We all love the feeling of getting lost in a good story and seeing the world through a character’s eyes. Recently, psychologists have been studying whether that experience actually changes readers. Novelist and cognitive psychologist Keith Oatley tells us about the latest research connecting fiction with empathy.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Rob Knight is one of the rising stars in the new science of the microbiome. He tells us what he and his colleagues are up to at his Boulder, Colorado lab.
Thebe Medupe is an astrophysicist who grew up under apartheid. He talks about the stories he grew up hearing from his village elders and the astronomical legends of the Dogun people in Mali.
Toby Nunn was a Sergeant First Class who served two tours in Iraq. Home now, he's finding it hard to adjust to civilian life, but as he told Steve Paulson, he's still taking care of the men in his platoon.
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.
When the last of the infamous Chicago Public Housing buildings were demolished Audrey Petty asked herself a few questions, “Where did everybody go?” And, “what are their memories?”
In this look behind the scenes, producer Veronica Rueckert and Anne Strainchamps remember our interview with Amy Wallace-Havens, the sister of the late David Foster Wallace.
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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