Sam Parnia.

Scientists are revolutionizing our understanding of life and death. It’s now possible to revive patients hours after they’ve been declared clinically dead. Dr. Sam Parnia talks about these advances and the new science of near-death experiences. More

Samoan journalist Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson was born and raised on the island of Savai'i. Rising sea levels washed away the small barrier islands that protected her home, eventually, forcing people to move — just one example of climate change disappearing islands in the South Pacific.More

The creative mind

Novelist Siri Hustvedt knows how the creative process feels. Neuroscientist Heather Berlin knows what it looks like in the brain. Together with Steve, they explore the emerging science of creativity.More

Marine biologist Shane Gero has spent decades listening to whale conversations. Through Project CETI, he’s found recent success using technologies like artificial intelligence to better understand what whales are saying. More

Scientists at Project CETI exploring the sounds of whales have found a “sperm whale phonetic alphabet.” Carl Zimmer, author and science writer for The New York Times, puts the latest whale communications research and news into perspective.More

A Maori conservationist in New Zealand, Mere Takoko is arguing for granting personhood for whales, who she says are her Indigenous Polynesian ancestors.More

Roger Payne revolutionized the science of whale biology by discovering the songs of humpback whales. In this 1995 interview, Payne (who died in 2023) described the thrill of touching a whale, and why he fears for the future of whales.More

two brothers with different creative minds

Daniel Bergner felt frustrated and helpless back when one of his closest family members — his brother — was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. So Bergner decided to report out other possibilities for his brother’s healing.More

Two figures in the rain

Maia Szalavitz is an expert in addiction. She is also someone who has experienced it personally as a young woman. It was during that time that she came upon a concept that is only now changing how we think about recovery on a mass scale —harm reduction.
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These are tough times for people who care about insects. Roughly 40 percent of insect species face extinction. Poet Heather Swan is haunted by this specter of ecosystem collapse, but she’s also determined to live with love and even hope in a perilous time.More

Biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber says life is all about eating and being eaten, which may sound gruesome, but to him, it’s a miraculous process. He’s the author of “Being Edible: Toward a Mystical Biology.”More

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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