Steven Biel talks about Grant Woods' iconic American painting: who the models were; how the painting's been received and why it's so often parodied.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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A few years ago, journalist Mac McClelland went undercover to find out what really happens when you order something online from a site like Amazon. As it turns out, all that ecommerce is still largely driven by humans, many of whom work backbreaking temporary jobs in massive warehouses.
Scientists are combing the universe for signs of exoplanets -- planets that orbit a star other than our sun. They're finding them in record numbers. Most believe it's only a matter of time before they find an exoplanet that can -- and perhaps does -- suppport life. Sara Seager is a planetary scientist at M.I.T. and one of the pioneers of the field.
It's not just the movies that offer sequels. Susan Heyboer O'Keefe's new novel is called "Frankenstein's Monster"...
Tariq Ramadan has been called the Muslim Martin Luther King. The Swiss philosopher travels widely trying to build bridges between European Muslims and conservative clerics...
Many of history's greatest scientists, from Newton to Maxwell to Einstein, have devoted significant study to the behavior of light, and, as a result, most physicists thought there was little left to say on the subject. But in April 2016, Paul Eastham, a physicist at Trinity College in Dublin, published a new paper proving that a fundamental assumption scientists had made about light was wrong.
Why does dancing - or just watching other people dance - feel so good? Correspondent Frank Browning checks in with dancers and neuroscientists.
When blogger Jenny Lawson recently tweeted about an awkward exchange she had with a cashier at an airport, she couldn't have imagined the flood of responses she'd get from fans recounting their own mortifying moments. The tweet went viral and within a few days she'd received thousands of messages from fans recounting their own awkward stories. The whole affair was proof of something Jenny had long suspected -- that awkwardness can help bring people together.
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