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.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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The most popular baby names in the US last year were Noah and Emma. We know that because 20 years ago, Michael Shackleford wrote a computer program to track the annual popularity of baby names. Expectant parents everywhere should thank him.
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.
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.
Seymour Martin Lipset tells Judith Strasser that Americans never became revolutionaries because from the beginning, working people here were far better off than those in other countries.
Temple Grandin has autism and designs livestock-handling facilities. She talks with Jim Fleming about how her autism helps her in her career.
When blogger Jenny Lawson recently tweeted about an awkward exchange she had with a cashier at an airport, she couldn't have imagined the flood of responses she'd get from fans recounting their own mortifying moments. The tweet went viral and within a few days she'd received thousands of messages from fans recounting their own awkward stories. The whole affair was proof of something Jenny had long suspected -- that awkwardness can help bring people together.
William Langewiesche tells Anne Strainchamps about the underground rivers at Ground Zero and the extraordinary courage and leadership shown by all the volunteers who participated in the clean up, even as the firemen rejected the heroic language used in the media.
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