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
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
You might think that men’s anxiety over baldness is a relatively recent development in the history of civilization. But it’s not. The ancient Romans invented the comb-over and paint-on hair, which has since become spray-on hair. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’...Read more
American children grow up playing Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. As adults, they line up for the latest anime movies and hang out in karaoke bars. In other words -- Japanese culture is serious business. So serious that Japan's Prime Minister appointed a "Cool Japan" minister to oversee...Read more
In this age of globalization, why would anyone want borders, an army, currency? Isn’t that kind of … old school? Read more
The collapse of the twin towers gave birth to a strange new world. It was a city of fire and dust, rubble crunching under foot and eerie underground rivers. William Langewiesche was the only journalist with unrestricted access to Ground Zero. What he found there was startling, natural, and...Read more
Buried scrolls, clay tablets, priceless artifacts and expensive forgeries – this week, we bring you stories from the strange and amazing world of biblical archeology.Read more
Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars to try to improve themselves. They buy books and CDs, go to seminars...some even walk over hot coals in their bare feet. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll try to find out if the self-help movement is really helping us.Read more
Bohemians used to hate anything that reeked of money. It destroyed the soul. Now, many self-styled bohemians are reveling in slate shower stalls, Range Rovers, and lava-rock grills. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the triumphs of the “Bobo” – the Bourgeois...Read more
Suppose there's a pill that would dramatically boost your creativity. Would you take it? Psychologist Jim Fadiman says that pill exists. It's the powerful hallucinogen LSD. Fadiman describes a remarkable experiment showing how psychedelics enhanced the creativity of senior scientists. Read more
David Rothenburg is a philosopher and a jazz clarinetist, who also loves birds. So one day he sat down in the National Aviary in Pittsburgh and started playing music. Lo and behold, a white-crested laughing thrush started singing with him, riffing on the tunes he played. Since then Rothenburg...Read more
Poet Nick Lantz has a darkly satirical take on American culture. Lately, he’s been thinking about political spin and how politicians speak. In this interview—the third in our series ...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
It’s been described as the Nobel Prize of motion pictures: the coveted Academy Award. One billion people around the world watch the Oscars on TV every year. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the history and politics of the Academy Awards. Is Oscar a white man’s award? Also, Don...Read more
In the mid-80's the metal band Winger topped the charts with hits like "Seventeen." Then Grunge came along and left bands like Winger in the dust. Now, Kip Winger is back on top with a new CD that debuted at #1 on the music charts. Only this time, he's rocking the classical charts....Read more
It turns out that television may not be quite the "boob tube" and "the idiot box" that we thought it was. It seems that watching TV can actually make you smarter... by posing new cognitive challenges for your brain to solve. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll explore the...Read more
Have you ever wished you cared less or been told to develop a thicker skin? For the polite and anxious among us, suddenly being immune to criticism and embarrassment might seem to be a superpower. In this hour, we’re exploring...Read more
David Graeber was an iconoclastic anthropologist and influential radical thinker, one who popularized the rallying cry "We are the 99%." He died on Sept. 2 in Venice, Italy at age 59. Read more
Ok, take a breath. Close your eyes. Recall the home of your childhood. Can you smell the cookies in the kitchen? Can you open a drawer in your bedroom? Do you see the sunlight through a window? Every building has a story. . . And not only a story, every building has a sound.Read more
Who are you?
A man? A woman?
Are you a success? A failure?
A parent? An athlete? A wallflower?
A Christian? A Buddhist? A baker?
If we are only a collection of stories about ourselves... what's the truth of who "we" are?
Looking for UNCUT...Read more
We may think it’s pretty clear what is – and isn’t – science, but history is littered with cases where the line wasn’t so obvious. For instance, Isaac Newton studied alchemy, and Galileo was a practicing astrologer. This hour explores the edges of science, and we hear about the...Read more
Ira Glass has helped reinvent storytelling on the radio. But he says it took him years to learn how to tell a good radio tale. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Ira Glass ont the art of telling stories. We’ll also visit The Moth – the mecca of storytelling in New York City. And...Read more
Sometimes, a single word speaks volumes about its era. Sputnik conjures up both the heady excitement of the early Space Race and the whole scary history of the Cold War. In this hour, To the Best of Our Knowledge touches on a few of these cultural touchstones....from Sputnik to Snoopy. We'll...Read more
Can you imagine spending a week at an airport? By choice? Alain de Botton did exactly that. He tells us about it, as we explore airports and air travel.Read more
We run for all sorts of reasons -- to lose 10 pounds, to win an Olympic medal, or simply because it’s fun. Some even run as a spiritual practice. Today, why we run - and how far and how fast can humans go?Read more