American companies generate a lot of wealth. But Americans aren't seeing much of it. Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff says that's because today's corporations are obsessed with one thing -- growth. We'll find out why our economy's operating system is broken and how we can fix it, as we rethink...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
It’s the longest-running prime-time animated series in TV history...with sixteen seasons and more than 350 episodes. So far. Not bad for a four-fingered family whose first gig was doing animated segments on a TV variety show. In this hour of the Peabody Award Winning Program To the Best of Our...Read more
Born 200 years ago, Charles Darwin was a revolutionary figure, and yet polls show that more than half of all Americans still don't accept his theory of evolution. So, is Darwinian evolution compatible with faith in God? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, what Darwin himself thought...Read more
Remember what it was like to be a kid, playing outside with friends for hours at a time? Sure, it may just seem like fun and games, but it may also have been invaluable training for life as an adult.Read more
Who would have guessed that number two on the Best Seller List this summer would be an intellectual thriller starring four brainy Princeton seniors and a 15th century manuscript written in code? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, meet the authors of “The Rule of Four.” Lost and...Read more
Chaotic headlines out of Washington, ice melting in Antarctica, world temps rising and global conflict on the rise… it could be worse. It could be Ragnarok. Writer Neil Gaiman retells the ancient Norse myth of the Twilight of the Gods and apocalyptic end of the world in his stunning new...Read more
"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you."...Read more
Everyone knows what comic books are about, right? But it's not all about people in long underwear hitting each other. This hour on To the Best of Our Knowledge, heroes, anti-heroes, and regular folks strutting their stuff in black and white.Read more
Picking up a bottle of wine for dinner used to be simple. It pretty much depended on how much you wanted to spend, since everything came from France. Not anymore! We'll look at what happened to the wine world in 1976, when wine from the Napa Valley won a blind tasting and turned the industry...Read more
He was the most surprising Booker Prize winner in years. DBC Pierre had been a con man and a drug addict before he became a writer. Now he’s won one of the world’s great literary prizes. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll talk with some award-winning writers including DBC...Read more
Chris Ayres never wanted to cover the war. He was perfectly content reporting on celebrity gossip in L.A. But through a twist of fate, he found himself embedded with Marines in Iraq, living in a Humvee and waiting for his death at the hands of the Republican Guard. In this hour of To the Best...Read more
Seven hundred million people get their music from the Internet. More than 10 million people own iPods. Does this mean that compact discs and record companies are going the way of the gramophone and eight-track tapes? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll look at this digital...Read more
Imagine a farm five stories tall, powered by the sun, watered by the rain. Cabbage and carrots, tomatoes and eggplant grow on living walls. Tens of thousands of fish swim in aquaponic tanks. In this hour, the urban farm of the future gets real. Also, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,...Read more
Thousands of the world's languages are disappearing in the wake of globalization. And because language is the DNA of culture, a lost language is a lost culture. Today, stories from the frontlines of the language revitalization movement. Also, Dr. Larry Brilliant's improbable journey from...Read more
Batman, Superman, the Green Lantern we all had our superheroes as kids. Maybe we still do today? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, SUPERHEROES. We'll celebrate Wonder Woman's 70th birthday with a look at her controversial new costume. We'll also explore the actual physics of...Read more
Gore Vidal has a special fondness for the Founding Fathers, especially George Washington. “The others were geniuses. He was not a genius” he says, but “he had a powerful character which got him through the revolution, since he was not much of a general. But he was a great leader.” We’ll talk...Read more
There's something magical about making words. Ask any parent what their baby's first word was. Chances are they'll remember. Words are what set us apart from all the other animals. And they're endlessly fascinating. In this hour of To Best of Our Knowledge we'll meet a variety of people...Read more
In 1945 Franklin Roosevelt worked out a deal with the king of Saudi Arabia. America got unlimited access to Saudi Oil, and in return, the U.S. protected the Royal Family against its enemies. Now that special relationship is under fire. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the politics...Read more
Eric Liu is on a campaign to restore America's civic joy. To make voting fun again, with late-night dance parties for Miami voters, participatory election street theater in Akron,Ohio; and a giant election scavenger hunt in Philadelphia. He says there's no such thing as not voting: choosing not...Read more
Getting through winter requires mental and physical toughness, plus good central heating. But animals have amazing strategies for surviving conditions that make humans whimper. Today, winter survival strategies from our furred and feathered friends. What could we learn from a walrus who...Read more
It started as a joke. Danny Wallace put a small ad in a London newspaper. It simply said “Join me” and invited people to send a passport-sized photo. The only problem was, no one knew what they were joining. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, the story of Danny Wallace’s “Join Me”...Read more
Grim news from Africa is easy to find, but there are good things happening there too. The creator of the Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency wants you to know all about them. He calls himself a Utopian writer. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll visit the real Botswana with...Read more
Have you ever thought about disappearing... wiping out your old identity and starting fresh, with a new name, a new life, a new self? In this hour we try to find out how to disappear completely. You too can vanish without a trace! Read more
The US will pull troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, leaving behind an enemy they've fought for more than a decade. This week, we explore Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency and find out what motivates them.Read more