Eric Carson is a geomorphologist — which, as he describes it, is basically a "double major" in geology and geography. Some time ago he and a few colleagues started asking a question about a geologic shelf where the Mississippi meets the Wisconsin River. The results could have meant nothing, or they could have meant a major new revelation about the Mississippi's historical path to the ocean.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
A big cat biologist goes on a blind date. It doesn't go well. Writer Ben Hoffman reads from a work in progress.
Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne called their Wisconsin home Ten Chimneys. Jim Fleming takes us to visit the property.
Simon Winchester talks about the enormous volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883. The tidal waves killed almost forty thousand people, and the resulting social chaos gave rise to the first incidents of Muslim clerics fomenting violent uprisings against Westerners.
Writer Richard Rodriguez views his so-called brown identity as a racial mixture, dating back to the colonization of the Americas. He tells us why he celebrates being brown, and embraces the term "Hispanic."
Biologist Steven Austad is so confident human beings will soon live to be 150 years old that he’s bet on it with a colleague: Jay Olshansky, who says we’re already living way past our expiration date!
Toni Morrison may be a Nobel Laureate, but she still gets labeled a “Black woman writer.” She talks about her childhood and how the Civil Rights Movement magnified class differences.
Stephen Prothero tells Steve Paulson about the first American cremation, which didn’t really go very well, and the current craze for going out in a blaze of glory.
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