The chief executive officer of Think of Us, a nonprofit focused on foster care, joins us to talk about the practice of kinship placement and the need for systemic change so that children aren’t kept from loving homes.
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What your nose knows
Journalist Jude Stewart joins us to talk about how our sense of smell shapes our world from art to history and reveals the surprising science behind it.
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30 years later, Anita Hill is still fighting
She joins us to discuss her decades long fight for women’s rights and gender equity, which she writes about in “Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.”
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Where do Asian-Americans ‘fit’?
Jay Caspian Kang joins us to talk about the evolution of what it means to be Asian-American – and about his own family’s story as they moved across the country to find their footings.
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The vexing mysteries of Lyme Disease
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat joins us to talk about living with Lyme Disease, the pain and isolation he’s felt, and his new understanding of why some patients seek solace in conspiracies.
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Can someone else own your DNA?
Law professor Jorge L. Contreras joins us to discuss a landmark case brought when the U.S. government issued patents to biotech companies to use human genes, and the field of human genetics law it created.
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A Black scholar’s contrarian take on antiracism
Columbia University’s John McWhorter joins us to make the case that people of color are sometimes harmed by well-meaning antiracists who sometimes lose sight of the thing they are fighting against.
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The scientists who couldn’t help their own daughter
Daniel Engber, senior editor at The Atlantic, joins us to discuss the parents – one a bioengineer in regenerative medicine and another a specialist in rehabilitation robotics – who found they had to rethink their life’s work to help their young daughter after an accident.
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The science of your dreams
Neuroscientist Sidarta Ribeiro joins us to discuss how dreams are connected to how we learn and even how we understand our existence.
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What qualifies you to be life coach?
Journalist Rachel Monroe joins us to talk about the for-profit Life Coach School, the students who chose that path, and the pitfalls they encountered upon entering the largely unregulated profession.
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One way to save our forests? Move them.
Journalist Lauren Markham joins us to discuss “assisted species migration,” or moving tree populations to save them from extinction.
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Why we can’t stand humiliation
Essayist and author Vivian Gornick joins us to discuss why humiliation sticks with us long after the incident that brought it on.
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