Episode Archives

Filter episodes by the year they originally aired.
TTBOOK

How does it feel to know that the commodity everyone wants is inside your skull?  This hour, we focus our attention — on attention. Read more

Original Air Date:

November 13, 2016

Ballot box and stickers

How do we put the fairness and the fun back in American elections? In this hour, we present a few simple ideas for how to remake the electoral process.Read more

Original Air Date:

October 30, 2016

Typewriter

Psychologists say telling a good life story can make you happier. But do we also create an inauthentic version of ourselves if we turn everything into a narrative?Read more

Original Air Date:

October 23, 2016

time travel clock

This hour, we explore our obsession with time travel. Why is such a recurring them in movies and TV shows? And what can time travel teach us about ourselves?Read more

Original Air Date:

October 09, 2016

Elephant

Can we ever get inside the mind of an animal? Can we really know how a chimp or a parrot thinks and experiences the world?Read more

Original Air Date:

September 03, 2016

Actress with long tongue

We delve into the new science of revulsion.Read more

Original Air Date:

August 28, 2016

View from Yosemite

"We live by wild mercy," Terry Tempest Williams writes. In this hour, she takes us to some of her favorite national parks, from Big Bend to Arches. We also explore the desert wilderness of Utah's Escalante area, and hear about a father and daughter's remarkable adventure into the Arctic National...Read more

Original Air Date:

July 24, 2016

Candles

When suicide bombers blow up crowded marketplaces, or a lone shooter attacks a nightclub, one question we’re always left with is why. This hour, a look at the underlying psychology of political violence.Read more

Original Air Date:

July 16, 2016

Cracked pair of glasses

Have you ever thought about tracking down someone who bullied you when you were a child? Allen Kurzweil thought about it and actually confronted him. We'll hear his story in this hour as we explore the bullying epidemic. Also, we'll find out how the Internet has transformed bullying into a...Read more

Original Air Date:

July 03, 2016

airport protest

When you don't have a voice, when you feel like lawmakers just won't listen to you, protest is one way of capturing the world's attention. But does it work? Read more

Original Air Date:

June 26, 2016

Satellite image of Europe

There are nearly 250 million migrants across the world right now. Some will be escaping war or oppression, others will be seeking out freedom or economic prosperity, but whatever the reason, the kind of life they're looking for lies across a border that's policed and restricted. What if it didn'...Read more

Original Air Date:

May 01, 2016

We grow up scribbling with crayons and covering sidewalks with chalk, and then around middle school most of us stop. Maybe we think it's childish or just too hard. So what can we learn from the people who never stopped making art?Read more

Original Air Date:

April 17, 2016

The Colosseum

There's a lot of hand-wringing these days about the American Empire. Is it doomed to come crashing down the way the Roman Empire did?Read more

Original Air Date:

February 21, 2016

fictional soda bottles

Do you ever get the feeling that this is Big Soda's world and we're just living in it? Even though soda sales have declined in recent years, Big Soda looms large in our popular culture. In this hour, we explore "Coca-Cola Capitalism" and soda politics.Read more

Original Air Date:

February 07, 2016

Tree image

Reading books isn't always the best way to learn. Some things you need to learn from your elders, and their wisdom has often been passed down through the generations. Read more

Original Air Date:

January 31, 2016

 So what about that phrase “a more perfect union”? What does that mean? And how do we reconcile all the different visons of what a more perfect union might be? Especially the ones you disagree with.Read more

Original Air Date:

January 24, 2016

Can science tell you how to "get happy?"  This hour,  the psychology and history behind the very idea of happiness. Read more

Original Air Date:

January 11, 2016

Putting off the work

Procrastination can be an occasional bad habit, but it can also be a lot worse. It can lead to depression, low self-esteem, anxiety. Today, we try to answer the question, Why do we put things off and how can we stop?

...Read more

Original Air Date:

January 03, 2016

A future man (or lady)

Why are we so obsessed with the future? Is it because we can't handle the present and all of our current problems, like climate change, racism and terrorism? That's one theory.Read more

Original Air Date:

January 02, 2016

Some people talk to God and some think God talks to them. Read more

Original Air Date:

December 27, 2015

ce matin, un lapin in middle school

When was the last time you said something so mortifying that all you wanted to do was crawl under a rock and hide? From teenage angst to cringe comedy, we're setting aside the shame and reveling in all things awkward.Read more

Original Air Date:

December 20, 2015

More than 38 million Americans knit or crochet. Not because they crave mittens and afghans, but because they like the way knitting feels. Handwork turns out be a powerful antidote for digital overload. Read more

Original Air Date:

December 05, 2015

Automatic

Automated machines are taking over our lives. They're not the scary robots you see in movies, but more and more of today's technology — from smart phones to airplanes — is automated. But do we want to give machines so much control?Read more

Original Air Date:

November 29, 2015

We confront the politics of the voice, from stereotyping to vocal fry. And we also talk to a soundscape ecologist who listens—perhaps closer than anyone—to the voices of the natural world.Read more

Original Air Date:

November 22, 2015

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