Audio

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Fear and Loathing in Mosquito-Land

We hate mosquitoes.

But why?  I mean, yes --- West Nile, dengue, malaria, Zika…not to mention ruined picnics, sleepless nights, and bites you scratch until they bleed … Those are logical reasons to dislike mosquitoes.  But admit it – they also just creep you out.

Jeffrey Lockwood gets at the psychology in his book “The Infested Mind.” He’s an entomologist who once had a truly horrific encounter with a swarm of grasshoppers.   He was left traumatized. Afterwards he wondered why we all fear and loathe insects so much.

Lockwood told Rehman Tungekar the answer is deep deep in our psyches.

 

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Brian Jones on "Marx in Soho"

Brian Jones is an actor portraying Karl Marx in "Marx in Soho."  Jones tells Judith Strasser some of the details about Marx that helped him nail the character.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Carel Van Schaik on "Among Orangutans"

Carel Van Schaik tells Steve Paulson that orangutans, those great red apes, use tools and pass learning down from one generation to the next.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Eileen Kane on "Trickster: An Anthropological Memoir"

Eileen Kane revisits her experience as a young, newly married, trainee anthropologist studying the Paiute Indians of Nevada.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Dangerous Idea: A Palace of Unbuilt Roads

Hans Ulrich Obrist's dangerous idea is to create a museum for projects that haven't been completed—he calls it "A Palace of Unbuilt Roads."

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Charles McNair on Literary Criticism

As the Books Editor of Paste Magazine, Charles McNair cares deeply about what we read.  But McNair is concerned that we're only reading a handful of the artists available to us, thanks to what he calls a kind of geographic hegemony of taste-making.  In other words - we're all reading the same books because a handful of respected critics on the East and West coasts tell us to.  

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Austin Kleon on "Steal Like an Artist"

Austin Kleon talks about his book, "Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative."

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Daniel Kammen on Alternative Energy

Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab at the University of California/Berkeley tells Anne Strainchamps about some wild energy alternatives that actually work.

Pages

Subscribe to Audio