Neuroscientist David Eagleman is the author of "Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives." He tells...
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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According to historian Thomas Laqueur, neither sanitation nor the soul fully explain the rang of rituals we've developed for caring for dead bodies. For him, there is a deeper anthropological truth at work: caring for the dead marks the human transition from nature into culture.
I dunno, but it seems kind of extreme, not to mention risky, to bio-engineer a mass mosquito die-off. So Steve Paulson tracked down the world’s greatest living entomologist to see what he has to say. E. O Wilson is sometimes called “the ant man” – that’s the insect he studied most – but he’s best known as the evolutionary biologist and a champion of biodiversity. He’s 86 years old now, and has just finished what is probably his last book – called “Half Earth”. It’s a passionate plea to save humanity by dedicating half the planet to nature. You’d assume that Wilson would be happy to let mosquitos live in that half… but that’s not what he told Steve.
Betsy Israel tells Jim Fleming our society has always been suspicious of unmarried women and talks about examples from Louisa Mat Alcott to Ally McBeal.
Dr. Catherine Lord tells Anne Strainchamps that there is a ten fold reported rise in the incidence of autism but no one knows what accounts for the dramatic rise.
Elizabeth Little is a writer and editor who collects languages. She tells Jim Fleming about the perils of learning tonal languages.
The documentary, "Examined Life," features eight prominent philosophers, including Cornel West, Peter Singer, Slavoj Zizek and Judith Butler.
Francine Segan, author of "The Philosopher's Kitchen", tells us of the importance of bread to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.
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