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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What’s your billion dollar idea? You know, the one that’s going to change the world?  America’s the land of invention, right? And it’s that can-do spirit that makes this country great. But America’s no longer the global innovation giant it once was.

Where have you gone, Thomas Edison?Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

On a scale of one to ten, how happy would you say you are right now?  If someone could teach you how to be even happier, would you be interested?  Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, how to boost your happiness IQ.  Also, eating for pleasure, with chef and food writer Deborah Madison. ...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Tom Lutz's 18-year-old son, Cody, spent day after day just lying on the couch, Lutz was surprised how angry it made him that his son was doing nothing. So Lutz decided to do something about it. He wrote a book about the history of doing nothing in America. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Hillary Clinton once described herself as a "Rorschach test." People see in her what they want, whether they love her or hate her. In this hour of To the Best Of Our Knowledge we'll talk about the complicated feelings many women have about Hillary, her marriage to Bill, and whether it's possible...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The mind and the body meet in the brain.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, two of the world’s top brain doctors claim that what you feel affects how you feel.  Dr. Norman Rosenthal, the man who discovered Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), says there’s an Emotional...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Get your fix of travel and crime fiction in one hour. Today, we explore the latest in international crime fiction -- from Israel, Kenya, Denmark, Spain and more.  Crime is the one literary genre that crosses every border and every nationality.  Because yes, we're just that bloodthirsty.Read more

the road in the middle

Do you ever get the feeling that everyone's reading all the same books and listening to all the same music, and seeing all the same films?   Maybe there's a reason why.  New York and Los Angeles account for only a fraction of landmass when it comes to the continental United States...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Somewhere along the way, did we ruin poetry? Have the heartfelt angst of young lovers and the epic elegies of heroes become elitist and academic? But poetry is back, and we have new technology to thank.Read more

lily-ads

Brutal storms, rising seas, drought... you've seen the headlines. Our climate changed future seems pretty scary. But do all the messages about climate catastrope keep people from taking action to slow carbon emmissions or prepare for changing weather? What would happen if we...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

His critics called him a war criminal.  Robert McNamara himself has said the Vietnam War was a colossal mistake.  So should he take the blame for leading America’s war in Vietnam?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, filmmaker Errol Morris talks about war and morality... and his...Read more

a statue

Nearly 2500 years ago, Socrates celebrated the pursuit of wisdom, and famously said “the unexamined life is not worth living.”  But does rigorous self examination actually lead to a happy or fulfilled life?  It didn’t seem to work some of history’s most famous philosophers, including...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Roast pig may look delicious on the holiday table, but you might pass on the pork if you met Piglet.  That famous New Zealand pig swam in the ocean each day, loved the violin and, as the story goes, sang to the moon.  But she was more than an exceptional pet.  To one man she was an  ambassador...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Jordan, Oman, Syria  even Madison, Wisconsin, and the list grows day by day. People are filling the streets and demanding change. They want different things, but their protests have one thing in common: they have no leaders. They're organizing without...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Sales clerks at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, reportedly call the best-selling "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", "the girl who pays our paychecks". The award-winning Swedish crime thriller has sold so many copies, publishers are racing to find the next Scandinavian best-seller. We meet...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When did "fat" become a four-letter word?  Leaders of the body acceptance movement say it's time to stop shaming fat people.  In this hour, curvy girls and plus-size women talk about the emotional and physical costs of America's toxic obsession with weight and body image. Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The average American spends more time on Facebook than with their pets or exercising -- and that's not counting Twitter, Instagram, or Vine. We're more connected than ever these days, but at what cost?Read more

geometry in the dark

Reality is catching up to science fiction.  But there are still new science-fiction writers who are thinking the unthinkable and daring to go beyond the limits of our imaginations.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

There’s an old joke from the former Soviet Union.  Roughly translated it goes like this.  The communists were liars.  Everything they said about communism was untrue.  Unfortunately, everything they said about capitalism was true.  Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, considering...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Today most of what we read is on a screen.  So here's the question: Is there something different -- something better -- about reading a physical book?  Or does it matter?  We explore slow reading, e-reading, bibliotherapy and a novel that unfolds within another novel.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

It's been said that "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." But the rock critic Robert Palmer didn't have any trouble. Palmer wrote effortlessly about all kinds of music – rock and roll, blues, jazz and world music. The fact that Palmer was also a musician didn't hurt. In...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Barbara Moss needed a new face.  Her mouth was so deformed she could pop a baby’s fist between her teeth and out again without opening her jaw.  As a girl, she prayed for just a little bit of beauty.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, one woman discovers her true face.  Also, why men...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Have you ever heard of Dan Rice?  Probably not.  But if you were alive around the middle of the nineteenth century chances are you would know his name.  That’s when Dan Rice made his mark in “the show business.”  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the life and times of Dan Rice.  And...Read more

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