Timothy Leary nearly killed the psychedelic revolution. He did more than anyone to popularize LSD — but his indiscriminate use of mind-altering drugs created a backlash, and made them taboo for serious scholars. Read more
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Episode Archives
Is your knowledge Cavemen based on TV commercials? In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, Caveman. We'll discover how the Ice Age gave birth to the first modern humans. And, the real secret of evolution -- cooking. Also, the founder of today's caveman movement. He grunts in a more modern...Read more
Original Air Date:
May 16, 2010
Worried about climate change? Trying hard to reduce your carbon footprint? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, living small and liking it – an argument in favor of the radically local life.Read more
Original Air Date:
May 02, 2010
We all know what's wrong. An economic recovery that just can't seem to get started. Furloughs, cutbacks and no money for anything. Well, cheer up! We'll focus on what can happen when you stay positive. Michael Gates Gill reminds us we have a lot to be grateful for, and Suzan Colon shares recipes...Read more
Original Air Date:
April 11, 2010
You know Marcel Proust as the author of the massive autobiographical novel, "In Search of Lost Time." But did you know that Proust can also be considered a scientist? That's the argument that Jonah Lehrer makes in his book, "Proust Was A Neuroscientist." Lehrer explains how Proust made...Read more
Original Air Date:
March 21, 2010
For decades Carl Jung's "Red Book" remained the most famous unpublished book in the history of psychology. Jung refused to publish it during his lifetime, and his heirs kept it locked up after he died. The "Red Book" recorded Jung's visionary paintings and laid out his radical ideas for a new...Read more
Original Air Date:
March 21, 2010
Mary Karr is a best-selling writer, a mother and an alcoholic. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, Karr talks about her journey from addiction to awe. Also, we hear from a doctor who claims he beat the bottle by taking a commonly prescribed drug that could help millions of people - if...Read more
Original Air Date:
March 07, 2010
Henry Alford believes that old people are wise. And to prove it, he interviewed many people over the age of seventy, including Phyllis Diller, Harold Bloom and a retired aerospace engineer who eats food out of the garbage. The result is Alford's new book, "How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from...Read more
Original Air Date:
February 21, 2010
Whose Islam is it anyway? Is Islam for the Jihadists or the Sufis? The Indonesians, the Saudis? And what about a Muslim convert in say, Iowa? This time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, a closer at who's claiming, and reclaiming, Islam. From the Sufi spiritualism of a Senegalese pop star to the...Read more
Original Air Date:
February 07, 2010
It killed off its star after only forty minutes in the most violent scene in American film to date. Fifty years after its original release, Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" still has the power to shock. Film critic David Thomson tells us the story behind the making of "Psycho" and how Hitchcock...Read more
Original Air Date:
January 31, 2010
A Florida housewife named Katie has an unusual affliction. Occasionally, for no rhyme or reason, thin pieces of gold colored foil appear spontaneously on her skin. Paranormal researchers are stumped. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, exploring magic. From tales of the paranormal to...Read more
Original Air Date:
December 20, 2009
Remember Kyoto? Now it's Copenhagen. The UN's current climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, was never ratified by the US. And now, we're in the hot seat. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll talk with Gaia theorist James Lovelock and Whole Earth Catalogue founder Stewart Brand. Also...Read more
Original Air Date:
December 06, 2009
Lynda Barry rules the pages of the alternative press as the Queen of Comics. Her new book is about liberating the creative process. Barry believes that deep down we're all artists, if we could just get out of our own way. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll talk about channeling...Read more
Original Air Date:
November 22, 2009
The Internet is a free flow of ideas where everyone can say whatever they want. But for all its splashy graphics and Flash animation, there's one thing that makes the Internet looks the same. Its name is Verdana. And it's a font. We'll talk with Matthew Carter, the designer of Verdana, the...Read more
Original Air Date:
November 01, 2009
Words like "America" and "globalization" often conjure up images of protest and conflict around the world. It's the U.S. v. Them. Either you're for us or against us. But things aren't always so black and white. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Soap Opera in China, hip hop in Africa...Read more
Original Air Date:
October 11, 2009
When David Foster Wallace committed suicide in September of 2008, there was a tsunami of grief. Readers, writers and critics poured out their sorrows in print and online. If you hadn't been paying attention for all the love for DFW, the response might have caught you by surprise. Wallace's hyper...Read more
Original Air Date:
August 23, 2009
He's been described as "the most remarkable mind on the planet" and one of the world's "100 living geniuses." Daniel Tammet lives with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome. He's able to recite the mathematical constant Pi to over 22,500 decimal places from memory. But Tammet says that the...Read more
Original Air Date:
August 02, 2009
Religion was supposed to be dying. But God is making a comeback in countries around the world, from Russia to China to Turkey. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll get the story behind this global revival of faith. And tell you the remarkable saga of a group of Christian and...Read more
Original Air Date:
July 19, 2009
How much do you know about the place where you live? You probably know your neighbors, your local schools, the grocery store... but can you describe what your neighborhood looked like before there were houses in it? Can you name the native birds and plants and insects? How much local history can...Read more
Original Air Date:
May 24, 2009
Why are we in Afghanistan? To destroy the Al-Qaeda? To make sure the Taliban doesn't get back in power? Both? What is the economic impact of the war on the US economy? And, just what would victory in Afghanistan look like anyway? The Obama Administration's refocusing the US military. But after...Read more
Original Air Date:
May 10, 2009
Something's going on with America's dogs. For one thing, they're moving in with us. Forget the backyard dog house – last year, some 47 percent of dog owners reported that their canines slept on the bed with them. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll meet Michael Schaffer. He's...Read more
Original Air Date:
April 12, 2009
On a remote high desert mountain top in Eastern Nevada they're building a clock. But not just any clock – a monument sized all mechanical clock that will run for ten thousand years. It's built as an icon to long-term thinking. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll face time. We'll...Read more
Original Air Date:
March 15, 2009
Depending on who you ask, the teenage years are either a wasteland of misery or the best years of your life. For most of us, it's somewhere in between. But what makes the teens such emotional dynamite? One scientist says the teen years exist to grow and organize our huge human brains. In this...Read more
Original Air Date:
March 08, 2009
How did our economists miss it? We're in a full-on economic crisis. Where was the warning? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a look at the so-called dismal science. We'll talk with the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics on why the alarm bells never rang. And, why is it that...Read more
Original Air Date:
February 01, 2009