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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Suspicious Minds

There's a short story about a guy who's so afraid of other people reading his mind that he wears a tin foil hat to protect his thoughts. The tin foil part is crazy, but protecting your mind is maybe not such a bad idea. Academic psychologist Rob Brotherton says there are certain psychological traits that predispose people to believe in conspiracy theories. For example, there's an experiment done by a group of psychologists in Amsterdam. It involves a group of subjects and a messy desk.

FIND OUT HOW LIKELY YOU ARE TO BELIEVE IN CONSPIRACY THEORIES BY TAKING ROB'S QUIZ.

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The World's Greatest Cheese - Michael Paterniti

Michael Paterniti travels to the highlands of Spain to track down one of the world's greatest cheesemakers.

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Zach Helm on "Stranger Than Fiction"

Zach Helm wrote the screenplay for "Stranger than Fiction," in which Will Ferrell hears the voice of Emma Thompson apparently narrating his life.

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Sonic Sidebar: A Maya Angelou poetry reading

TTBOOK host Anne Strainchamps reading a portion of the poem "A Brave and Startling Truth" by the late Maya Angelou.

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Sadie Plant on "Writing on Drugs"

Jim Fleming read “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and philosopher Sadie Plant talks with Steve Paulson about drug use by some famous writers, from Coleridge to Freud.

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What It's Like To Be A Real Life Spy Girl

Television is rife with shows about female spies, whether it's Nikita, Covert Affairs, the Americans, or Homeland. It really seems like spy girls are having a moment on TV, but how true to life are these popular depictions? We turned to former CIA operations officer Valerie Plame Wilson to find out.

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The 36 Questions that Lead to Love

One of the most interesting stories of 2015 was the idea that is a formula for love—or, more specifically, a series of questions that might fascilitate falling in love. We spoke the author of this study, Arthur Aron, as well as Mandy Len Catron, a woman who used the questions on her partner.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Tim Friend on Archaea

Tim Friend has written a book about Archaea - a kind of microbe that doesn't fit into any of the traditional categories of life.

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