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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

If you like novels about computers and the history of technology, then you must know Neal Stephenson's work.  The author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle talks with us about his new novel -- a fast-paced thriller about the world of hyper-gaming.  It's called "Reamde."

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Paleontologist Peter Ward tells Steve Paulson that big carnivores are unlikely to survive outside zoos but creatures that can survive around humans - like rats and coyotes - will thrive in the future.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson is a leading expert on the science of mindfulness.  He's teamed up with the Dalai Lama to put Buddhist monks in brain scanners, and he's developing a new scientific model for studying emotion. 

You can also listen to the EXTENDED interview, and read the extended transcript.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Michelle Paver has had a lifelong fascination with the Stone Age. She's studied anthropology, and she's lived with the Inuit in Alaska and the Sami in Lapland. She used these experiences to write her series of novels, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

TTBOOK host Jim Fleming responds to the documentary  film “If a Tree Falls” that follows Daniel McGowan – a convicted terrorist… currently serving time. McGowan used arson as political protest with The Earth Liberation Front – a group the FBI considers America’s number one domestic terrorist threat.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Today we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Punk.   For 40 years, punk has influenced not just music, but fashion, film,  art… not to mention hairstyles.  So what makes punk… punk?  Music journalist Legs McNeil is the guy who named it.  And chronicled it.  Along with Gillian McCain wrote THEE book on the history of punk. It’s an oral history called “Please Kill Me.”

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Cosmology is on our minds, with the remarkable new discovery confirming the Big Bang. To get a better sense of what it all means – and how creation stories like the Big Bang have shaped our sense of ourselves – Steve Paulson turned to Adam Frank, an astrophysicist who writes for NPR’s science blog 13.7.   He’s the author of the book “About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang.”

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