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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Simon Winchester talks with Jim Fleming about the short-sightedness of placing cities where the planet doesn't think they should be.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

People who like baseball call it "the thinking person’s game," but for the first 100 years, baseball was governed by a surprisingly limited range of critical thinking. Decisions were made by insiders, the current and former players who spent a lifetime around the diamond, and did things mostly one way: the way they've always been done.  But in the last 3 or 4 years, that storehouse of common knowledge—much of which was kept guarded in a true "old boy's club"—has been cracked wide open. Now the game isn't driven by intuition, it's driven by data. And the math nerds who rode the bench in Little League—if they played at all—are now telling pro ballplayers what to do. Journalist Travis Sawchik tells Steve Paulson the story.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

With the Carolina Panthers facing off against the Denver Broncos in Superbowl 50, football is on our minds this week. And for many of the millions of fans who tune in every Sunday to watch their favorite teams compete, football is little more than a weekly ritual. For English professor Mark Edmundson, the football field is a staging ground for some of life's most important lessons. In his book "Why Football Matters," Edmundson looks back to his own high school years playing the sport and reflects on how it taught him courage, resilience, determination, and other values he'd draw on as an adult.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The Reduced Shakespeare Company bring their latest production into our studio.  They provide a whirlwind tour of the great books of literature.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Sara Nelson tells Anne Strainchamps what publishers can do to make a book a best-seller and why the actual number of copies sold is a state secret.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

John Brockman talks smarts, "third culture" intellectuals, and our web-y world in this NEW and UNCUT interview.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Roberta Gregory writes and draws the comic strip featuring the mis-adventures of Midge McCracken, AKA "Bitchy Bitch."

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Standup, prat falls, punch lines. Performing comedy's one thing, writing it's another.

Ian Frazier has been writing comedy for the New Yorker for decades. Catch him talking about the rewards of writing humor, and telling jokes in Russian.

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