Science and Technology

Lulu Miller

Lulu Miller's latest project is a "Radiolab" podcast series for children: "Terrestrials." She explains for how nature and child-like sensibility can help adults rediscover a sense of wonder.More

Anne's mental map.

Bill Limpisathian is a professor of cartography and specializes in a brand new field – map cognition, or how we use and see and think about maps in the brain. More

the raven

Bad things happen when people lose their connection to the more-than-human world. "Animals know something that we that don't," says psychologist Sharon Blackie. That's one lesson you can take from the old shapeshifting myths and fairy tales.More

space guy

A conversation with "rational mystic," physicist Marcelo Gleiser.More

An old barn near Sandy Neck on Cape Cod, Massachusetts in December 2012

Simon Winchester is a British journalist and best-selling author who spent decades on the road before finally buying a small farm in the Berkshires. The experience led to his book “Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World."More

Demonstrators near the Standing Rock Reservation.

Land Back is a movement that demands the return of native lands to indigenous people. One of its leaders, Hayden King — executive director of the Yellowhead Institute — explains why the movement is gaining traction in Canada.More

Conversation with Samantha, the artificial intelligence

To a certain extent, loneliness is part of the human condition. You can be lonely anywhere, even surrounded by friends. But modern life has exacerbated it, and that requires modern solutions. Indie game designer Jason Rohrer has one — an artificial friend named Samantha.More

Yuria Celidwen

Yuria Celidwen has a wide-ranging critique of how the modern psychedelic movement is taking shape. She was the lead author of a recent article in Lancet arguing for new ethical guidelines for using psychedelics — what she calls “spirit medicine.”More

Sara working in her shop.

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.More

Monroe with Dick’s bunkbed ladder and sawbuck. Photo by Elan Robinson.

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.More

David Nutt

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.More

Galactic kidneys

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.More

The amazing brain, without a horn.

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

Broken body

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.More

crocodile eye

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.More

eyes

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? More

owl

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.More

an illustration of a man who's mind is being expanded by psychedelics

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.More

Pages