Audio

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

How's this for a novel premise? Owen Lerner is a pediatric psychiatrist. One day, he's struck by lightning. He survives but he has a new obsession -- with barbecue. That's the premise behind Mary Kay Zuravleff's novel, "Man Alive!" She talks about its inspiration and the book's themes.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

So romance is about attraction, about intimacy, and sometimes about sex. 

Sometimes, it's also about love.

So now for an even larger question: what the heck is love?

Psyhchologist Barbara Fredrickson's says love is more brief - and more available - than we think it is.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Mitchell Joaquim and the Terreform 1 team are looking for new, organic ways of building homes… and cities. About 4 billion of us live in cities right now. Predictions are, by the end of this century, that number will be closer to 8 billion. That means, for the foreseeable future, we need to build the equivalent of a city of one million people EVERY WEEK... How?

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Richard Nisbett argues that parenting styles have an enormous impact on the IQ of children and so does simply telling middle-school children that influencing their IQ is within their control.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Mark Barrowcliffe wasted his youth playing Dungeons and Dragons. Now he's turned his obsession into a book.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

The scientific genius Kurt Godel is on our minds this week.  So Anne Strainchamps talks with the French writer, Yannick Grannec, about her novel, "The Goddess of Small Things," which is based on Godel's relationship with his wife, Adele.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Biographer Joan Schenkar thinks Patricia Highsmith deserves to be recognized as the author of one of the great American novels.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Captain James Yee volunteered after 9/11 to be the US Army Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay prison.  But then he was accused of spying, espionage, and aiding the alleged Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo.   He was held in solitary confinement for 76 days.

Pages

Subscribe to Audio