Biologist Steven Austad is so confident human beings will soon live to be 150 years old that he’s bet on it with a colleague: Jay Olshansky, who says we’re already living way past our expiration date!
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Celebrated jazz pianist Vijay Iyer has a Ph.D. in music cognition and the rare ability to describe the interplay between music and the brain. We talk with Vijay and listen to his music.
Reinhold Messner is arguably the world’s greatest living mountaineer. He’s climbed 14 of the world’s tallest peaks, and if that isn’t impressive enough, he was the first to climb Mt. Everest alone and without supplemental oxygen. He recounts some of these adventures in a new book called “Reinhold Messner: My Life at the Limit.” Steve Paulson caught up with him and asked how he got hooked on climbing.
But how do to help people slow down and get to know their communities? Not just the people, the coffee shops and subway map.
How to get residents thinking about the natural systems and urban infrastructure that supports city life?
Artist Mary Miss has some ideas...
Stephen Prothero tells Steve Paulson about the first American cremation, which didn’t really go very well, and the current craze for going out in a blaze of glory.
Susan Friedman tells Anne Strainchamps about her friendship, initiated and maintained via e-mail over the internet, with a young woman scholar in Iraq.
Icelandic novelist Sjon blends folk stories, surrealism and ancient myth. He also writes songs for his fellow Icelander, Bjork. In this EXTENDED interview, Sjon talks with Steve about fables, fairy tales and literature.
Two experts talk about Vastu, a Hindu philosophy for designing buildings in harmony with the universe.
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