For as closely linked as the voice is to our body and sense of identity, there are also a lot of external forces affecting our voices, both social and technological. In fact, when we're talking about mediated voices—voices we hear in music, film, and of course, on the radio—we're actually not talking about "voices" any more. We're talking about signal processing. And, as media historian Jonathan Sterne tells Craig Eley, signal processing shapes the sound of all vocal media, from your telephone calls to the music of T-Pain.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Flash mobs: seemingly random gatherings of complete strangers doing something completely out of the ordinary. Bill Wasik started this craze.
Augustin De la Pena is a psycho-physiologist who works at a sleep disorders center in South Texas, and a leading authority on boredom.
Environmental writer Connie Barlow says that rhinos and elephants and tigers are native to North America and that we should bring back the Cheetah.
Chris Wren was a bureau chief for the New York Times in Cairo, Moscow, Beijing, Ottawa and Johannesburg. The family cat, Henrietta, accompanied his family to may of those postings.
Journalist Jon Ronson recounts his memorable night out with a real life superhero named Phoenix Jones.
Carol Dweck is researcher at Stanford University. She says everybody fails, but not everybody fails the right way.
Claude Coleman was the drummer for cult rock group WEEN when he was involved in a car crash that left him with multiple broken bones, paralyzed on his left side, and brain- damaged.
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