Alan Berliner is a chronic insomniac who goes for days without sleeping.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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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.
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.
Journalist Adam Hochschild says the anti-slavery movement in Britain 200 years ago invented many of the political tools and tactics today's protesters still use.
Alexander Stille tells Steve Paulson how poetry became a political weapon in Somalia’s revolution.
Novelist Amy Tan tells Anne Strainchamps about the murder that shaped her life as a writer and the role that fate has played in her family's history.
When evangelical Christians say they talk to God, what do they mean? Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann wanted to find out, so she spent two years as a participant observer in a Charismatic church, talking to the congregation and even praying herself. She says prayer involves cultivating the imagination. Luhrmann also describes her cross-cultural study of schizophrenics who hear voices.
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