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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Quarantines Aren’t Going Anywhere
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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The Military Loves Positive Psychology, But Does It Work?
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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The Buzz On Flies
Jonathan Balcombe is a biologist and an associate editor for the journal Animal Sentience, and he joins us to discuss the misunderstood insects that make up what we know as flies.
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An Illusionist Reveals His Secrets
Derek DelGaudio joins us to talk about his autobiography, a deep dive into how illusion and identity shaped his life.
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What Your Voice Says About You
New Yorker staff writer John Colapinto joins us to talk about the experience of losing his voice and how it led him to look into how the sounds we create are so integral to our identity.
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Nature’s Most Elusive Color Might Surprise You
Kai Kupferschmidt, contributing correspondent for Science magazine, joins us to discuss why we so often overlook the rarity of the color blue and his trek around the globe to better understand it.
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How Amazon Is Reshaping America’s Cities And Economy
Alec MacGillis, senior reporter for ProPublica, joins us to discuss how Amazon and other digital retailers are affecting the larger economy as they drive some cities to either boom or bust.
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The Tension Between Public Health and Individual Liberty
Ed Yong received a Pulitzer Prize for his Covid coverage in The Atlantic, and he joins us to talk about how the pandemic is forcing the CDC to rethink its mission as it struggles to protect the greater good in an era of unchecked individualism.
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What Does A Depressed Brain Look Like?
Simon Lewsen joins us to discuss why researchers looking into the origins and biology of depression have such a hard time collecting complete data to build a brain modeling system to help diagnose disease.
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The Unintended Consequences Of Vaping
Health and science journalist Laura Beil joins us to talk about how a pair of graduate students created the Juul vape pen in hopes to end smoking. Instead, they created another health hazard more attractive to teenagers than the one they were trying to end.
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The Link Between Opioids And Alzheimer’s
Science journalist Lauren Aguirre joins us to talk about the amnesia opioid addicts sometimes suffer from, new breakthroughs in understanding Alzheimer’s, and her own experience with temporary memory loss.
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