French chemist Pierre Laszlo tells Steve Paulson that our bodies need salt to prevent dehydration and that removing the salt from seawater isn’t that hard, but it’s very expensive.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Nicholas Carr believes the Internet is rewiring the human brain with its instant access to all sorts of information. Are we losing our ability to focus on one thing for any length of time?
Paul Ekman tells Jim Fleming about different kinds of lies, and the physical signs that signal deceit.
NPR's Robert Krulwich, co-host of RADIOLAB, says that the secret to good science reporting is to start at the beginning and go slowly so people can understand it.
Joshua Shenk tells Jim Fleming that Abraham Lincoln never attempted suicide, that we know of, but referred to it in a poem he wrote, and Shenk recites the poem.
Matthew Klamm, Thisbe Nissen, and Emma Richler talk with Steve Paulson about the lives of young writers and how their attitudes differ from those of their parents’ generation.
Paula Kamen has had the same headache for 14 years. Her book is “All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache.”
Every spring in Japan, people crowd under blooming cherry trees. They're signs of spring, and remembrances of life's transience.
Master gardener Sadafumi Uchiyama says the blossoms are the quintessential representation of the Japanese principle of mono no aware... beauty in the intertwining of life and death.
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