What if our lives were like DVDs? What if we had alternative endings to look forward to, instead of death? We explore our lust for immortality. And we look at the many alternative endings that Ernest Hemingway wrote for his classic novel, "A Farewell to Arms."
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Episode Archives
Bohemians used to hate anything that reeked of money. It destroyed the soul. Now, many self-styled bohemians are reveling in slate shower stalls, Range Rovers, and lava-rock grills. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the triumphs of the “Bobo” – the Bourgeois...Read more
Suppose there's a pill that would dramatically boost your creativity. Would you take it? Psychologist Jim Fadiman says that pill exists. It's the powerful hallucinogen LSD. Fadiman describes a remarkable experiment showing how psychedelics enhanced the creativity of senior scientists. Read more
It used to be that comics were just for kids. Today, we call them "graphic novels," and they're one of the fastest growing forms of American literature. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, how graphic art grew up...with Will Eisner's biographer, Jules Feiffer, Dennis Kitchen, and...Read more
If you think about it, every day we receive countless services from complete strangers — the newspaper delivered to your door, the trash picked up at the crack of dawn, the fresh fruit for sale at the supermarket. There's a whole army of invisible workers powering our economy who we rarely get...Read more
Is there anything science won’t tackle? The latest question neuroscientists are taking on is, “What makes something beautiful?” We're checking in with the scientists, the philosophers and the artists in this hour.Read more
Take a stroll through a natural history museum these days and you’ll not only see dinosaurs, you’ll smell them. Get a whiff of T-rex’s halitosis, his dinner leftovers, and, well, how should I put this – his droppings, too! In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, museums that tickle your...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 this age of globalization, why would anyone want borders, an army, currency? Isn’t that kind of … old school? Read more
James Tiptree Jr. wrote some of the most critically-acclaimed science fiction stories in the 1960's and 1970's....classics like "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" and "The Women Men Don't See." But James Tiptree was actually the pseudonym of a 61-year-old woman, Alice B. Sheldon. In this hour of...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
Buried scrolls, clay tablets, priceless artifacts and expensive forgeries – this week, we bring you stories from the strange and amazing world of biblical archeology.Read more
Remember those great cars from the Fifties? The Redscare Phantom Witchhunter and the Bongo Beatnik Ferlinghetti TurboHipster? If you don’t recall them rolling off Detroit’s assembly lines, there’s a perfectly good reason. They never existed, except in the imagination of writer and illustrator...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
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
Suppose neuroscientists map the billions of neural circuits in the human brain....are we any closer to cracking the great existential mysteries - like meaning,...Read more
Mary Ann Caws is an internationally respected scholar of surrealism. She has translated many of the movements major texts and is the editor of “Surrealism (Themes and Movements).” Caws talks with Anne Strainchamps about the history of the surrealist movement. Also, we hear actor Steve O’Connell...Read more
Magic is an art, a philosophy, and a way of seeing the world. In this hour, we learn magic tricks from a stage magician, travel to India's last magician's colony, explore shamanic magic, and talk with magical novelists Erin Morgenstern (Night Circus) and Deborah Harkness (...Read more
How far would you go for something to eat? Paris? Mom’s house? The drive-through at Mickey D’s? I bet you wouldn’t swim thousands of miles, from Mexico to the Arctic, just to scarf up mud from the bottom of the ocean. Whales do, and they’ve been doing it every year for eons. In this hour...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
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
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
Have you ever wished you cared less or been told to develop a thicker skin? For the polite and anxious among us, suddenly being immune to criticism and embarrassment might seem to be a superpower. In this hour, we’re exploring...Read more