Politics and History

Australopithecus africanus at the University of Zurich.

Ann Gibbons is an award-winning science writer and author of “The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors.”

candles

What do you call young people who strap on explosive vests and detonate them in a crowded marketplace? President Bush says they're fascist terrorists. The Western press labels them suicide bombers. But to a Muslim, particularly one who's sympathetic to their political ideology,...

checkmate in chess

They say his stare could give you ulcers or migraines. It could even drive you crazy. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, the greatest chess player ever, Garry Kasparov. His most famous opponent was the IBM supercomputer, Deep Blue. Kasparov shocked the chess world when, at...

jesus stained glass window

Karen King tells Anne Strainchamps that there are many early Christian texts that didn't make it into the Bible.

a tibetan bell

Choying Drolma didn't want to get married. So, she chose the only option available to a Tibetan girl – she became a Buddhist nun. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, how music and the monastic life drew one woman beyond Tibet and into the world. Also, the making of a Western yogi. And...

lightbulbs

What's the big idea? Well, it turns out there are three of them...the soul, Europe and the experiment. Those are the three big ideas that Peter Watson uses to focus his history of ideas. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, we'll talk about the history of ideas...from fire to Freud.

Story of O

"Story of O" scandalized a nation. And a nation not easily scandalized - France! The anonymous tale of complete submission was called vulgar by some, brilliant by others. In any case, what kind of person could write such a book? In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, we'll find out the...

a man becomes a living cereal bowl

Can white guys be hip? Many have tried but only a few have achieved true hepcat status - Bob Dylan, Lenny Bruce, maybe Jack Kerouac. But compare them to Miles Davis and you have to wonder if they're really just hipster wannabes. We'll dig into the history of hip, and see how it's so often tied...

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