How should we decide when to stop life-prolonging treatments for people with severe brain damage and terminal illness? Are live organ donors always out of the question? As medicine makes it possible for us to prolong life, when should we just let - or help - someone die?
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Scott Turow has made a career writing hugely successful legal thrillers, but then he turned to a World War II novel.
For others, football is sacred. In fact, William Dean says the game is part of "American spiritual culture." He talks with Jim Fleming about the way religious beliefs crop up in American popular culture.
Simon Critchley is the author of "The Book of Dead Philosophers," a quirky account of how various philosophers thought about death and died themselves.
The 1967 Ice Bowl is one of football's legendary showdowns, when the wind chill dipped to 50 below zero. Commentator Bill Povletich remembers this historic game.
Thinking about taking piano lessons at 69? Or violin at 73? Maybe guitar after you retire? Well, even if you're not thinking about those things, maybe you should be. According to Francine Toder, author of “The Vintage Years,” learning a musical instrument is one of the best things you can do for your mind and body as you get older.
Stephen LaBerge pioneered the field of lucid dreaming research at Stanford University. He says that anyone can learn how to become aware while dreaming and use lucid dreaming as a therapeutic tool.
One of the many utopian groups that started during the late 19th century and early 20th century was the House of David—perhaps the first cult to become a pop culture sensation. Their compound in Benton Harbon, Michigan had an amusement park and a zoo; they had a baseball team that once played an exhibition game against Babe Ruth and the Yankees, and they had bands—highly regarded, touring bands. Here's Henry Sapoznik—the director of the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture here at the University of Wisconsin—on the mythology and music of the House of David.
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