Whatever happened to psychoanalysis? It used to be the most influential science of the mind, but today its founder, Sigmund Freud, just looks like a sex-obsessed old man. Analyst Adam Phillips says we got Freud all wrong; he remains a radical thinker if we know how to read him. This hour...Read more
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It's been called divine and it's been called disgusting. it's arguably one of the most important books of all time. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" as we ask the...Read more
Dreams can be a pleasant diversion from the daily grind or something with the potential to transform, entertain, and even heal. On this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the power of dreams and the science of sleep.Read more
Bees are responsible for forty percent of the food we put in our mouths. It sounds astonishing, but without bees, we could find ourselves facing food shortages and a collapse of the green and flowered world. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a peek inside the world...Read more
From Boston to Berkeley, people are going raw. Vegetarians, vegans and Atkins followers are old hat – the hottest trend in food is cool. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why the raw food movement has people turning off their ovens and trumpeting the healing powers of uncooked food...Read more
Turning thirty used to be embarrassing, an occasion for angst and misery. Today young adults are embracing thirty as cause for celebration. They’re renting yachts, giving speeches and spending thousands of dollars to celebrate the big three-oh. In this hour of To the Best of...Read more
Most people want to do the right thing. But what if your survival depended on doing something wrong? Something deeply repellent. Something evil. And what if the police told you to? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the consequences of moral choices, from Nazi Germany to American...Read more
Oh, city living. The crush of people, the crowd of buildings, the empty lots, the garbage-strewn slums.
More than half of us will be living urban by 2050. How will we manage?Read more
Even now, the oceans of the world are terra incognita. We’ve explored only 5-10 percent of them on a planet mostly comprised of water. What we’re missing couldsurprise us. This hour, we explore the mysteries of the deep. We’ll hear about the oceans’ oddest creatures...Read more
Remember the good old days? No? Well that's either because you haven't lived them yet, or you need to check the note you left on the bedside table. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we're looking at age and memory with a Nobel Prize winner searching through the mechanics of the brain...Read more
It's the sesquicentennial of the Civil War -- it's been 150 years since that epic war began. Americans will commemorate and remember it from different points of view. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Remembering the Civil War. We'll talk about soldiers' experiences on the...Read more
If grocery shopping isn’t your thing, here’s a new way to put food on the table: try sticking your arm under a rock until a big ol’ catfish clamps onto to you. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, noodling for catfish and other southern pastimes. Also, Texas singer Steve Earle’s...Read more
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a visit with former Israeli commando Uri Avnery, who went on to become an outspoken critic of Israeli policy. He's seen his office bombed. He's been beaten and once barely survived an assassination attempt. Today Avnery is calling for a separate...Read more
It's been more than four decades since the Civil Rights movement ended racial segregation in America. Yet few would say African-Americans are now fully integrated – or assimilated. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, African American writers talk about race, and how black history –...Read more
“Good fences make good neighbors." Robert Frost writes in Mending Wall. Is he right? Maybe homemade chocolate chip cookies or lending a lawnmower are more neighborly. I guess it depends on who your neighbors are.Read more
There’s another September 11th. On that day thirty years ago, a military coup overthrew Chile’s elected president, Salvador Allende. Newly declassified documents show the C.I.A.’s extensive involvement in the coup. On this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the Pinochet file. Also,...Read more
When we’ve had enough of reality, we often seek escape in a movie. But we don’t have to shut off our brains when we visit the cinema. Some films actually encourage us to use our minds. This hour, we explore philosophy through the lens of filmRead more
A few years ago, the notion of the "quantified self" was the domain of a relatively small group of hackers, engineers, and computer enthusiasts. Now, under its many names—lifelogging, self-tracking, fitness monitoring—it's become one of the fastest growing segments of the technology...Read more
You know those end of the year lists? Best books, movies, music and so on? This hour, To the Best of Our Knowledge shares the best interviews from 2015. Plus a booklist or two.Read more
Thomas Paine was a working class Englishman without many prospects when he landed in America in 1774. Two years later his pamphlet "Common Sense" laid the foundation for the Declaration of Independence and transformed American politics. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why...Read more
In the recent election, the Tea Party emerged as a major force in American politics. It's a striking story, when a few years before, the "New York Times" was speculating about the demise of the Republican party. So, why the game change, after Barack Obama won the White House on a surge of...Read more
Are humans innately violent? If you stripped the civilization out of us, just how bad would we be?Read more
On February 13th, 1945 Kurt Vonnegut and other American POWs were hiding in a cellar during the firebombing of Dresden. They were remarkably lucky, as 135,000 people died that night. During the bombing one soldier said, “I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight?” Nobody laughed but, as...Read more
Read any good life-list books lately? How about "1,000 Places You Must Visit Before You Die?" or "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die." There's no shortage of "life-list" books to read these days. What's next? "1,000 Life-List Books You Must Read Before You Die"? Probably. We'll explore...Read more