Classical musicians don't come with better pedigrees than violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. She's been wowing audiences since she was four, performs all over the world and has commissioned many new works. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Meyers talks about why she chose to record popular...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
Do you ever have a right to kill? What about Israeli agents who assassinate Hamas leaders? Or suicide bombers who blow up their enemies? Do the ends justify the means? William Vollman has written a three-thousand page treatise on the morality of violence. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Red roses, chilled champagne, a candlelight dinner for two. Who cares?!?
This is the 21st century. We’ve got 30 million potential dates online. We’ve got every imaginable type of pornography at our fingertips. Odds are each of us could hook up with someone new tonight.
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"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you."...Read more
The Dalai Lama's birthday is July 6th, 1935. For decades, he's served as the spiritual leader of Tibet, urging them forward on the path of non-violence in the face of Chinese occupation. But as the Dalai Lama ages, and the Chinese consolidate their power in Tibet, rumbles of discontent are...Read more
Picking up a bottle of wine for dinner used to be simple. It pretty much depended on how much you wanted to spend, since everything came from France. Not anymore! We'll look at what happened to the wine world in 1976, when wine from the Napa Valley won a blind tasting and turned the industry...Read more
Imagine a farm five stories tall, powered by the sun, watered by the rain. Cabbage and carrots, tomatoes and eggplant grow on living walls. Tens of thousands of fish swim in aquaponic tanks. In this hour, the urban farm of the future gets real. Also, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,...Read more
Everyone knows what comic books are about, right? But it's not all about people in long underwear hitting each other. This hour on To the Best of Our Knowledge, heroes, anti-heroes, and regular folks strutting their stuff in black and white.Read more
Seven hundred million people get their music from the Internet. More than 10 million people own iPods. Does this mean that compact discs and record companies are going the way of the gramophone and eight-track tapes? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll look at this digital...Read more
Since the explosion of surfing in the 60s, hanging ten has become one of the coolest sports around. Today, women, children, and seniors surf their way across peaks of blue water. Some of them even find the divine along the way. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll find out how...Read more
The differences among the world’s various religions are getting a lot more ink these days than the similarities. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge stories of common ground. “The Life of Pi,” in which an Indian boy finds magic in three different faiths with the help of a Bengal Tiger...Read more
Author, Author
Part Four
Violence, crime, destitution. No so much fun in real life, but in literature they can be divine. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll dive into the world of pulp fiction. From the classic noir...Read more
Christopher Hogwood was not your ordinary household pet. For one thing, he weighed 700 pounds. And he loved to drink beer. Christopher was a very large pig with a heart of gold. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the story of how Christopher Hogwood became the best-loved pig in...Read more
Electrons to Enlightenment
Part One
Do science and religion have to be at war with each other? Francis Collins doesn't think so. The head of the Human Genome Project, is also an evangelical Christian. But biologist and atheist...Read more
Many Americans think the story of Cuba begins and ends with Fidel Castro. But the soul of the Cuban Revolution belonged to the charismatic, Romantic guerilla hero Ernesto “Che” Guevara. To the Best of Our Knowledge revisits the Sixties and counts the private costs of that era’s social gains. ...Read more
Eric Liu is on a campaign to restore America's civic joy. To make voting fun again, with late-night dance parties for Miami voters, participatory election street theater in Akron,Ohio; and a giant election scavenger hunt in Philadelphia. He says there's no such thing as not voting: choosing not...Read more
Couples know the frightening statistic: 50 percent of today’s marriages will fail. And the real victims are the children. As they grow up they are more likely to be aggressive or depressed, end up in mental health hospitals, or get divorced themselves. In this hour of To the...Read more
It started as a joke. Danny Wallace put a small ad in a London newspaper. It simply said “Join me” and invited people to send a passport-sized photo. The only problem was, no one knew what they were joining. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, the story of Danny Wallace’s “Join Me”...Read more
Look at the bright side. Keep a positive attitude. Pull yourself up by your own boot straps. If you set your mind on it, you can do anything. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a rosy view of optimism and wishful thinking. And for you cynics? A look at the positive power of...Read more
The US will pull troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, leaving behind an enemy they've fought for more than a decade. This week, we explore Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency and find out what motivates them.Read more
Parents worry that their kids spend too much time playing video games, but according to one new study, if you need surgery, you want the surgeon who grew up with a game controller in one hand. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why the future belongs to gamers. Imagine a...Read more
Men are not really from Mars and women are not really from Venus. But there are definite differences between the two genders. Norah Vincent was curious about what a man's life was like. So she spent eighteen months undercover...as a man. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Norah...Read more
Failure is a four letter word in America. Most of us do everything we can to avoid it. But what if we've got the wrong idea about failure - and it's all a matter of learning the right way to do it? This hour, one psychologist's take on how to embrace the fall. And comedian...Read more
When do we most need our leaders? In times of crisis? In times of war? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge Winston Churchill's biographer Martin Gilbert explains how the man who offered his nation only blood, sweat, toil and tears made it believe that was enough. And he says Churchill's...Read more