Psychologist Kelly Bulkeley has been researching our night thoughts for many years, and keeps a dream journal himself. He talked with Steve Paulson about the spiritual wonder of dreams.More
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Interviews By Topic
Journalist Sebastian Junger had nearly died when reporting from war zones around the world, but nothing prepared him for the ruptured aneurysm that almost killed him. He's now trying to explain a mysterious encounter he had with his dead father.More
Scientists are revolutionizing our understanding of life and death. It’s now possible to revive patients hours after they’ve been declared clinically dead. Dr. Sam Parnia talks about these advances and the new science of near-death experiences. More
Writer Ayelet Waldman recounts many stories about what she calls "the perils and joys of trying to be a decent mother in a world intent on making you feel like a bad one."More
These are tough times for people who care about insects. Roughly 40 percent of insect species face extinction. Poet Heather Swan is haunted by this specter of ecosystem collapse, but she’s also determined to live with love and even hope in a perilous time.More
Biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber says life is all about eating and being eaten, which may sound gruesome, but to him, it’s a miraculous process. He’s the author of “Being Edible: Toward a Mystical Biology.”More
Our walking journey in the footsteps of Dorothy Day begins in Union Square in New York City, where the first Catholic Worker newspaper was distributed in 1933, and continues to St. Francis Xavier Church, where a tapestry of Day looks over all who walk through the doors.More
Longtime Catholic Worker volunteer and resident Jane Sammon and former Maryhouse chaplain Fr. Geoffrey Gneuhs tell Shannon about Dorothy Day's life at Maryhouse, the Lower East Side community that feeds and houses the poor.More
At Manhattan University and on the Staten Island ferry, the “Dorothy Day,” theologian Kevin Ahern and George Horton and Carolyn Zablotny, who are all working toward Day’s canonization, talk with Shannon about the future of the Catholic Church and what it means to be a saint.More
The debate among cartographers today is about which is better — a paper map, or a digital one? Cartographer Mamata Akella argues that there are merits and downsides to both.More
Bill Limpisathian is a professor of cartography and specializes in a brand new field – map cognition, or how we use and see and think about maps in the brain. More
At a small think tank in Italy, scientists and philosophers debate the nature of intelligence. Dartmouth neuroscientist Peter Tse traces the evolution of human intelligence — and says our imagination is both our greatest gift and deadliest weapon. More
A group of scientists, philosophers and writers discuss and debate the many different kinds of “intelligence” — and why we’re still grappling with our understanding of sentience in plants, animals and AI. Is a robot dog actually smart?More
At the Galileo Museum in Florence, there’s a dazzling collection of old scientific instruments, including the telescope Galileo used to discover new moons. Cosmologist Marcelo Gleiser explains how Galileo revolutionized the scientific worldview.More
Astrophysicist Adam Frank says there’s an emerging science of “planetary intelligence,” which regards the Earth itself as sentient. It’s a radical idea, with far-reaching implications, and it may just help save the planet. More
A Maori conservationist in New Zealand, Mere Takoko is arguing for granting personhood for whales, who she says are her Indigenous Polynesian ancestors.More
Scientists at Project CETI exploring the sounds of whales have found a “sperm whale phonetic alphabet.” Carl Zimmer, author and science writer for The New York Times, puts the latest whale communications research and news into perspective.More
Marine biologist Shane Gero has spent decades listening to whale conversations. Through Project CETI, he’s found recent success using technologies like artificial intelligence to better understand what whales are saying. More