Cameron Sinclair has something to say to architects out there: design like you give a damn. The founder of Architects for Humanity says the houses and office buildings we build today will literally shape the world our children inherit. So give a damn. In this hour of To the Best of Our...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
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
Eighty per cent of Americans say they believe in heaven. But when they're asked to describe it, many are at a loss for words. Do they think that there's another universe in the sky or do they believe that heaven is something more abstract and metaphorical? We'll explore our enduring fascination...Read more
Nerds are an easy target for humor in movies and on TV... with their thick black glasses, hopelessly out-of-fashion clothes, and over-enunciated diction. But there's a dark side to nerds. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll find out how the nerd stereotype is harming our children...Read more
With hundreds of millions of people moving into cities, we're wondering what shapes urban cultures. In this hour, Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk talks about how Istanbul shaped his writing. One historian argues that early liberal philosophies from Amsterdam shaped the United States. And we check in...Read more
It's the liberal's apocalypse. Consider empty big-box stories, deserted highways, worthless pieces of paper we used to call money. The economy collapses. There's widespread violence and social unrest. The only people with a fighting chance ride out the storm in life-boat communities with access...Read more
A rose is a rose is a rose... until it becomes perfume. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the power of the flower. A science journalist introduces us to Luca Turin, the most amazing nose in the business, with a new theory about how we smell. We’ll talk with photographer Joyce...Read more
There’s a powerful new voting bloc in America. They’re white, working class, and they live in places that have been left behind. We'll talk with "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance, and country music star Brandy Clark joins us in the studio to play some music and talk about her hometown.Read more
Graphic novelist Neil Gaiman has a talent for creating strange and fantastic worlds. His “Sandman” comic books helped spawn the Goth movement, and with characters called Dream and Death, he created a new mythology. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll visit with Neil Gaiman at...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
Does anyone still hitchhike? Cult film director John Waters does. At the age of 66, he hitchhiked 2,800 miles, from Baltimore to San Francisco. He tells us about the people who picked him up, along with some who didn't. And did the America Interstate System pave the way...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
The sky is black. The wind’s picking up. The hurricane is coming. Nothing you can do about it. But wait! Scientists from Dyn-o-Storm fly into the hurricane. They release a chemical that stops the hurricane dead in its tracks. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, should we? Just...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
The pursuit of knowledge can make you do weird things. Sir Isaac Newton explored his eye-socket with a wooden stick. Swedish chemist Karl Scheele was undone by the toxic chemicals he insisted on tasting. And a German scientist named Becher spent years trying to make gold from his own urine,...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
Forget the deerstalker cap and the calabash pipe. The real Sherlock Holmes is much hipper than that. One scholar suggests that with his violin, creative spirit, cocaine and costumes, Holmes was the rock star of his day. We'll investigate the elementary Sherlock Holmes, from the new annotated...Read more
What’s the face of the future? Not flying cars and life on Mars… What’s the future of our faces? With new facial transplantation surgeries and the latest news about the NSA collecting images for facial recognition anaylsis, we're wondering about what we see in the mirror every day.
Also...Read more
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."
America is in trouble. The decline of the dollar, climate change and the ugly math of Social Security and national debt are just a handful of the challenges facing the next generation. And who's to blame for the current mess? Baby Boomers - according to a growing movement, pitting one generation...Read more
Scientists have proven what pet owners already knew - cuddling with your dog or cat is good for you – and for your pet. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, keeping animals well, and how they return the favor. From gorilla conservation and eco-tourism to the dilemmas posed...Read more
Ronald Reagan had it. Jonathan Swift, Iris Murdoch, and, most likely, Ralph Waldo Emerson had it too. Alzheimer’s disease is on the rise, and scientists predict that up to one hundred million people will develop it in the next fifty years. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the...Read more
Ben Franklin, Henry Ford, Abigail Adams, Elvis Presley. Know what they have in common? They're all on Daniel Wolff's list of great Americans. Wolff explains the unique ways those people learned what they had to know. We'll also take a hard look at IQ and its relationship to race and class, and...Read more
Future Perfect: Dreamers, Schemers & Visionaries
Part Four
The happiness industry is booming. And with good reason - everyone wants to be happy. Today, science can light the way. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge,...Read more