Men are not really from Mars and women are not really from Venus. But there are definite differences between the two genders. Norah Vincent was curious about what a man's life was like. So she spent eighteen months undercover...as a man. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Norah...Read more
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Episode Archives
She's a little bit country. She's a little bit rock and roll. Carlene Carter grew up surrounded by music. She's the daughter of June Carter and the stepdaughter of Johnny Cash. And Carlene followed in their footsteps, with a few twists and turns along the way. In this hour of the Peabody Award-...Read more
Celebrate Midsummer's Eve with a visit to the fey folk. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll have an hour filled with stories of changelings and other-kin, Fairy Courts and green children. We'll conjure up a world of enchantment, but beware! There are no Tinkerbells in the world....Read more
From the minute we can pick up a crayon, most of us want to draw something - a house, a tree, the sun. As we get older we aim for nuance and sophistication - landscapes and shadows, faces and expressions. A gifted few will achieve something greater - they’ll make art. On this hour of To the...Read more
We explore the frontiers of brain science, from the neurobiology of emotions to recent discoveries about autism. Renowned neuroscientists Richard Davidson and V.S. Ramachandran reveal new insights into the brain, and we'll hear the story of one marriage saved by a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome...Read more
What would a secular society really look like? We take an unconventional look at religion, the fiction it inspires, and reflect on why William James' classic book on mysticism, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," still matters.Read more
America is famously a nation of immigrants, a melting pot of cultures. And yet, few subjects will be debated as passionately this year as immigration reform. What are we really talking about, when we argue about immigration? And, what's it like to be 'fresh off the boat" in a country that...Read more
What are the great country music singles? Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” probably. George Jones’ “slobbing tearjerker,” “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” What about the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women”? and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay? According to the book “Heartaches by the...Read more
Calling Lynne Cox a swimmer is like calling Mohammed Ali a tough guy. At age fourteen, she swam to Catalina Island from mainland California. At eighteen she swam between the islands of New Zealand. Years later, with miles of hard swims behind her, she turned her eye to the unthinkable - the...Read more
Have you ever heard of an “Uncreative Writing” course? In this class, students are penalized for showing any kind of originality. Instead, they’re rewarded for plagiarism, plundering and stealing. We’ll meet the man behind “Uncreative Writing” – poet Kenneth Goldsmith. Also,...Read more
Walk into the children's section of any bookstore and the magic wands and secret portals almost materialize in front of you. Wizards, witches, demons, time travel, dragons, orphans, orphaned dragons – doesn't anyone know how to write a non-magical book anymore?! In this hour of To the Best of...Read more
We’re all a little bit wild inside, but how often do we let it out? If you've been spending too much time indoors in front of a screen, maybe it's time for a dose of the real thing. This week,stories of people who found strength, wonder and joy by heading into the wild.Read more
Are humans innately good? Do we have a generosity gene? Is there an inherent desire to help our fellow human beings? Or, are we natural born sinners who have to fight, tooth and nail, to conquer our inherent tendencies towards selfishness, destruction and war. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
When Rae Armantrout recently won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry the first thing she said was curious. Read them out loud, she said.
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, poetry out loud. Rae Armantrout reads her poems, Natalie Merchant sings our favorite classic poems, and Bobby...Read more
Words can change lives. Just look at the “at-risk” students in Erin Gruwell’s class. Many of them were branded “unteachable.” Then they read Anne Frank’s diary, and started to keep their own journals. The experience was electrifying. In this hour of To the Best of...Read more
Nerds are an easy target for humor in movies and on TV... with their thick black glasses, hopelessly out-of-fashion clothes, and over-enunciated diction. But there's a dark side to nerds. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll find out how the nerd stereotype is harming our children...Read more
A Swedish environmentalist believes we really should give back to the earth, even after we’ve died. Her company is trying to replace cremation with a technologically-enhanced form of organic composting, and she’s already got the support of King Carl Gustav and the Church of Sweden. In this...Read more
With hundreds of millions of people moving into cities, we're wondering what shapes urban cultures. In this hour, Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk talks about how Istanbul shaped his writing. One historian argues that early liberal philosophies from Amsterdam shaped the United States. And we check in...Read more
What’s the best way to get someone to talk? NPR’s Terry Gross has done more interviewers than just about anyone else in public radio. But she prefers to talk to them long distance, with no eye contact. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Terry Gross on the art of the interview.Read more
As America endures the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the hardships our grandparents and great grandparents lived through are suddenly relevant again. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, stories from the Great Depression – advice from the generation that survived...Read more
In the history of near-fame experiences, one story stands out. Pete Best was the Beatles’ drummer just a few months before “Love Me Do” became a smash hit. His replacement, Ringo Starr, became a huge star. And Pete Best? He worked for decades as a civil servant in Liverpool. In this hour of...Read more
As artists and scientists explore the edges of our senses, what we touch, taste, see, smell, and hear is changing.
In this hour we hear from a psychiatrist who’s using touch to help people recover from trauma, investigate a mysterious sensory experience that gives some people euphoric...Read more
Do you believe in social progress and the power of networks to solve problems? Steven Johnson does. And he's coined a new term for himself and others like him -- the peer progressive movement. We'll learn all about it as we explore how digital networks are changing our lives.Read more
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh made his name when he broke the story of the My Lai Massacre. Looking back you have to wonder: why did Lt. William Calley tell Hersh he’d killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians? On this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge Hersh says “because I asked him...Read more