Paul Hoffman is the author of “Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight.” Hoffman tells Jim Fleming that Santos-Dumont’s craft (which he tethered to a light-post outside Maxim’s while he had dinner) was a motorized hot air balloon.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Ernest Callenbach’s “Ecotopia” was the bible of a certain kind of environmental activist, back in the 70’s. Producer Charles Monroe-Kane was one of them. He tells us what it was like to try to live the dream.
Kathleen Parker believes that popular culture portrays men as incompetent fools and classrooms ignore material of interest to boys. She says intelligent women need someone else to talk to, much less to marry and raise children with, so it's in women's interest to fix this.
Do you need an advanced degree in math or physics to make discoveries about the cosmos? Science writer Margaret Wertheim says thousands of amateur scientists have proposed their own theories about the universe.
Shortly after the U.S. Invaded Iraq in 2003, Lawrence Anthony traveled on his own to Baghdad to do what he could to save the animals in the Baghdad Zoo.
Many women are choosing not to have children because they know they are not good enough at nurturing. Madelyn Cain thinks this is an admirable, unselfish decision and one that more and more couples will make in the future.
Ray Kurzweil believes we'll soon have tiny computers embedded in our brains. He says we're on the verge of a new era in evolution - a fusion of biology and machine technology.
Novelist Mark Salzman talks about his experience teaching creative writing at Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles, a detention center for L.A.’s most serious young offenders.
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