Your name is a collection of sounds and syllables that identify you. It's your tag, handle, label, second skin. It's written on your birth certificate and it'll be inscribed on your grave. But what does it actually mean? Names carry family dreams, expectations and legacies....Read more
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Episode Archives
It's hard to wrap your head around the future of the human brrain. Augmented intelligence, memory playback, downloadable skills - it's all coming. We explore the future of the mind, and hear how a brain injury can transform your life.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
Today's entertainment industry is shrinking the gap between real life and fantasy. Popular television shows like Big Brother turn ordinary life into an engaging drama. Virtual worlds like Second Life give users a chance to recreate themselves with the click of a button. But how real is...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
To Daniel Libeskind, buildings are much more than concrete boxes. They’re expressions of hope, joy, freedom, and memory. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, architect Daniel Libeskind talks about his master design for the World Trade Center site.Read more
Cross-dressing terrorist angels. LA Gangbangers covered in Virgin Mary tattoos to protect them from bullets. Prophets in g-strings and pasties. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge we’re going to look for god in some unlikely places - in the middle of a math equation, and in the lyrics...Read more
Sometimes all you really want to take to bed is a good book. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, meet some passionate readers. We’ll also try to find out if big time critics really hate books.Read more
Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars to try to improve themselves. They buy books and CDs, go to seminars...some even walk over hot coals in their bare feet. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll try to find out if the self-help movement is really helping us.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."
Winston Churchill once said “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, journalist Jake Tapper discusses the ethics of telling lies during wartime. We’ll also take a concise look at the...Read more
There's still debate about climate change, but one thing's for sure – these days nothing's sure about the weather. Northerners can golf in December, spring shows up early, and mosquitoes are movin' on up. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, wacky weather and what you can do to help....Read more
Outsiders used to be the outcasts, misfits, and under-employed. Today, they're indie, alternative and ahead of their time. Outsiders are thriving and they're changing the way we think about what is mainstream and what is alternative. You might even say that outsiders are the new insiders.Read more
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
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
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
They can have sex twenty times a day. Their teeth are harder than steel. And the ones that live in the city are twice as big as their country cousins. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll talk rats with Robert Sullivan, who spent a year investigating rats in a New York City...Read more
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
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
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
According to a "New York Times" poll he's the third most famous person in Japan, right behind Hirohito and Bruce Lee. But the truth is he's not even a person, he's a giant green, radioactive lizard named Godzilla. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll explore the history of...Read more
Trick or Treat! These days, that means handing out candy, but once upon a time Halloween revelers often played nasty tricks. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the real history of Halloween. Also, why stories about monsters, ghouls and the supernatural keep popping...Read more
Ira Glass has helped reinvent storytelling on the radio. But he says it took him years to learn how to tell a good radio tale. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Ira Glass ont the art of telling stories. We’ll also visit The Moth – the mecca of storytelling in New York City. And...Read more
Are humans really unique? Not as much as we think, says renowned primatologist Frans de Waal. So what do our ape cousins - chimps & bonobos - think and feel? Also, the remarkable story of a feral child who lived with monkeys.