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.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Seymour Hersh broke the My Lai massacre story during the Vietnam War and he was among the first to document the extent of the abuses and the cover-up at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Sarah Flannery is an Irish mathematician and former child prodigy. She won the EU Young Scientist of the Year award when she was 16 for her work on the Cayley-Purser algorithm. She challenges us to the Russian Postal System puzzle.
Teddy Atlas is famous in boxing circles as a coach. Atlas tells Steve Paulson about his journey from a violent and criminal youth to self-respect and maturity.
The question of how and why we come to believe lies fascinates filmmaker Errol Morris.
What do the NSA disclosures really tell us? Ben Wizner should know. When he's not directing the ACLU's Speech Privacy and Technology Project, he doubles as Edward Snowden's legal adviser. He explains why we should be worried about the agency's push to expand its surveillance programs.
Sasha Issenberg says that modern Sushi was born in 1971 when a Japan Airlines employee first brought Canadian tuna halfway around the world.
Daniel Wolff is the author of "How Lincoln Learned to Read: 12 Great Americans and the Education That Made Them." He tells Anne Strainchamps that most Americans learn what they really need to know outside of school and that, as a society, we believe contradictory things about the value of public education.
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