Episode Archives

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A peek into Steve's office.

In case it’s not obvious: we LOVE books on TTBOOK. But we’re also incredibly picky about which books we choose for interviews.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Homer called salt a divine substance.  Salt taxes built empires across Europe and Asia.  They even sparked a revolution.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why salt is no ordinary rock.  We’ll tell you how it’s changed the course of history.  Also, the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Your mother always told you money can’t buy happiness.  Well, she was wrong.  And economists have calculated the price.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the high cost of happiness.  Also, why we cry: from crocodile tears to the three-hankie movie.  Writer Andrew Solomon’s struggles...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Remember the movie “Field of Dreams,” about Shoeless Joe Jackson with Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones?  Well, the Field of Dreams is a real place, not a Hollywood studio lot.  It’s a cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa and it’s become something of a religious site for many baseball fans.  In this...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage.  A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”   -- Lorrie Moore

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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

20 years ago a group of musicians gathered in Trinity Church in Toronto and did something extraordinary. In one night, using only one microphone and with no budget, they recorded a masterpiece. The band is the Cowboy Junkies. And the album, "The Trinity Session." The Cowboy Junkies look back on...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

This may be the century when Americans forget how to cook.  We’re too busy and take-out’s too easy, and who needs to cook when you can buy dinner at the supermarket?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the profound implications of the decline and fall of chicken soup, meatloaf, and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From Facebook to Twitter to Wikipedia, World of Warcraft to YouTube, the life of the community has moved on line. And taken on a life of its own. The power of we, and the move toward collective identity and global think.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The average American child grows up in a house with three TVs, three Radios, two VCRs, two CD players, a video game player and a computer. That's a lot of media. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge what happens when kids stop consuming media and start making it? We'll meet kids who...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Once upon a time, not so long ago, the classroom filmstrip was everywhere.  They taught us to change our underwear at least twice a week, among other things.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll revisit the golden age of classroom filmstrips.  So sit up straight.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Tragedy struck Ron Mallett when he was ten years old. His beloved father died and he wanted to bring him back. So he dreamed of building a time machine. Ron Mallett grew up to become a theoretical physicist. Now he studies quantum mechanics and he's still trying to figure out how to go back in...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Emerging insights from the new science of astrobiology paints a picture of a universe seeded with potential life. While astronomers discover new exoplanets every other week or so, biologists are finding unexpected life in some of the most inhospitable environments on earth. Together, their work...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

No matter what quiet corner of America you inhabit, you’ve heard about NASCAR. You may not understand it. You may not get it. But while you weren’t paying attention, those cars, driving in circles for hours, became our national pastime. In this hour of  To The Best Of Our Knowledge, car racing....Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What do Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and Madonna have in common?  Not much, except the kind of blazing fame that turns relatively normal people into obsessive fans who would walk ten miles through a blizzard just to stand in celebrity garbage.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge...Read more

a man becomes a living cereal bowl

What do the opening notes of Beethoven’s “Symphony Number Five” and a rabbit named Oolong balancing a pancake on his head have in common?  They’re both examples of memes – units of culture that are imitated and, as a result, copied from one brain to another.  Are memes the driving...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

For all the amazing discoveries that scientists have made, the cosmos is still full of mysteries - from dark matter to quantum entanglement. Will physicists ever explain the universe, or is it fundamentally unknowable? We explore the frontiers of physics and ponder what it means to live with...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Imagine sipping tea with a militant Muslim and listening to how he set off a series of bombs in a crowded marketplace, trying to kill as many people as possible.  Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, an anthropologist describes her visit to a militant training camp in Pakistan. ...Read more

robot lady

China Mieville’s new novel, “Embassytown,” features sentient beings famous for their unique language and a woman who’s a living simile. Ursula K. LeGuin says that “Embassytown” is “a fully-achieved work of art.” We’ll meet China Mieville, as we explore the language of science fiction.  Also...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Boots on the Ground: Stories from the War in Iraq

Part Five

 

At least 120 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the war began. They're targets for insurgents. But what are journalists to the US military? A necessary evil? Or...Read more

A protest at Standing Rock

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

basement

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

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