Zia Hassan had a life-changing conversation with a 9-year old boy in a Washington backyard. A conversation that 2.5 million people around the world have watched on YouTube. Zia tells us about the boy he calls "The Philosopher."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Susan Blackmore is a British psychologist who's written books on consciousness, memes and Zen Buddhism. She says her daily practice of meditation has revealed truths that have eluded the scientific study of consciousness.
You can also listen to the EXTENDED interview, and read the extended transcript.
Computer paswords are on on our minds this week. "The New York Times" reporter Ian Urbina talks about his feature story, "The Secret Life of Passwords."
Brendan Koerner talks about his book, "The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking."
Literary critic William Gass talks with Steve Paulson about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and explicates a poem of Rilke’s about a bowl of roses.
As the daughter of a child psychologist, writer Jessica Lamb-Shapiro grew weary of the simple solutions offered by popular self-help books. So maybe it was only natural that she wanted to understand why people liked them so much. To find out, she read hundreds of books and articles, journeyed to conferences headed by self-improvement icons, and even conquered her fear of flying along the way.
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.
Journalist and poet Ruben Martinez tells Steve Paulson that there are powerful economic incentives for Mexicans to cross the U.S. border to find work.
Pages
