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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

the Legend of Sarah Winchester

Sarah Winchester (born 1840) was the heiress to the Winchester Estate with a 50% holding of the Winchester Repeating Rifle Company. She used her vast fortune to construct a mansion for 38 consecutive years.

Popular legend held that she was cursed by all those who were killed by Winchester rifles. The only way to alleviate her suffering was to continue to add on to her mansion, filling it with strange sealed rooms and staircases and corridors leading nowhere. Pamela Haag tells her tale and gives it some meaning beyond a mere ghost story.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Sudha Koul on Kashmir

Sudha Koul is a Kashmiri Hindu living in the United States.  Koul says her homeland is the most beautiful place on Earth.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Wu Man on the Pipa

Wu Man is a professional Chinese musician living in the West. Her instrument is the pipa, a stringed instrument plucked like a guitar.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Stephen Braude on Parapsychology

Stephen Braude chairs the Philosophy Department at the University of Maryland, but he's long been interested in parapsychology, especially psycho-kinesis.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The Scientist In the Crib - Alison Gopnik

Psychologist Alison Gopnik is changing the way we think about babies.  Her lab at UC-Berkeley has found evidence of empathy and scientific thinking in children as young as 14 months.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Sean Carroll on the DNA Revolution

Sean Carroll tells Steve Paulson about new discoveries in evolutionary history, including the existence and purpose of fossil genes.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Running and Spirituality

Suprabha Beckjord runs as a spiritual practice. She's a follower of Sri Chinmoy, who believed athletics could enhance spiritual enlightenment. So he set up various weightlifting, swimming, and distance running events. His most famous - and most grueling - is the annual Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race. The race, which exceeds the distance from Boston to Los Angeles, takes place around a half- mile loop in Queens, New York. Suprabha Beckjord ran those 3100 miles for 13 years in a row. Her fastest race was 49 days and 14 hours, an average or more than 63 miles a day. Rehman Tungekar talks with her.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Simon Wilde, Joe Skullan, and Roy Nathanson on the Oldest Rock on Earth

Simon Wilde is one of the scientists who found a tiny, four billion year old zircon in Australia. He brought it to his colleague Joe Skullan at the University of Wisconsin and they established that it’s the oldest object on earth...

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