For years, David Roberts climbed some of Alaska’s biggest mountains, and made a number of first ascents. His new book is an examination of why some climbers feel compelled to push the edge of what’s possible.More
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Science and Technology
In 2004, Anne Duke was in the final of the World Series of Poker. She won, but that's not the entire story. It's how she won that became legendary. More
Want to be successful at gambling? How about sports? Investments? Michael Mauboussi is the Head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse and author of a book where he outlines “The Success Equation."More
Psychologists John and Julie Gottman are famous for being able to predict with 94% accuracy whether a couple will break up, stay together unhappily, or stay together happily.More
The spiritual component of water is hard to ignore. That's part of why Venice Williams refers to Alice's Garden as her parish.More
Journalist Dan Egan and political economist Jenny Kehl talk Steve Paulson through the finer points of the politics of water - from debates over water diversion to the struggle to keep the Great Lakes uncontaminated.More
Getting a good night's sleep is hard for a lot of people, but imagine trying to drift off when you have terrifying hallucinations.More
A conversation with renowned biologist Jared Diamond, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Guns, Germs and Steel.” His new book is “The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?”More
You'd never think a book about chopping and burning wood would turn into a runaway bestseller, but Lars Mytting's "Norwegian Wood" is a publishing sensation in Scandinavia. More
Botanist Robin Kimmerer describes her field experiments as like interviewing a plant. As both a Ph.D biologist and a member of the Potawatomi Nation, she's trying to reconcile modern science with the wisdom of her Native elders.More
Africa needs to reclaim its history and its technology, says Clapperton Mavhunga, a native of Zimbabwe who's a professor in MIT's Program in Science, Technology and Society. He says the traditional hunt is a great example of how Africans have passed on generations of knowledge.More
Elena Passarello created “Koko” from the one-thousand word vocabulary of a gorilla who uses sign language. Her book is "Animals Strike Curious Poses."More
Finding the horns of a saola — a large ox-like mammal on the Laos-Vietnam border — was one of the great biological discoveries of the...More
What's it like to be a badger? British naturalist Charles Foster wanted to know, so he dug a burrow and lived in the darkness, eating worms. Yup, it was kind of disgusting, but he says the experience brought him closer to the wildness within himself.More
Novelist Hari Kunzru talks about listening through the scratch and hiss of old 78’s for the voice of the past.More
In her memoir “Blue Dreams,” Lauren Slater reflects on the 30 years she has spent on Prozac, since the drug was brand new. Anne and Lauren compare notes on the relief antidepressants can bring, along with the downsides.More
The dream of SSRIs was based on an idea that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. And that you could fix it, with a pill. But psychiatrist Charles Raison believes it’s a mistake to separate the mind from the body.More
It can be difficult for those who've never experienced a manic episode to know what it feels like. What can set one off. For Jaime Lowe, it was a fire that triggered a manic episode so severe completely lost touch with reality.More