Ed Boyden, a researcher at MIT, is at the forefront of a new science that aims to map and even heal the brain with light. It’s called optogenetics, and the journal Science has called it one of the great insights of the 21st century. It’s in its early days, but the goal is to one day be able to take a disease like depression, PTSD, or epilepsy and, using bursts of light, just turn it off -- the same way you’d fix a software glitch in a computer.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
<p>9/11 REMEMBERED: Philippe Petit spent years planning his illegal 1974 performance at the World Trade Center where he tight-rope walked between the Twin Towers. Petit looks back at the event and talks about what the destruction of the Towers meant for him.</p>
Mimi Sheraton, a travel writer, went to the Polish town of Bialystock to find the origins of her favorite bread from childhood, the bialy. It’s a crusty onion roll invented by the Jews.
Literary critics have deemed Laura van den Berg one of American's best new writers. Listen in as she talks about the roles of memory and forgetting in our lives, and in her debut novel, "Find Me."
Austerity is a choice, and some question if it's a good one.
Can you learn to be more creative? You can if you go to Lynda Barry's workshop on "writing the unthinkable."
You can also listen to the EXTENDED interview, and read the extended transcript.
Redmond O’Hanlon is travel writer who’s braved the Congo, Borneo and the Amazon. This time around, he tries his luck on a trawler in the icy Atlantic in dangerous waters.
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