You watch two trench-coated boys walk into their high school and shoot everyone in sight. Then a demon drags them off to be tortured in Hell. No, it’s not the latest video game. It’s Hell House, a Halloween haunted house put on by a church in Texas. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more
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Episode Archives
Henry David Thoreau died 150 years ago, and he’s still a great American icon. But have you ever wondered exactly why? Thoreau wasn’t exactly the model environmentalist he’s often made out to be. And his account of living at Walden Pond is partly fictionalized; he spent nine years writing and...Read more
New Orleans is famous for a lot of things...many of them musical. It's the birthplace of jazz, the cradle of rhythm and blues. The home of the brass bands. So it's no wonder that New Orleans is known as "the City that Care Forgot." In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we ask a blunt question: Did we win? We're not the only ones asking. The phrase "did we win the war in Iraq" has been searched over 7 million times on Google. The war has cost an estimated 860...Read more
They can have sex twenty times a day. Their teeth are harder than steel. And the ones that live in the city are twice as big as their country cousins. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll talk rats with Robert Sullivan, who spent a year investigating rats in a New York City...Read more
Scientists are discovering how plants secretly talk to each other. How smart is your geranium, and what does a tree know? Today, we're eavesdropping on the secret language of plants.Read more
We are connected -- probably connected in ways neither of us has dreamed of. Forget six degrees of separation; on Facebook we have only 3.74. And that's just today.Read more
The world’s oceans are emptying at an alarming rate. Fish populations are dwindling and dozens of species are going extinct. Is this something to worry about? Not as long as you like plankton stew. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll meet the controversial scientist who jump-...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
How do we know what's real? Can science tell us, or is there an unseen reality we'll never understand? We explore the borderlands of knowledge and reflect on some remarkable episodes in the history of science - Nobel laureates who investigated ghosts and a pioneer of quantum physics...Read more
John Cheever was sometimes called the "Chekov of the Suburbs." Cheever's characters often find themselves struggling with issues of conformity and class in American suburbia. Much like their creator himself. We'll explore the life and work of John Cheever with his biographer, Blake Bailey. Also...Read more
What's the centerpiece of the American Dream? Is it our belief that you can pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps? Maybe it's our rugged individualism? Or maybe, just maybe, it's the lawn. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge the obsessive quest for the perfect lawn. Also, a little bunny...Read more
Guns are a part of our national mythology. Just consider the Western, Annie Oakley, Daniel Boone -- it's hard to deny the role guns had in shaping America.
But what if all those stories were exaggerated at best? What if the gun myth was created in the 19th ...Read more
Boots on the Ground: Stories from the War in Iraq
Part One
Iraq. April 6, 2004. This day marked the Marines' heaviest fighting since Vietnam and was the start of the Iraqi insurgency. By the end of the day more than 40 Marines and...Read more
A little laugh goes a long way. This week, we’re taking a crash course in how to be funny.
From Chicago’s famous Second City, to a humor research lab, this hour's a laugh riot. We also talk with a laughter coach, Canadian comic Mary Walsh, and longtime New Yorker humorist Ian...Read more
Are you afraid of getting old? Most people are, but studies show we're usually happier in our 60s and 70s. Aging often brings wisdom and resilience - and a new creative spark. We celebrate the fine art of aging - and hear about some artists who remade their careers late in life.Read more
The state of Israel turns Sixty in 2008, but what is its future as a Jewish democracy? The Arab population in Israel will soon outnumber the Jews. Even diehard Zionists are calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a look at the role Israeli...Read more
Life’s a sim and then you’re deleted. We always thought the computers would get us one day. Maybe they already have. According to one philosopher, odds are we’re already living the Matrix as mere programs in a computer simulation. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
We all have our good days and our bad days, but chances are they’re nothing like what Andy Behrman has experienced. Behrman would fly from Zurich to the Bahamas and back in three days to balance hot and cold weather. On the bad days, he’d experience tornado-like rages of depression. In this...Read more
Do you believe in magic? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll talk with some people who do. Join us for a conversation with America’s favorite witch – Starhawk. And uncover your own inner wizard! What Merlin, Dumbledore and Gandalf have to teach us all about living a life...Read more
More than 100 Native Americans nations have come to Standing Rock in solidarity to protest for water rights. This hour we ask a deceptively simple question: Who owns water?
...Read more
Fashion photographer David Jay recently sent us a book of his photos. The lighting was perfect, the settings intimate. The women, nearly naked, were gorgeous. Taking in the beautiful images, something stood out – the mastectomy scars.Read more
According to George Bernard Shaw, the seven deadly sins are food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. This time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll explore the more traditional Seven Deadly Sins. Musician Joe Jackson will tell us how lust, gluttony and the other sins...Read more
Have you seen the David Lynch film “Mulholland Drive”? Did you understand it? One reviewer says watching “Mulholland Drive” is “like playing Twister and Scrabble simultaneously while high on LSD.” In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge two young men talk about their internet audio...Read more