Double-crossin’ dames. Grifters on the make in sleazy dive bars. Dead men that are heavier than broken hearts. Some think his novels are just pulp fiction, but to others Raymond Chandler is one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
Want to improve your mood? Just dance. This hour we’re talking with people who’ve found an easy way to keep themselves happy, to build friendships, and make art. We’re checking in with neuroscientists too, to hear just what happens in our brains when we’re dancing. Also, how dancing...Read more
No matter what quiet corner of America you inhabit, you’ve heard about NASCAR. You may not understand it. You may not get it. But while you weren’t paying attention, those cars, driving in circles for hours, became our national pastime. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, car racing....Read more
The most mysterious musical instrument in the world lives inside your body. Your voice. You can’t see it, can’t touch it, and yet – it expresses all of who you are. On this episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll explore they mysteries of the voice. We’ll hear from soprano Renee...Read more
What do Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and Madonna have in common? Not much, except the kind of blazing fame that turns relatively normal people into obsessive fans who would walk ten miles through a blizzard just to stand in celebrity garbage. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge...Read more
Are Americans dumbing down instead of smartening up? Many surveys say yes. According to a 2006 National Geographic-Roper survey, nearly half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 don't think it's necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news is being made. In...Read more
How far did your food travel to get to you today? 100 miles? A thousand? Or just down the street. No matter where today's meal came from, there's a story behind it. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, food stories. New York chef Dan Barber faces a moral crisis in the form of a...Read more
Is Jennifer Egan's book, "A Visit from the Goon Squad," a novel or is it a series of entangled stories? It's a fair question because this polyphonic narrative covers a lot of territory – from satire to tragedy told from a wide range of characters' points of view. And one chapter...Read more
Is it any wonder boys don’t read? Too often they’re assigned the books their female teachers loved. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the man behind the GuysRead website says forget “Little House on the Prairie” and bring on Stinky Cheese Man! And we’ll hear what happened when the...Read more
There’s no English translation for the Dutch word “Gezellig."
Are there things that can never be understood, expressed or experienced outside their home culture?
We’re wandering the unmarked maps of cultural translation!Read more
More than 100 Native Americans nations have come to Standing Rock in solidarity to protest for water rights. This hour we ask a deceptively simple question: Who owns water?
...Read more
Science is moving out of the lab and into the pages of literary fiction. This week, we introduce the “Lab Lit” movement and talk about why fiction needs more realistic portrayals of scientists and science cultureRead more
DEVO co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh talks about his visual art exhibition, "Myopia," and Joshua Wolf Shenk lays waste to the myth of the lone genius as we explore the creative process.Read more
Photographers capture heartache and agony. What does it mean for them? And what does it mean for us, those viewing the photos? Do these images create empathy? Compassion? Or something else?Read more
Would you be surprised to know there are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in human history? An estimated 27 million people live in bondage. On this To the Best of Our Knowledge, the new abolitionists – including a reporter who risked his life to document the global traffic...Read more
Every person on earth is unique and special, but some people – maybe one in a hundred – are autistic. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we get to know a few autistic people with Asperger's Syndrome. We'll hear what it's like to try to live in the world when you have visionary...Read more
Boots on the Ground: Stories from the War in Iraq
Part Three
For many soldiers and Marines, war is not fundamentally about the mission. War is not really about the enemy. It's not even about patriotism. War is about the man to the...Read more
Wisdom may come with age, but if you want to make scientific history, it pays to be young. Newton invented calculus before he turned 25. Einstein published his special theory of relativity when he was only 26. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, does genius slip away with age? Also...Read more
What do the opening notes of Beethoven’s “Symphony Number Five” and a rabbit named Oolong balancing a pancake on his head have in common? They’re both examples of memes – units of culture that are imitated and, as a result, copied from one brain to another. Are memes the driving...Read more
For all the amazing discoveries that scientists have made, the cosmos is still full of mysteries - from dark matter to quantum entanglement. Will physicists ever explain the universe, or is it fundamentally unknowable? We explore the frontiers of physics and ponder what it means to live with...Read more
Did you know that novelist Thomas Hardy had a second career as a poet? Or that many people don't find their artistic passions until after the age of 85? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we talk about change over time - that is, how change is really a lifelong project. A former monk...Read more
"Being a man, like being a woman, is something you have to learn." That's what Aaron Raz Link says. And Link should know. He began life as a girl named Sarah. And he started a new life as a gay man twenty-nine years later. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll meet Aaron Raz Link,...Read more
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