Matthew Bothwell is an astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, and he joins us to talk about the rock – named “Oumuamua,” the theories that sprung up around it, and what happens when scarce data leads to wild speculation.
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Elinor Cleghorn suffered through a long series of misdiagnoses before finally correctly being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. She joins us to unpack the long history of how medicine has failed women.
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Meg Lowman is a biologist, educator and executive director of the TREE Foundation. She joins us to talk about the diversity of creatures that call tree canopies home.
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Author Jonah Lehrer joins us to discuss the psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology of why we love solving puzzles, finding patterns and discovering the unknown.
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Journalist Nicola Twilley joins us to talk about the food science that focused not on sugar replacements but instead on actually making sugar better.
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Mose Buchele, a reporter and host at Austin public radio station KUT, joins us to discuss the worst blackout in the state’s history and how our drive to operate on a grid separate from the rest of the country contributed to the problem.
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Dr. Leana Wen is an emergency physician, public health professor at George Washington University and former Baltimore health commissioner. She joins us to discuss her work in the area of public health on everything from opioid addiction to disease outbreaks to infant mortality.
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Harper’s magazine senior editor Will Stephenson joins us to discuss the emerging field of suicidology, which hopes to explain the act and its precursors, while gaining a deeper understanding of its complexity.
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Leslie Jamison teaches in Columbia University’s MFA program, and she joins us to talk about the rise of the Cesarean section and the backlash against it, pitting the procedure against the idea of a “natural birth” and a woman’s worth as a mother.
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Dr. Susan R. Barry, professor emeritus of biology and neuroscience at Mount Holyoke College, joins us to discuss three case histories, including her own, of people gaining a new way of seeing or hearing at an older age.
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Journalist Nicola Twilley joins us to talk about how and why quarantines have been used throughout history – and about how the technique has been updated to fight modern threats.
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Jesse Singal is a contributing writer at New York magazine, and he joins us to talk about a U.S. military move to adopt new methods for addressing PTSD and resiliency without the science to back it up.
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