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.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
The idea of a universal basic income is getting serious consideration these days from governments -- in Switzerland, Finland, even Kenya. Could it get traction in the U.S.? Absolutely, says journalist Rutger Bregman.
We're celebrating National Poetry Month this year by reading some of our favorite poems. Here's Sara with Allen Ginsberg's "Sunflower Sutra."
A small warning, there are some explicit words in the poem.
There’s a Modern Caveman Movement afoot. And their inspirational leader is 76 year-old Arthur De Vany. A man who says we all should be mimicking our caveman ancestors.
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.
Thomas Seeley is a professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University. He talks about the social organization of a bee colony with Steve Paulson.
We know a lot about how slaves looked at books because of the hundreds of slave narratives they wrote. Scholar Cherene Sherrard-Johnson says a fundamental trope in those narratives is what’s called “the Talking Book.”
Tony Perrottet specialized in exotic travel until he decided to go to Rome, then travel the sites of the ancient world using classical Roman tour guides.
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