Producer Sara Nics on the story behind this show... how she's tried to come to terms with our narrative selves.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Bernd Heinrich tells Steve Paulson about frogs that survive being frozen solid and bears that convert nitrogen into protein while they hibernate sleep.
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.
Eric Booth is one of America's leading teaching artists and trainers of teaching artists.
Arika Okrent is a linguist and the author of "In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Logian Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language."
One of the enduring ideas – and an everyday saying – is that it’s possible to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Of course, it’s physically impossible, but producer Sara Nics thought there had to be a way to do it with some engineering know-how and well-built boots.
Bon Iver's Justin Vernon has created a nearly perfect summer music festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin -- his hometown. 25,000 people spent two days camping by a river, throwing frisbees and listening to indie bands. Festival narrator and local writer Michael Perry shares the story behind the town, the festival, and the musical legend.
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.
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