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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Producer Sara Nics on the story behind this show... how she's tried to come to terms with our narrative selves.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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."

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

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.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Human and animal history is so intertwined it's hard to imagine one species without the other.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Dr. Catherine Lord tells Anne Strainchamps that there is a ten fold reported rise in the incidence of autism but no one knows what accounts for the dramatic rise.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

 "Independent People" by Halldór Laxness reviewed by author David Mitchell ("Cloud Atlas")

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