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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

With the emergence of barefoot running, the sport suddenly is red hot again.  But barefoot or not, are human bodies really born to run?  We'll check in on the science or runner's high this hour, and try to unlock the secrets of the Kenyans - the fastest people on earth. Also, Olympic medalist...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Jacques Derrida and the philosophical movement known as deconstruction were once the rage on college campuses. Those days have passed, but deconstruction's influence is everywhere. We talk with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who first translated Derrida's landmark book "Of Grammatology" into...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

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

Governors are slashing state spending, and the President has put some of his own party's favorite programs on the chopping block.  But how much of the new austerity is really necessary, and how much is politics? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, is austerity a dangerous idea?  Join...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Many Americans think the story of Cuba begins and ends with Fidel Castro. But the soul of the Cuban Revolution belonged to the charismatic, Romantic guerilla hero Ernesto “Che” Guevara. To the Best of Our Knowledge revisits the Sixties and counts the private costs of that era’s social gains. ...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

He was a wandering pilgrim who talked to birds, healed the sick and tamed wild beasts.  He was also the closest thing to a medieval rock star - a man so revered in his lifetime that people tore at this clothes, desperate to touch a living saint.  Today, St. Francis of Assisi is admired by both...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Samuel Adams couldn’t ride a horse to save his life, and had a tendency to drool.  As if that’s not bad enough, John Adams was a roly-poly fellow who spent his free time fantasizing about becoming the next American King.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a revisionist’s take on the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Forget the deerstalker cap and the calabash pipe. The real Sherlock Holmes is much hipper than that. One scholar suggests that with his violin, creative spirit, cocaine and costumes, Holmes was the rock star of his day. We'll investigate the elementary Sherlock Holmes, from the new annotated...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What’s the face of the future? Not flying cars and life on Mars… What’s the future of our faces? With new facial transplantation surgeries and the latest news about the NSA collecting images for facial recognition anaylsis, we're wondering about what we see in the mirror every day. 

Also...Read more

static screen

Failure is a four letter word in America. Most of us do everything we can to avoid it.  But what if we've got the wrong idea about failure - and it's all a matter of learning the right way to do it? This hour, one psychologist's take on how to embrace the fall.  And comedian...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When do we most need our leaders? In times of crisis? In times of war? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge Winston Churchill's biographer Martin Gilbert explains how the man who offered his nation only blood, sweat, toil and tears made it believe that was enough. And he says Churchill's...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Shuttered businesses line the familiar streets of producer Charles Monroe-Kane’s hometown in the Rust Belt in northeastern Ohio. The steel mill where his father worked is shut down, locked behind chains. Opioid abuse is...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ten years after the end of apartheid, what’s left to document the struggle?  For the filmmakers of the documentary “Amandla,” there’s music.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the songs that faced down death, despair and terror on the road to equality in South Africa.  Also, the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What do you think of when you hear the word "ventriloquism"?  A showman with a wisecracking wooden boy on his lap?  There's more to ventriloquism than verbal jousting between a man and his dummy.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll explore the cultural history of ventriloquism...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

In February and March of 1974, the legendary science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick, had a series of religious and visionary experiences.  He spent the remaining eight years of his life writing thousands of pages of notes to try to come to terms with the meaning of these strange events.  In this...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Listen to the experts and they’ll tell you the suburbs are boring, stifling places to live, full of bad architecture.  Well, more than half of all Americans now live in suburbia.  Can so many people be wrong?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a defense of suburbs.  Also, playwright...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Do you remember the first time you saw a piece of art or heard a piece of music that shocked you?  Something you immediately knew your parents would hate?  Remember how good it felt, to like something bad?  In this show, we're talking about shock value — the virtues of transgressive, subversive...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

All the world's a stage! The Play's the thing. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Hardly a day goes by when the words that flowed so easily from Will Shakespeare's pen don't meet and greet us in the modern world. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, sweet William makes his way to the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Trayvon Martin’s death and George Zimmerman’s acquittal has sparked a debate over race this country hasn’t seen in many years.  So, whose America is it?  The young black teen in a hoodie?  The illegal immigrant who’s been living here for twenty years?  Muslims?  Native Americans? You?Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Bottle caps, coins, dolls, rocks. My Aunt Mary’s ceramic chickens. Most of us collect something. It seems to be in our genes. And for most of us it’s a fun hobby. For others, it can get a little time consuming. But for a few, collecting is an total obsession.

Amanda Petrusich is a music...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

What animals will still be living in the year 3000?  Forget about tigers, rhinos and pandas.  They’ll go the way of the dodo bird.  But scientist Peter Ward says rats and coyotes will flourish.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge the future of evolution.  Also, best-selling novelist...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Jane Scott keeps strange company.  While other women her age spend their time in knitting circles, Scott’s still hanging out with rockers like Lou Reed and Alice Cooper (and showing off her backstage pass.)  It’s her job.  Or at least it was until she retired as rock critic for the Cleveland...Read more

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