Deborah Blum tells the remarkable story of the scientists who invented forensic medicine and figured out how to catch murderers using poison.More
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Science and Technology
Why is filmmaker Errol Morris is still outraged by the famous philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn?More
TTBOOK technical director Caryl Owen explains why she’s always been fascinated by rocks and the language of geology.More
Missy Makinia donated her kidney to whoever might need it. Her transplant surgeon — Josh Mezrich — invited Shannon into his operating room to see firsthand what it takes to remove and transport a human kidney.More
Larry Brilliant is best known as part of the United Nations team of doctors responsible for curing smallpox. But back in the 1960s, he was a hippie whose guru told him his destiny was to help cure smallpox.More
Manu Prakash invented a paper microscope that’s now being used in research labs and classrooms around the world.More
Missy Makinia donated her kidney to whoever might need it. Her transplant surgeon — Josh Mezrich — invited Shannon into his operating room to see firsthand what it takes to remove and transport a human kidney.More
Devastated at the unexpected death of her morther, Cheryl Strayed embarked on a three-month solo trip along the rugged Pacific Crest...More
One way to survive on not quite enough sleep? Writer Daniel Pink swears by what he calls a "nappuccino," a short nap with a cup of coffee. You might want to take notes on this one.More
The world is getting noisier and it's hurting us. When George Mickelson Foy got worried about all of the toxic noise in his life, he set on a quest for absolute silence.More
One of the quietest places in the U.S. is a spot inside the Hoh Rain Forest in the Olympic National Park in Washington. It's called "One Square Inch of Silence." And it was created by the acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton.More
In 1993, Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge became the first person to cross Antarctica alone. It took him 50 days. The thing that had the biggest impact on him was the silence.More
Squirrels and pigeons share our sidewalks and park benches. Crows pick through our trash, rabbits munch on our lawns. They watch us; we ignore them. What would change if we actually met their eyes? More
Roland Griffiths is a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins. He's just turned his attention to psilocybin, a classic hallucinogen commonly known as magic mushrooms. He tells Steve Paulson about his findings.More
There are two famous moments that helped shape environmental politics. Gavin Van Horn, of the Center for Humans and Nature, tells us what happened when Aldo Leopold met the eyes of a dying timber wolf and when Paul Watson looked into the eye of a dying sperm whale.More
Eye-to-eye epiphanies are experiences of kinship with the more-than-human world. Gavin Van Horn says kinship is also something to practice. He shares a few thoughts about how.More
Even facing the bleakest outcomes that climate change might inflict on our planet, we have to have faith in a new future. That’s something writer Anne Lamott has been struggling with too.More
Journalist and essayist Roy Scranton has been called "our Jeremiah of the Anthropocene." His book "We’re Doomed. Now What?" is a hard-headed — often terrifying — look at how climate change could transform our planet, and how that impact might shape our daily thoughts and experiences.More