Episode Archives

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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

basement

Popular myths, urban legends and just plain lies.  Why do we persist in believing things that just aren't true?Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Science and the Search for Meaning: Five Questions, Part Four: Can Islam and Science Coexist?

Islamic culture was once the center of the scientific world. During Europe's Dark Ages, Baghdad, Cairo and other Middle Eastern cities were the key repositories of ancient...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Jesse Gilmour was fifteen-years-old and he was flunking every subject at school. So what did his father, David Gilmour, do? He told Jesse that he could drop out and that he wouldn't have to work or pay rent. All he had to do was watch three movies every week with his dad. Movies that his...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, choosing the life you want.  Colette’s biographer talks about how the great French writer stayed saucy and sexually active into old age.  Kay Redfield Jamison takes a look at the end of life - a view of the suicide epidemic.  And...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Photographers capture heartache and agony. What does it mean for them? And what does it mean for us, those viewing the photos? Do these images create empathy? Compassion? Or something else?Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Peggy Orenstein didn't want children. At least she didn't think so. Children killed careers and turned smart, professional women into drones. Well, that's what Orenstein was afraid of, anyway. But after a death in the family, she changed her mind. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, to...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Every person on earth is unique and special, but some people – maybe one in a hundred – are autistic. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we get to know a few autistic people with Asperger's Syndrome. We'll hear what it's like to try to live in the world when you have visionary...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Dan Janzen is one of the world’s leading tropical biologists.  He’s spent forty years working in the Cost Rican jungle, and there’s one creature that fascinates him above all others - the moth.  Janzen has found nine-thousand different species of moth in Cost Rica.  In this hour of To the Best...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From Boston to Berkeley, people are going raw.  Vegetarians, vegans and Atkins followers are old hat – the hottest trend in food is cool.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why the raw food movement has people turning off their ovens and trumpeting the healing powers of uncooked food...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Most people want to do the right thing.  But what if your survival depended on doing something wrong?  Something deeply repellent.  Something evil.  And what if the police told you to?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the consequences of moral choices, from Nazi Germany to American...Read more

bees

Bees are responsible for forty percent of the food we put in our mouths.  It sounds astonishing, but without bees, we could find ourselves facing food shortages and a collapse of the green and flowered world.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge,  a peek inside the world...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Turning thirty used to be embarrassing, an occasion for angst and misery.  Today young adults are embracing thirty as cause for celebration.  They’re renting yachts, giving speeches and spending thousands of dollars to celebrate the big three-oh.  In this hour of To the Best of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

We’ve all heard we live in “the information age,” but what does this mean?  We’ll give you a short history of information – from talking drums onward.  But do we now have too much information?  We’ll hear how information overload is actually re-wiring our brains.  Also, the new theory in physics...Read more

poem

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments...”  “Because I could not stop for death…”

First lines. Classic poems. But poetry’s no anachronism. It’s pulsing and swelling and beating new rhythms.

From online verse to the new US Poet Laureate, from poetry...Read more

a man in a cave

The Paleo Diet. Running barefoot. Look around, the modern caveman is among us.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In the film-going arena, one man towers above all others.  His endurance, stamina and tolerance for popcorn are unparalleled.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Kevin Murphy’s quest to see a movie a day.  Every day.  For a Year.  Also, writer Michael Ondaatje (ahn-dot-chee) on the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Tucker Crowe is a reclusive musician. His devoted fans consider him to be the creator of the greatest breakup album ever recorded. But Tucker Crowe doesn't actually exist. He's a character in "Juliet, Naked"...the new novel from "New York Times" best-selling author, Nick Hornby. We'll talk to...Read more

a workspace with notebook, coffee, laptop and notebook

American companies generate a lot of wealth. But Americans aren't seeing much of it. Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff says that's because today's corporations are obsessed with one thing -- growth. We'll find out why our economy's operating system is broken and how we can fix it, as we rethink...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Her novel “Bel Canto” was a hit so now novelist Ann Patchett is a star.  But back when they were in college, it was her fellow student Lucy Grealy who got treated like a rock star.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a look at uncommon friendships.  Ann Patchett tells how her...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

It’s the longest-running prime-time animated series in TV history...with sixteen seasons and more than 350 episodes. So far.  Not bad for a four-fingered family whose first gig was doing animated segments on a TV variety show.  In this hour of the Peabody Award Winning Program To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

There’s another September 11th.  On that day thirty years ago, a military coup overthrew Chile’s elected president, Salvador Allende.  Newly declassified documents show the C.I.A.’s extensive involvement in the coup.  On this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the Pinochet file.  Also,...Read more

camera

When we’ve had enough of reality, we often seek escape in a movie.   But we don’t have to shut off our brains when we visit the cinema.  Some films actually encourage us to use our minds.  This hour, we explore philosophy through the lens of filmRead more

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