Pre-Modern hunter and gatherer cultures believed that dying was a kind of trial which didn't begin until you left your physical body and entered the supernatural world, according to sociologist Allan Kellehear. In these cultures, death is not the destruction of the body, but the annihilation of the personality and its transformation into something new.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Erin Clune brings us and her family to tour the garden of Izzy Fine and Mary Gray who've planted thousands of flowering bulbs on their property in Madison, Wisconsin. Their garden is so spectacular, all the neighbors drop by to wander around.
Cecil Brown has researched the true story that gave rise to the Stagolee myth, and explains what the song has meant to various groups, especially within the African-American community.
Chris Hardman runs the Antenna Theater in San Francisco. He created a piece where he gave audience members headphones and told them to go for a walk on the beach.
No one expected the latest inspiration: "Ed Gein: The Musical."
Bill Hayes is the author of “Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood.” Hayes tells Jim Fleming several nifty facts about the fluid that sustains us all.
Daniel Cavicchi spent three years talking to his fellow Bruce Springsteen fans. The result is a book called “Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans.”
Brian Christian is the author of "The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive." In 2009, he won the annual Loebner Prize -- awarded to the computer program that comes closest to passing the Turing Test for artificial intelligence. Christian won for being the "most human human."
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