Anthropologist Scott Atran has spent a decade interviewing jailed suicide bombers and jihadist military leaders. He says religious terrorists are motivated by the many of the same human values celebrated in every culture: brotherhood, loyalty, and the dream of a better world.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Want kids to love learning? Get rid of the emphasis on grades and test scores. That's according to Alfie Kohn, one of America's most passionate advocates for progressive education. Kohn is the author of numerous articles and books, including "Feel Bad Education."
Toni Morrison may be a Nobel Laureate, but she still gets labeled a “Black woman writer.” She talks about her childhood and how the Civil Rights Movement magnified class differences.
Reinhold Messner is arguably the world’s greatest living mountaineer. He’s climbed 14 of the world’s tallest peaks, and if that isn’t impressive enough, he was the first to climb Mt. Everest alone and without supplemental oxygen. He recounts some of these adventures in a new book called “Reinhold Messner: My Life at the Limit.” Steve Paulson caught up with him and asked how he got hooked on climbing.
Jason Padgett was a hard-partying guy until a traumatic brain injury turned him into a math genius. Now, he sees complex geometric designs everywhere he looks.
As far as questions of neurology, perhaps no creature is more mysterious and amazing than the octopus. In this EXTENDED interview, science writer Sy Montgomery talks about what she discovered when she met Athena, an octopus at the New England Aquarium.
William La Fleur is the author of “Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan.” He tells Anne Strainchamps about the Japanese mizuko rituals which are a form of public apology addressed to aborted fetuses.
In her new novella, "Sleep Donation," Karen Russell mentions a documentary called "Is Sleep Going Extinct?" That got us wondering what this fictional documentary would sound like. Chances are it would NOT sound anything like this.
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