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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

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The American middle class used to be living proof that the American dream was alive and well, providing homes and modest savings to anyone willing to work.  It’s another story today.  In this hour, the decline of the middle class.  How rising levels of income inequality shattered...Read more

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

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

American citizens worry about suicide bombers on airplanes, but intelligence analysts say the real threat today is in cyberspace. Cyber attacks on American companies and military installations are on the rise. Could terrorist hackers take down America's power grid? Or financial networks. In...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

When Meg Gaines was diagnosed with terminal cancer, her doctor told her to go home and think about the quality, not the quantity, of her days.  Instead she grabbed him by the bow-tie and said “I don’t think you understand.  I intend to live.”  Today Meg Gaines is helping other cancer patients...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

When your country doesn’t live up to its own values, what do you do?  Put your head under the covers or man the barricades?  Fighting for freedom means different things to different people. In this hour,  we talk with some of them -- from Wikileaks’ controversial founder Julian Assange, to the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Child rape at Penn State. A murderous rampage in Norway.  A new civil war in Sudan. Ruthless drug cartels. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Hate Crimes. Murder. Genocide. What is wrong with us? Are we really that bad?Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

By today’s medical definition, Brad Pitt is overweight, and Russell Crowe is obese.  The standards are even tougher for women.  But are those extra pounds really that bad?  Maybe it’s time we all lighten up about fat.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, why one expert says America’s...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

You know who they are – the cool kids – those above-it-all taste-makers whose fashion and entertainment choices predict what everyone else will be wearing and doing next year.  What’s their secret?  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge exploring cool.  A frustrated surfer remembers...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

E’len see la luma nomih tyelvoh.  That’s Elvish for “A star shines upon the hour of our meeting.”  Even if you don’t believe in Elves it’s hard to resist the enchanting languages J.R.R. Tolkien created for the creatures of Middle Earth.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we find out...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

The thrill of victory… the agony of defeat.  And the human drama of athletic competition.  We love sports. And every 4 years we get the pleasure to watch amateur athletes, at the top of their game, compete in the Olympics.  And that got us thinking about competition.  Because that’s what it’s...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

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

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

Here’s the bad news.  You can get the thing you most want - a BMW, the winning lottery ticket, and you still won’t be any happier.  The good news?  You can survive the most devastating catastrophes and you’ll be back on your feet in less time than you think.  Next time on To the Best of Our...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

Adventure writer Ann Jones recalls crossing Africa from Tangier to Cape Town in search of one special tribe.  They’re guided by the “feminine” principles of compromise, tolerance and peace.  Also, Tony Horwitz sets sail in the wake of Captain Cooke.  We’ll hear about a Frenchman who never went...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Imagine that you grow up with dreams of fame and fortune.  You're going to become a world-famous rock star.  The only problem is your childhood friend becomes the world's biggest rock star instead.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Neil McCormick shares his story of being upstaged...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Since the explosion of surfing in the 60s, hanging ten has become one of the coolest sports around.  Today, women, children, and seniors surf their way across peaks of blue water.  Some of them even find the divine along the way.  In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll find out how...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From trance music to ecstatic dance, from Burning Man to psychedelic mushrooms, Americans are awash in weird and intense experiences - and maybe even inventing a new kind of religion. Is this just a bunch of New Age thrill-seekers getting off, or is something deeper going on?  We explore the...Read more

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we ask a blunt question: Did we win? We're not the only ones asking. The phrase "did we win the war in Iraq" has been searched over 7 million times on Google. The war has cost an estimated 860...Read more

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