There’s a popular joke on the internet whenever a gender reveal party goes awry or a wife complains about babysitting her husband: Are straight people okay? Author Jane Ward investigates.More
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Interviews By Topic
Evolutionary biologists Jeff Schloss and David Sloan Wilson joined Steve Paulson to explore how group selection can explain altruism.More
Can you fall in love with anyone? Maybe, if you ask the right questions.More
One of the first assumptions we make about a relationship is that it begins with sexual attraction. But what about desire without sex? Angela Chen explores the contradictions — and the possibilities — of asexuality in her new book.More
Psychologist Lisa Diamond offers a radical new understanding of sexual orientation, arguing that it’s much more fluid than previously believed.More
Living in this COVID-19 quarantine makes it especially tough for those looking for love, or at least a good date. But according to dating coach Logan Ury, there may be a silver lining to this enforced isolation — maybe even the jolt they need to break out of bad dating habits.More
Fear about the future of the planet keeping you up at night? Aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin has a solution: it’s time to settle Mars. More
Futurist Amy Webb tells us we can have a utopian future — if we are vigilant.More
Even facing the bleakest outcomes that climate change might inflict on our planet, we have to have faith in a new future. That’s something writer Anne Lamott has been struggling with too.More
Journalist and essayist Roy Scranton has been called "our Jeremiah of the Anthropocene." His book "We’re Doomed. Now What?" is a hard-headed — often terrifying — look at how climate change could transform our planet, and how that impact might shape our daily thoughts and experiences.More
Victor LaValle is the editor of a collection of short stories where — even in dire situations and terrifying futures — everyone has a place, and a chance at being the hero.More
Rapper Common is eager to talk about hope – specifically, how we can make hope in our lives.More
Author Megan Stielstra tells the story of how she first crossed paths with "The Chronology of Water," Lidia Yuknavitch's award-winning memoir — the anti-memoir that broke new ground for speaking with candor about the joy and the pain of living.More
Lydia Hester is 17. A junior in high school with a pile of AP classes. And she has a nearly full-time job as an activist. She does all that, and she’s not even old enough to vote. And yes, that really bugs her.More
Organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson says hoping for big change is great, but it doesn't go anywhere without small actions where people take care of one another.More
Science writer Deborah Blum on the government scientists who made the case for food regulation by "eating dangerously."More
Theologian Serene Jones says that hope isn't just spiritual — it's a force that moves people through the day-to-day grind to do bigger things.More
Chigozie Obioma grew up in Nigeria — he’s a novelist and teaches at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. He says that despite rampant corruption, poverty, and an HIV/AIDS crisis, Nigerians are definitely more optimistic than most. He explains why.More