Irene Pepperberg teaches animal cognition at Harvard and is an associate research professor at Brandeis. For thirty years, she worked with a remarkable grey parrot named Alex.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Harvard law professor Jeannie Suk says she's recently heard students demand trigger warnings before her lectures on rape, or ask that she not talk about the subject at all. She tells Steve Paulson that it’s more important than ever to teach students about rape law, because when it comes to sex, the line between what’s legal and what’s criminal is rapidly shifting.
Could the Islamic Jihad forge an alliance with the Aryan Nations? James Jones is an authority on religious terrorism; he says militant religious groups are beginning to collaborate.
Name a problem and Washington seems unable to solve it. Poverty. Climate change. Unemployment. Immigration. Education. Enter the mayor.
James Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA's double-helix structure, talks with Steve Paulson about making the discovery and what sort of environment produces scientific breakthroughs.
The 18th century was not only the Age of Enlightenment. It was also the age when many cities conquered darkness by installing public lighting. Dartmouth historian Darrin McMahon says it's no accident that cities lit up at the same time as the Enlightenment values of rationality and progress flourished.
What separates your mind from an animal's? It's a question we've all asked, but renowned primatologist Frans de Waal says there's no point trying to rank who's smarter or dumber in the animal world. In fact, he believes there's no clear dividing line between humans and the rest of the animal world.
James Gleick's biography of the man who invented gravity, calculus and celestial mechanics, also reveals that Newton was the pre-eminent alchemist of his age.
Pages
