Episode Archives

Filter episodes by the year they originally aired.
To The Best Of Our Knowledge

You know who they are – the cool kids – those above-it-all taste-makers whose fashion and entertainment choices predict what everyone else will be wearing and doing next year.  What’s their secret?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge exploring cool.  A frustrated surfer remembers...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The thrill of victory… the agony of defeat.  And the human drama of athletic competition.  We love sports. And every 4 years we get the pleasure to watch amateur athletes, at the top of their game, compete in the Olympics.  And that got us thinking about competition.  Because that’s what it’s...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

There's something about the desert. Its uncompromising climate makes it a place of thirst and death. But it's also site of myths and vision quests. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge we'll explore the passion and power of the desert. We'll celebrate the desert's poets. And commemorate...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

We know the story of our 16th president – born in a log cabin, taught himself to read, led us through the bloodiest war ever fought on our soil, wrote the Gettsyburg address and freed the slaves. What don't we know? We celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday with a look at the man as well...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Classical musicians don't come with better pedigrees than violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. She's been wowing audiences since she was four, performs all over the world and has commissioned many new works. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Meyers talks about why she chose to record popular...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Some critics call V.S. Naipaul the world’s greatest living writer.  But his harsh views on Islam and the Third World have sparked enormous controversy.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Naipaul talks about his life as a writer.  Also, poetry for the ages: we’ll hear Yeats, Auden and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

You watch two trench-coated boys walk into their  high school and shoot everyone in sight. Then a demon drags them off to be tortured in Hell. No, it’s not the latest video game.  It’s Hell House, a Halloween haunted house put on by a church in Texas. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

It sounds like a deal in the ads - submit your poems, have them set to music, and start a fascinating new career as a hit songwriter.  Of course your chance of success is slim to none and you have to pay for the privilege.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the strange subculture of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Henry David Thoreau died 150 years ago, and he’s still a great American icon.  But have you ever wondered exactly why?  Thoreau wasn’t exactly the model environmentalist he’s often made out to be.  And his account of living at Walden Pond is partly fictionalized; he spent nine years writing and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

New Orleans is famous for a lot of things...many of them musical. It's the birthplace of jazz, the cradle of rhythm and blues.  The home of the brass bands.  So it's no wonder that New Orleans is known as "the City that Care Forgot."  In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Your mother always told you money can’t buy happiness.  Well, she was wrong.  And economists have calculated the price.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the high cost of happiness.  Also, why we cry: from crocodile tears to the three-hankie movie.  Writer Andrew Solomon’s struggles...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we ask a blunt question: Did we win? We're not the only ones asking. The phrase "did we win the war in Iraq" has been searched over 7 million times on Google. The war has cost an estimated 860...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

They can have sex twenty times a day.  Their teeth are harder than steel.  And the ones that live in the city are twice as big as their country cousins.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll talk rats with Robert Sullivan, who spent a year investigating rats in a New York City...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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In this hour, we find ourselves surrounded by sound.  The sounds of nature, cosmic horror, capitalism, and experimental electronics.

If you want to give our theme remix a whirl, you can download files here and ...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What's your favorite podcast? Are you thinking about launching one of your own? Smart phones and digital distribution have made it easier to get into the radio game. After the breakout success of Serial, it seems like everyone’s talking...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage.  A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”   -- Lorrie Moore

                             Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From Facebook to Twitter to Wikipedia, World of Warcraft to YouTube, the life of the community has moved on line. And taken on a life of its own. The power of we, and the move toward collective identity and global think.Read more

projector

Cult film director John Waters has been described as the "Pope of filth" and the "King of Trash."  To put it mildly, his films have, well, transgressed the boundaries of good taste.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, pushing the limits in film with John Waters.  We'll...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What makes a scientific revolution?  Thomas Kuhn said it’s when a new paradigm blows the old scientific model out of the water.  Fifty years later, we examine Kuhn's legacy, and talk with iconoclastic scientist Rupert Sheldrake, who says science is mired in untested dogmas.  Also, stories of two...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Once upon a time, not so long ago, the classroom filmstrip was everywhere.  They taught us to change our underwear at least twice a week, among other things.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll revisit the golden age of classroom filmstrips.  So sit up straight.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Tragedy struck Ron Mallett when he was ten years old. His beloved father died and he wanted to bring him back. So he dreamed of building a time machine. Ron Mallett grew up to become a theoretical physicist. Now he studies quantum mechanics and he's still trying to figure out how to go back in...Read more

Towering radio

We remember the magical moments of chemistry in certain interviews; the brilliant sound design that emerged from particular studio sessions; the stories that took us places and those that changed us.Read more

a man at the end of the world

How many ways can you imagine the end of the world?   To celebrate the end of 2012, we've gathered some of our favorite apocalyptic fiction.  Doomsday scenarios from award-winning novelists and short story writers, featuring  zombie invasions, mutant plagues, fire and...Read more

Pages