Are political beliefs predetermined at birth? Encoded in our genes? Political scientist John Hibbing does fMRI studies of liberal and conserative brains and says there are significant biological differences. His message: stop yelling at the other party. They can't help what they think.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
In the run-up to this show, many of you sent in your stories of wonder. Here they are, crafted into an eight-part soundscape with the voices of Michael Arnold, Cynthia Woodland, Caryl Owen, and Peter Sobol. Thanks for sharing your stories!
Sandra Luckow is a ventriloquist herself, who tells him Fleming about her relationship with her "carved figure" Juanito.
Journalist and editor Tom Shroder tells Jim Fleming about the remarkable cases he's investigated of children who insist they belong to a family other than the one they were born into.
According to self-described "space dork" Andy Weir, he was just sitting around at home one day imagining a manned Mars mission — not with any goal in mind, but just as a thought experiment. Soon, he realized this would be a pretty good premise for a story. And boy was he right. His novel "The Martian" started as a series of blog posts and has become a blockbuster motion picture. In this interview, he reads excerpts from the novel and discusses the balance between pure fantasty and scientific accuracy in science fiction.
There may be as many opinions about selfies as there are Twitter handles. Are they self-empowerment, or narcissism? Are they just personal branding? Or can they be art? Writer and critic Sarah Nicole Prickett came in to give us a primer.
TTBOOK producer Charles Monroe-Kane is a great storyteller who's led an adventurous life. Here's a wild story from his memoir "Lithium Jesus" about smuggling mob money when he lived in Prague in the '90s.
Sjon is the Icelandic trickster, drawing on Icelandic sagas and surrealism to write his mythic stories. He tells Steve Paulson why we need to re-enchant the world.
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