Science and Technology

Resevoir

We've heard plenty about micro-dosing with LSD — in articles, books, even on this show. But psychiatrist Anna Fels has a new micro-dosing proposal. Not with a drug – with lithium.
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Mind/body

Remember debating the mind-body duality in college? You probably argued the meaning of Descartes’ adage “I think, therefore I am” in your dorm. Maybe you even delved into the idea of what is consciousness. But for Lauren Slater, author of “Prozac Diary,” the mind-body argument isn’t just a debate or an intellectual pursuit.More

Robot boy

Alexander Weinstein’s “Children of the New World” is a collection of cautionary tales about extreme emotional attachment to software and silicon.  More

A poison garden

Amy Stewart is a serious gardener with a side gig – writing about all the plants that could kill you.More

Code

Machines that program themselves are all around us and they get smarter every day. But are you ready for the master algorithm that can tell a machine how to learn anything?More

Apps

App Intelligence? Santa Fe Institute president David Krakauer says we're on the verge of abdicating our free will to everyday apps.More

Black hole

Researchers revisit the controversial but potentially life-changing treatment first explored in the 1960s.More

#MeToo

For years, women in science have battled discrimination, old boys’ clubs and gendered stereotypes. Now they’re blowing the whistle on sexual harassment, and some eminent career scientists are being held to account.More

a single bee in a prairie

A poem by Emily Dickinson, read by Anne Strainchamps.More

honey as a cure

A poem by Karina Borowicz, read by Peter Sobol.More

honeybee

A poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, read by Stephanie Elkins.More

Artificial Creativity

Machines are getting smarter. They have been for a long time. But is there anything uniquely human that they will never be able to do, like make art?More

Screengrab from "Computer Says Show" used with permission.

Could a computer write the next West Side Story or Hamilton? That’s what composers Benjamin Till and Nathan Taylor tried to figure out—the result is a musical called “Beyond the Fence."More

Man gets lost

Rebecca Solnit prepares the smartphone era for a time when we no longer know how to not know where we are.More

The mountain beckons

For years, David Roberts climbed some of Alaska’s biggest mountains, and made a number of first ascents. His new book is an examination of why some climbers feel compelled to push the edge of what’s possible.More

poker

In 2004, Anne Duke was in the final of the World Series of Poker. She won, but that's not the entire story. It's how she won that became legendary. More

The formula for success

Want to be successful at gambling? How about sports? Investments? Michael Mauboussi is the Head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse and author of a book where he outlines “The Success Equation."More

Love calculus

Psychologists John and Julie Gottman are famous for being able to predict with 94% accuracy whether a couple will break up, stay together unhappily, or stay together happily.More

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