The Pacific Gyre is a region in the middle of the Pacific Ocean around which all the major currents swirl. As a result, debris that floats into the gyre gets stuck there.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Media critic Susan Douglas tells Steve Paulson that the American new media is doing less foreign news since 9/11, concentrating on health issues and “news you can use.”
Solar engineer Martha Lenio was the first woman to command a mission on the HI-SEAS — the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation. It's a project co-sponsored by NASA and the Univeristy of Hawaii that simulates what it would be like to live on Mars for eight months. To survive in such extremes, they were sequestered into a 1,000 square foot dome, and when they went outside they had to wear space suits. When Lenio got there, she said it didn't feel much like Mars, but she changed her mind after 8 months without the sun and wind on her skin. She spoke with Anne Strainchamps about missing her family — and missing YouTube cat videos.
Tony Faber says violins have to age for fifty years to sound their best.
Walker Smith tells Steve Paulson about the six different flavors of baby boomers and why they'll have an impact into the future.
"I had never known that beauty and death could go together." Joanna Ebenstein runs Brooklyn's Museum of Morbid Anatomy, which celebrates the memento mori that were part of daily life in the past. From art sculpted out of a dead person's hair, to death masks molded from a corpse's face, she give us a tour.
Hold on. What is wonder?
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt found that there's not much research on awe. And when he took on the task, he discovered that they're not easy emotions to study.
The firey debate over schooling has flared up again. The newest dialogue? Astra Taylor’s "Unschooling” essay in n+1, and Dana Goldstein’s response in Slate. In this NEW and UNCUT interview, Taylor and Goldstein join Steve Paulson for their first joint interview on schools.
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