"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you."...Read more
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Episode Archives
Imagine a huge corporation running like a well-oiled machine – with no one in charge. That’s how ant colonies work, with not a single leader among 10,000 members. How does anything get done? In this hour of to the Best of Our Knowledge, a look inside a colony of stinging...Read more
Governors are slashing state spending, and the President has put some of his own party's favorite programs on the chopping block. But how much of the new austerity is really necessary, and how much is politics? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, is austerity a dangerous idea? Join...Read more
Start telling love stories and chances are, you’ll find yourself telling tales of transgression. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Joyce Carol Oates talks about the harm done by family secrets. P.D. James muses on why women are so good at crime fiction. A...Read more
It’s been described as the Nobel Prize of motion pictures: the coveted Academy Award. One billion people around the world watch the Oscars on TV every year. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the history and politics of the Academy Awards. Is Oscar a white man’s award? Also, Don...Read more
He was a wandering pilgrim who talked to birds, healed the sick and tamed wild beasts. He was also the closest thing to a medieval rock star - a man so revered in his lifetime that people tore at this clothes, desperate to touch a living saint. Today, St. Francis of Assisi is admired by both...Read more
Are you a knave? Scalawag? A varlet? Are you a scoundrel? Maybe you’re not but secretly you want to be. Being a scoundrel kind of has a ring to it. It’s romantic. Rebellious.Read more
Many Americans think the story of Cuba begins and ends with Fidel Castro. But the soul of the Cuban Revolution belonged to the charismatic, Romantic guerilla hero Ernesto “Che” Guevara. To the Best of Our Knowledge revisits the Sixties and counts the private costs of that era’s social gains. ...Read more
In the mid-80's the metal band Winger topped the charts with hits like "Seventeen." Then Grunge came along and left bands like Winger in the dust. Now, Kip Winger is back on top with a new CD that debuted at #1 on the music charts. Only this time, he's rocking the classical charts....Read more
If you ever find yourself on a dark country road in Ireland, bring along some salt, red thread, and a cross. That’s what you’ll need to protect yourself from “the other crowd.” Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, the fairies of Ireland. They’re magical, vengeful, and still alive and...Read more
Ok, take a breath. Close your eyes. Recall the home of your childhood. Can you smell the cookies in the kitchen? Can you open a drawer in your bedroom? Do you see the sunlight through a window? Every building has a story. . . And not only a story, every building has a sound.Read more
Is there such a thing as true, original creativity? Or "Are we just seeing further by standing on the shoulders of giants?", to paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll explore the question of where good ideas come from. Steven Johnson will tell us about...Read more
Americans are from Mars, and Europeans are from Venus. At least that’s the view of foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan. He says Europeans no longer believe in military power, quite unlike America’s leaders. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the growing split between Europe and...Read more
Imagine Superman, demented with age, on a final mission to save the world. Or Conan the Barbarian, civilized and living in L.A. boarding the bus with a good book. It’s all there in the poetry of Charles Harper Webb. Words fly this hour on To the Best of Our Knowledge as we take in performance...Read more
President Obama is out to remake America's relationship with the Islamic world. We'll explore what this means for both the Middle East and the U.S. We'll also look at the ongoing debate over Muslim immigration in Europe, and we'll talk with a Hollywood screenwriter about his new novel on the...Read more
It's hard to wrap your head around the future of the human brrain. Augmented intelligence, memory playback, downloadable skills - it's all coming. We explore the future of the mind, and hear how a brain injury can transform your life.Read more
It used to be simple to pick out a shade of paint, before computers made almost infinite gradations possible. Now if you stare at those samples long enough they all start to look alike. It turns out color is as much a mental construct as a physical substance. In this hour of To the Best of...Read more
Today's entertainment industry is shrinking the gap between real life and fantasy. Popular television shows like Big Brother turn ordinary life into an engaging drama. Virtual worlds like Second Life give users a chance to recreate themselves with the click of a button. But how real is...Read more
Celebrate Midsummer's Eve with a visit to the fey folk. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll have an hour filled with stories of changelings and other-kin, Fairy Courts and green children. We'll conjure up a world of enchantment, but beware! There are no Tinkerbells in the world....Read more
Is the NSA wiretapping story really new? Sure, whistle blower Edward Snowden is all over the news. But people were talking about federal surveillance ten years before leaked documents about “Prism.” In this hour, we take a look at what we know about government surveillance and when we knew it...Read more
From the minute we can pick up a crayon, most of us want to draw something - a house, a tree, the sun. As we get older we aim for nuance and sophistication - landscapes and shadows, faces and expressions. A gifted few will achieve something greater - they’ll make art. On this hour of To the...Read more
Science and the Search for Meaning: Five Questions, Part Two: What Does Evolution Want?
If there’s one strand of evolutionary theory that sticks in the craw of nearly every religious believer, it’s the idea that human beings are just an evolutionary accident. But...Read more
The pint-sized wizard harry Potter has conquered the book world, and it’s not just kids who love him. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, what’s behind Harry Potter’s popularity. Also, acclaimed author Katherine Paterson (pronounced Patterson) on the emotional lives of...Read more
Atheists are finally coming out of the closet, and in some cases denouncing religion. Others still crave a sense of the sacred even though they don’t believe in God. Do atheists have something to learn from religion? Why do so many people call themselves "spiritual but not religious"? And...Read more