Built during WWII, the world’s first electronic computer, the ENIAC, was an engineering marvel. But at 80 ft long and 6 ft tall it was mute until it was brought to life by six young women mathematicians who figured out how to program it.
You need a microscope to see them, but tardigrades aren’t only nature’s ultimate survivors – they hold secrets that may make vaccines more available and help astronauts live in space.
The renowned expert on how babies learn about the world through curiosity and exploration is now collaborating with artificial intelligence researchers to make AI systems smarter by being more like children.
The NASA engineer piggybacked a tiny spacecraft on the giant new moon rocket launched just last month. His spacecraft was to spread gossamer wings and sail to an asteroid. But Les Johnson’s dreams are of sailing people to the stars.
Kate watched up close as Facebook struggled to moderate its content. And that makes her the perfect guest to unravel the chaos surrounding Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
The dynamic couple is writing, producing and acting in hit movies and TV series all while being the parents of two daughters. Alan wonders if this requires special communication skills!
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 actors Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone; programmer and leader in internet law Kathy Kleiman; and NASA technologist Les Johnson.
In her riveting memoir, A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman, Lindy Elkins-Tanton writes of the unconventional path she has taken to becoming the leader of a deep space mission that may reveal secrets of a place we can never visit – the core of our own planet.
Too many of us instinctively feel that a quarter pound hamburger is bigger than a third of a pound. And that’s just one of the mistakes we make in too quickly sizing up situations — sometimes jumping to disastrous conclusions.
The philosopher's kids were asking surprisingly deep questions, so Scott Hershovitz was inspired to write a book, subtitled Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids. Their adventures are surprisingly entertaining.
Neuroscientist Greg Berns, who scanned dogs' brains to find out if they love their humans, now has a new book, The Self Delusion, that challenges what we humans know about ourselves.
Decades of research with thousands of couples have enabled husband and wife John and Julie Gottman to predict whether relationships will prosper – or wither. And why.
After exactly predicting the almost unprecedented damage Ian would cause, climate scientist Kate Marvel argues the time for questioning the role of global warming in triggering extreme weather events is over. The case is closed. It’s time for action.
Physician Jay Baruch has learned from experience that diagnosing a patient in the emergency room requires more than clinical tests. It requires listening to their story.
How was Harvey Weinstein able to continue his abuse of women for so long – over four decades? Journalist Ken Auletta explores the enabling “culture of silence” in his book Hollywood Ending.
Combining his passion for music with his ability to peer inside the brain as it’s working, neuroscientist Charles Limb finds that creativity needs reasoning to get out of the way.
Head of the National Institutes of Health for 13 years and now interim science advisor to President Biden, Francis Collins is that rarity in the scientific community – an outspoken evangelical Christian. For him, science is “getting a glimpse of God’s mind.”
The actors Alfred Molina and Victor Garber and Alan reminisce about the play that first brought them together 24 years ago – an experience that changed their lives.
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 neuroscientist Charles Limb, philosopher Scott Hershovitz, and former director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
A high school dropout who went on to create the immensely popular YouTube channel Kurtzgesagt (In a Nutshell) ignites curiosity about science in unique ways.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
