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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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.
Lani Leary has worked with thousands of dying people and their families. She’s been at the bedside of more than 500 people at the moment of death. Her dedication to working with the dying and bereaved goes back to the painful experience of her own mother’s death when she was a child, when her family told her nothing about how her mother died.
Stephen Asma tells Jim Fleming how today’s public institutions grew out of the bizarre private collections of people like Peter the Great.
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.
First it was farm-to-table, now the latest wave in food is wild. Hunter, angler, gardener and cook Hank Shaw is part of shaping the return to wild foods. In this EXTENDED interview with Sara Nics, he talks deep fried duck tongues and why wild food tastes better.
Before the airplane was invented, ballooning was all the rage, and many people thought this was the future of air travel. Cultural historian Richard Holmes describes the remarkable history of the hot air balloon.
Film-maker Shu Kei tells Steve Paulson about his film, “A Queer Story.” It’s the story of a gay couple in Hong Kong, and created a lot of discomfort for its straight audiences.
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