Journalist Mark Pendergrast tells Steve Paulson that coffee came from Ethiopia, functioned as a patriotic symbol during the early days of the American Republic, and prolonged the slave trade in places like Brazil.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Janice VanCleave tells Jim Fleming some of the experiments from the "Weather" volume, including how to build a cloud, and why the sky looks blue.
Could LSD boost your creativity? Yes, says psychologist Jim Fadiman, a pioneer in psychedelics research and one of the founders of the transpersonal pychology movement.
Psychologist Justin Barett thinks most children have a natural aptitude for religious belief. He says it's not surprising that so many people believe in spirits or supernatural beings.
Jennifer Baker is a philosopher at the College of Charleston and the author of a recent essay called "Procrastination as Vice."
Anthropologist Richard Wrangham tells Jim Fleming that he thinks cooking contributed to human evolution and is far older than most people think.
John Francis was motivated by a California oil spill to stop riding in cars, planes or trains. When he got tired of trying to explain his decision, he stopped talking - for 17 years.
“The Unraveling of Mercy Louis" tells the fascinating story of a community that’s nearly torn apart following the discovery of an abandoned baby in a dumpster. A witch hunt ensures and the girls at a local high school soon begin developing mysterious twitches and tics, which quickly intensify. Eventually, the girls in the town are acting as if they’re possessed, thrashing around on the floor or grunting like animals. As strange as it all sounds, Parssinen says the book was inspired by a real episode of mass hysteria in Le Roy, New York.
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