According to historian Thomas Laqueur, neither sanitation nor the soul fully explain the rang of rituals we've developed for caring for dead bodies. For him, there is a deeper anthropological truth at work: caring for the dead marks the human transition from nature into culture.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Esperanza Spalding is one of the brightest young stars in jazz - except she resists being labeled a "jazz musician." In fact, her new album "Emily's D+ Evolution" sounds more like rock than jazz. When she sat down in our studio with Steve Paulson, she talked about her childhood roots in classical music before her momentous discovery of jazz improvisation.
Deborah Madison talks with Anne Strainchamps about the growing popularity of farmers’ markets.
Arika Okrent is a linguist and the author of "In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Logian Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language."
Cultural scientist Alana Conner believes we all navigate different identities, and not just along racial or ethnic lines. She finds many cultural conflicts boil down to two competing types of selves.
I dunno, but it seems kind of extreme, not to mention risky, to bio-engineer a mass mosquito die-off. So Steve Paulson tracked down the world’s greatest living entomologist to see what he has to say. E. O Wilson is sometimes called “the ant man” – that’s the insect he studied most – but he’s best known as the evolutionary biologist and a champion of biodiversity. He’s 86 years old now, and has just finished what is probably his last book – called “Half Earth”. It’s a passionate plea to save humanity by dedicating half the planet to nature. You’d assume that Wilson would be happy to let mosquitos live in that half… but that’s not what he told Steve.
Betsy Israel tells Jim Fleming our society has always been suspicious of unmarried women and talks about examples from Louisa Mat Alcott to Ally McBeal.
Human and animal history is so intertwined it's hard to imagine one species without the other.
Pages
