Have you every actually read Thoreau's "Walden"? If not, you've really missed something. Here's the next best thing: excerpts from the book, set to music.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Annalee Newitz is optimistic that humans are not necessarily an endangered species. In this EXTENDED interview, she talks with Anne about "Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction."
A. J. Jacobs decided to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. He tells Steve Paulson why and some of the peculiar facts he picked up along the way.
Psychiatrist Allen Peterkin tells Steve Paulson that beards make people think of either Santa Claus or Satan, and that facial hair is making a comeback.
Los Angeles comic and humor columnist Alan Olifson reads an essay on the dangers of enjoying irony.
Anne Strainchamps goes looking for hope about the world's environmental problems among the children of Randall Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin.
In the mid-1930's, Alan Turing made the revolutionary discovery that launched the digital age. He proved that information can be translated and communicated using nothing but a series of ones and zeroes. And that was just the first of Turing's intellectual achievements. Biographer Andrew Hodges explained Turing's genius to Jim Flemming in 2012.
Before there was iTunes, Spotify, or Pandora, there was the mixtape. Jason Bittner is nostalgic for those days, when sweethearts would spend days crafting the perfect playlist. He's the editor of a book and former website called "Cassette From My Ex". He shares some songs from his collection, and explains why the mixtape is such a powerful medium.
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