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It’s Oscar season and Hollywood is once again celebrating the best films of the year. It would seem that we're a nation obsessed with movies. As a country, we spend billions of dollars to watch them every year, and celebrate them with a variety of awards ceremonies. But what separates a...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Adventure writer Ann Jones recalls crossing Africa from Tangier to Cape Town in search of one special tribe.  They’re guided by the “feminine” principles of compromise, tolerance and peace.  Also, Tony Horwitz sets sail in the wake of Captain Cooke.  We’ll hear about a Frenchman who never went...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

After World War Two, existentialism was all the rage in the U.S.A.  College students rebelled by smoking European cigarettes and wearing black clothes and berets.  Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus felt that Americans were too self-confident and superficial to accept this dark, brooding...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Patty Loveless is a coal miner’s daughter.  And a country singer, just like her distant cousin Loretta Lynn.  When Patty Loveless’ father contracted black lung disease the family had to move to Louisville, Kentucky – so Patty’s dad could receive medical attention.  In this hour of To the Best of...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

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

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

A restaurant wasn't always a place to eat.  It used to be a thing to eat - a cup of medicinal broth to restore your health.  These days Americans eat almost half their meals out, so how did the modern restaurant evolve?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the rise of the restaurant. ...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Scientists tell us optimistic people are happier, healthier and even live longer than pessimists.  But it's hard to maintain an optimistic frame of mind in the face of daily reports of war, famine, disease and injustice.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, evidence that the world is...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Every day you pick up the paper and there's another report about something you either should be eating or shouldn't. Omega 3-fatty acids, soy milk, broccoli - good. Trans fats, soda, fast food - bad. What if instead we just ate what made us happy? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Rose O’Neal Greenhow was the Pamela Harriman of her day - the “hostess with the mostess” in Washington D.C.  But Rose ran a Confederate spy ring out of her house.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we get close to some brazen women of American history and popular culture.  And we’ll...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Some people think they just can’t do math, but it turns out our brains are hard-wired for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.  We’re born with a numbers sense.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge celebrating our mathematical minds.  Also, the natural history...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Sinatra swings it, Miles Davis jazzes it up, and Billy Holiday croons it from the heart.  Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, the biography of a great American love song.  In our second annual Valentine’s Day Show the Rogers and Hart hit “My Funny Valentine.”  And our listeners share true...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman has interviewed some of the biggest names in the celebrity constellation. But getting a celebrity to talk is no easy task. In fact, Klosterman says it's not in the celebrity's best interest to do any interviews at all. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Future Perfect: Dreamers, Schemers & Visionaries

Part Two

 

It's not hard to see why economics is called "the dismal science" – after we were blind-sided by the worst financial meltdown in decades. But economics does have its...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In America’s struggle with race, one man is trying to keep it real.  His website dares to post the questions we’re afraid to ask out loud.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the quest for racial understanding from the founder of the Y-Forum.  Also, the sweet and sorrowful history of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Oliver Sacks has an unusual problem.  He can't recognize other people's faces.  In fact, he doesn't always recognize himself when he's looking in the mirror.  Sacks is also a neurologist who's fascinated by brain disorders.  We'll talk with Sacks and with the painter Chuck Close, who also...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What's the best piece of reporting you read or saw or heard this year?  Today, we share stories that made us see the world in a new way.  National Book Award winner Katherine Boo reports from the slums of Mumbai. Photojournalist Brendan Bannon documents the tenacity and vitality of Africa. ...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From Soup to Nuts

Part Five

Whether black from a bottomless cup or as a Frappuccino mocha skim latte, it's our culture's elixir: coffee.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Java, Joe or a cup of mud . . . Most of us drink it...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What’s the biggest threat to American supremacy?  Islamic fundamentalism?  China?  How about Europe?  Today Europe has more people, more trade, and more wealth than the U.S.  And the European welfare state offers a potent alternative to American capitalism - and what government’s supposed to do...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What do you do if you're a struggling artist in search of recognition? Well, if you're Lynn Hershman Leeson, you write reviews of your work under pseudonyms and get them published in local newspapers. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll find out how Hershman Leeson uses her art...Read more

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