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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

It used to be that comics were just for kids.   Today, we call them "graphic novels," and they're one of the fastest growing forms of American literature. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, how graphic art grew up...with Will Eisner's biographer, Jules Feiffer, Dennis Kitchen, and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

If you think about it, every day we receive countless services from complete strangers — the newspaper delivered to your door, the trash picked up at the crack of dawn, the fresh fruit for sale at the supermarket. There's a whole army of invisible workers powering our economy who we rarely get...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Science and the Search for Meaning: Five Questions, Part Two: What Does Evolution Want?

If there’s one strand of evolutionary theory that sticks in the craw of nearly every religious believer, it’s the idea that human beings are just an evolutionary accident.  But...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Atheists are finally coming out of the closet, and in some cases denouncing religion.  Others still crave a sense of the sacred even though they don’t believe in God.  Do atheists have something to learn from religion?  Why do so many people call themselves "spiritual but not religious"?  And...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ever dream of finding buried treasure?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, real-life treasure hunters like the two small-time prospectors who risked their lives in the Canadian tundra, and found one of the world’s biggest diamond mines.  Also, hunting for dinosaur bones in the Gobi...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Forty years ago, the U.S. ended its war in Vietnam, but we're still fighting over its legacy - in foreign policy and military strategy, and also in books and movies. But there's one question Americans rarely ask: what does the war mean to the Vietnamese themselves?  We'll hear several...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

It’s one of the great stories in the history of books.  James Murray was a poor kid from Scotland who dropped out of school at age 14.  Somehow, he taught himself the history of words in various languages, and went on to create the world’s greatest dictionary.  In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Imagine a world where flying robots watch over our borders, assist with search and rescue missions, and survey roads and pipelines. Sounds like science fiction, but in many parts of the country it's a reality. This week, we explore the rise of drones, both as a military tool and a disruptive...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Suppose neuroscientists map the billions of neural circuits in the human brain....are we any closer to cracking the great existential mysteries - like meaning,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Mary Ann Caws is an internationally respected scholar of surrealism. She has translated many of the movements major texts and is the editor of “Surrealism (Themes and Movements).” Caws talks with Anne Strainchamps about the history of the surrealist movement. Also, we hear actor Steve O’Connell...Read more

farm fields

The Back to the Land spirit of the 60s lives on today, in the proliferation of farmer's markets, and the increased interest in sustainability and growing our own food.  From the fight to end food waste in America to the art of living small, we'll find out what the Back to the Land spirit...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Whether black from a bottomless cup or as a Frappuccino mocha skim latte, it’s our culture’s elixir, coffee.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, java, joe, or a cup of mud.  Most of us drink it everyday, but few of us know the effects it has on the world’s economy, or even...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Do you ever have a right to kill?  What about Israeli agents who assassinate Hamas leaders?  Or suicide bombers who blow up their enemies?  Do the ends justify the means?  William Vollman has written a three-thousand page treatise on the morality of violence.  In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

If you ever find yourself on a dark country road in Ireland, bring along some salt, red thread, and a cross.  That’s what you’ll need to protect yourself from “the other crowd.”  Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, the fairies of Ireland.  They’re magical, vengeful, and still alive and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

James Tiptree Jr. wrote some of the most critically-acclaimed science fiction stories in the 1960's and 1970's....classics like "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" and "The Women Men Don't See." But James Tiptree was actually the pseudonym of a 61-year-old woman, Alice B. Sheldon. In this hour of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Remember those great cars from the Fifties?  The Redscare Phantom Witchhunter and the Bongo Beatnik Ferlinghetti TurboHipster?  If you don’t recall them rolling off Detroit’s assembly lines, there’s a perfectly good reason.  They never existed, except in the imagination of writer and illustrator...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

crumpled pages from a book

Nobody wants to fail.  But maybe we’ve got the idea of failure all wrong.  Maybe it's not something to avoid, but something to strive for.  . Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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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