Episodes
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Trying to figure out how to stop the spread of misinformation on social media, Carl Bergstrom draws from his studies of how birds stick to the truth when communicating about things that matter – like sex and food.
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Are men more fit to lead, and more interested in sex than women? Lucy Cooke takes on these myths and more, telling Alan how she visited women biologists around the world who have studied species as different as songbirds, lions and bonobos. What she discovered is eye-opening – especially if you’re a man.
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Gender fluidity is tolerated a lot more among our cousins— chimpanzees and bonobos— than in our species. The famed primatologist Frans de Waal tells Alan what he’s found after decades of studying our closest relatives.
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Alan and Paul Dooley started out as actors around the same time and in this conversation they have a reunion. In the years between, Paul has gone from standup comedy to playing a multitude of dads in movies. And at 94 he’s still going strong.
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The end of absolutely everything won’t happen for a long, long time. But Katie Mack can describe the different ways the universe might die with clarity and even humor.
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Stars in the field of science communication, they know how to make the rest of us want to learn about something we don’t think we care about. They even creatively inspire each other.
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When he realized that the skills that had led to his successes in the first half of life needed to be replaced by other skills for the next half, social scientist Arthur Brooks began investigating what we need to do now to prepare for happiness and fulfillment as we grow older.
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Her realization that if she’d led the life her parents have, then she would have voted for Trump too, was an insight that contributed to her decision to write her new book, I Never Thought of It That Way. The book is both a diagnosis of, and a prescription for, the ugly polarization that is gripping today’s America.
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Alan talks with longtime friend, the great pianist Emanuel Ax. How does practice lead to the unexpected magic of spontaneity? What role does the audience play? And taking music to the places whereit’s needed most.
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He brought us classics like Cheers, Taxi, Will and Grace, Frasier, Friends and The Big Bang Theory. He's directed over 1,000 episodes of TV comedy. Jim Burrows and Alan compare notes on what it takes to make a show a success.
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She listens to quakes in stars far, far away, to help predict if they host earth-like planets. He makes it possible to build factories so small you can’t even see them.
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Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd chat about and play excerpts from Alan's conversations with some of the guests in the new season, beginning next week. Guests include classical pianist Emanuel Ax, director James Burrows, and primatologist Frans de Waal.
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Ardem Patapoutian discovered more about our sense of touch than we ever knew and Emmanuelle Charpentier co-invented the most powerful biomedical tool we’ve ever had. Celebrating two past winners of the Kavli Prize a week before the 2022 laureates are announced.
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Mike Brown, the man who demoted Pluto, is now hot on the trail of a new planet 9, much bigger than Earth and way beyond Neptune. And the brilliant career of his fellow Kavli Prize winner, Millie Dresselhaus – the “Queen of Carbon” and pioneer of nanoscience – is remembered by her biographer, Maia Weinstock.
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Putting herself as she says, “inside the tech worlds to come,” reporter Kashmir Hill explores how the technology that’s making our lives easier is also eroding our privacy. Her experiences are both amusing and downright scary.
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While filling out an on-line dating app – listing his traits and those of an ideal partner – neuroscientist David Linden began to wonder what makes each of us unique. Why is even each person in a pair of identical twins unique? The answer, he tells Alan, is far richer and more interesting than the old false division of "nature versus nurture".
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The multitalented singer, actor, songwriter, author tells Alan how her childhood in Hawaii shaped not only her career but also now moves her to bring nature back to the city of New York.
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After making the astonishing discovery that what he and his fellow cosmologists thought they knew about the universe was wrong, Saul Perlmutter began a course at his university explaining why catching mistakes is at the heart of science. It’s also a lesson in life for the rest of us.
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The author of the wonderful memoir Lab Girl turns her turns her ability to be both clear and vivid to providing a path forward for a new generation tackling the climate crisis.
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