Episode Archives

Filter episodes by the year they originally aired.
To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Wiring the BrainScientists are launching one of the most audacious projects ever conceived:  a detailed map of the human brain, neuron by neron, synapse by synapse.  For some scientists...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

A poster at Starbucks asks customers to focus on the world water crisis. A congregation asks the faithful to go on a carbon diet. The local grocery now charges for a plastic bag. We've got green cars, green clothing, green investments, and even green weddings. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

East Meets West

Part Three

 

The ancient trading routes through Persia, India and China were once the crossroads between East and West. Is the blogosphere the new Silk Road? Hear heartrending e-mails between an American professor and...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Bombay is the largest city in the world. And one of the most confounding. Bar dancers, gangs, and Bollywood all call Bombay home, for better or worse. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a Bombay-native takes us inside this Maximum City. Also, the writer of the hit movie "Monsoon...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Brittney Spears – divas?  Nah.  Maria Callas – now she was a diva!  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, two great ladies with leather lungs – Maria Callas and Judy Garland – their triumphs and tragedies from Onassis to Oz.  And other...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

After World War Two, existentialism was all the rage in the U.S.A.  College students rebelled by smoking European cigarettes and wearing black clothes and berets.  Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus felt that Americans were too self-confident and superficial to accept this dark, brooding...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Patty Loveless is a coal miner’s daughter.  And a country singer, just like her distant cousin Loretta Lynn.  When Patty Loveless’ father contracted black lung disease the family had to move to Louisville, Kentucky – so Patty’s dad could receive medical attention.  In this hour of To the Best of...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

As the Bible famously says, "there is nothing new under the sun." That's pretty bleak. If it's all been said and done before, what's left? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, remix culture. Digital sampling, audio hacking, mash-ups… In today's music and art it's all about mix and remix...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ask any babbling baby.  Talking’s fun!  At least it is until the grammarians get after you.  But Patricia O’Connor says we can all relax, there’s nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive and there never was.  In this hour of the Peabody-Award winning program To the Best of Our Knowledge we...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Linus has his security blanket.  Renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks had the Periodic Table of the Elements.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, My Chemical Life.  Oliver Sacks remembers a childhood steeped in chemistry.  Also, Primo Levi survives Auschwitz, through chemistry.  And,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Do you have a tattoo?  One in five American adults do.  It seems there are tattoo parlors everywhere.  What’s most popular?  Quotes from great works of literature. "So it goes."Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

There's something about the desert. Its uncompromising climate makes it a place of thirst and death. But it's also site of myths and vision quests. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge we'll explore the passion and power of the desert. We'll celebrate the desert's poets. And commemorate...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

We know the story of our 16th president – born in a log cabin, taught himself to read, led us through the bloodiest war ever fought on our soil, wrote the Gettsyburg address and freed the slaves. What don't we know? We celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday with a look at the man as well...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When the world turns green again, it makes us all a little giddy!  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll pull on our gum boots and get out into the garden with novelist Jamaica Kincaid, who’s grown a map of the Carribean at her Vermont home.  Sharon Lovejoy, author of Roots, Shoots...Read more

cool cat

Who really rules the internet?  Cats, of course.  We can't take the cuteness anymore so here it is -- our first and only show about cats.  Cat videos, superstar cats, cat music, cat history, endangered cats... and a little, tiny bit about dogs.Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Rose O’Neal Greenhow was the Pamela Harriman of her day - the “hostess with the mostess” in Washington D.C.  But Rose ran a Confederate spy ring out of her house.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we get close to some brazen women of American history and popular culture.  And we’ll...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Some people think they just can’t do math, but it turns out our brains are hard-wired for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.  We’re born with a numbers sense.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge celebrating our mathematical minds.  Also, the natural history...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Patti Smith revolutionized rock'n'roll in the Seventies by fusing poetry with rock music. Now, she's written a remarkable memoir about her emergence as an artist, and her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. In this hour of To the Best of our Knowledge, we'll talk with Patti Smith...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

You may recall the story of six young people who reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje.  Journalist Randall Sullivan talked to one of the visionaries and concluded she believes what she was reporting.  But where does that leave us?  Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Andre Agassi says he always hated tennis, even though it's what made him rich and famous. But maybe that's not surprising, considering how his father used to browbeat him into hitting 2500 balls a day when he was seven years old, and later sent him off to a tennis academy, which Agassi calls a "...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Any day now, the United States will welcome the three hundred millionth American. He or she may be a new born baby, or someone who comes across the border – legally or illegally.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll look at America’s changing demographics, and consider the price...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The US is in the middle of its longest and most expensive war to date.  Not the war in Iraq – the war on drugs.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge – we’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting for a “drug-free” America, yet heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs are cheaper...Read more

Doug Gordon heads off to host and produce "Beta" on WPR Next.

TTBOOK staffers share some of our favorite interviews and shows produced by our favorite Canadian. Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Canal Street flooded with so much water it looks like an actual canal.  People mourning the loss of their homes and loved ones.  The Gulf Coast will never be the same after the devastation that Hurricane Katrina has caused.  In this hour of the Peabody-Award-Winning program To the Best of Our...Read more

Pages