Are political beliefs predetermined at birth? Encoded in our genes? Political scientist John Hibbing does fMRI studies of liberal and conserative brains and says there are significant biological differences. His message: stop yelling at the other party. They can't help what they think.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Celebrated jazz pianist Vijay Iyer has a Ph.D in music cognition and a penchant for asking big questions - like, what is music? And what does it do for us? Steve Paulson caught up with Vijay backstage before a recent concert, where they talked about improvisation and the parallels between jazz and basketball.
There may be as many opinions about selfies as there are Twitter handles. Are they self-empowerment, or narcissism? Are they just personal branding? Or can they be art? Writer and critic Sarah Nicole Prickett came in to give us a primer.
Novelist Russell Banks tells Judith Strasser that the great American story is that of the African diaspora and the struggle of many races and cultures to live harmoniously together.
Sjon is the Icelandic trickster, drawing on Icelandic sagas and surrealism to write his mythic stories. He tells Steve Paulson why we need to re-enchant the world.
Many of history's greatest scientists, from Newton to Maxwell to Einstein, have devoted significant study to the behavior of light, and, as a result, most physicists thought there was little left to say on the subject. But in April 2016, Paul Eastham, a physicist at Trinity College in Dublin, published a new paper proving that a fundamental assumption scientists had made about light was wrong.
Sarah MacDonald followed the man she loved to India and proceeded to explore that country’s ancient spiritual heritage. She chronicles her spiritual adventures in a book called “Holy Cow.”
"There is nothing romantic about death," Christian Wiman says.
The poet and editor of Poetry Magazine has been battling blood cancer for years. In his most recent book of poems he breathes life into writing about mortality.
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