The author of The Handmaid's Tale and its sequel, The Testaments, lets us in on her process of storytelling, involving both a “panoramic view ” and rolling revisions: “I’m more of a downhill skier – just get to the end and then you can go back and see where you screwed up along the way, count the trees you’ve hit.” Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
In his new album, The Ever Fonky Lowdown, Wynton Marsalis offers a passionate musical take on what ails our democracy. His conversation with Alan also ranges over his early career, his dedication to education and why Louis Armstrong really was the greatest. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
In exploring the role that chance plays in our lives – and how to understand and control it – psychologist and author Maria Konnikova set out to learn how to play poker, a game she knew nothing about. She succeeded so well that she won hundreds of thousands of dollars on the professional poker circuit. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
As a 12-year-old, multiple Emmy winner Alan Zweibel decided that Rob in TV’s The Dick van Dyke show led the life he wanted to live. Since then he’s written for funny people from Borscht Belt comedians, to the cast of Saturday Night Live, to stars like Billy Crystal and Larry David. It’s all in his new book Laugh Lines. In a way, his life has been a history of modern comedy. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
She studies what may be the most disgusting molecule known to humankind. And that’s made Clara Sousa-Silva a key member of the team that may have detected life in the clouds of Venus. Her foul (and lethal) molecule has been discovered in those clouds – and the only current explanation for its presence is that it is being made by living organisms. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Having experienced 30 years of frustration since writing the first popular book setting out the facts of climate change, Bill McKibben is now hopeful that – maybe in the nick of time – there is enough momentum for action that the planet as we know it may be saved from destruction. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
It may not be what you think. With insights from studying unhappy students at Yale University, where she is a professor of psychology, Laurie Santos teaches Yale’s most popular class – and is now sharing those insights on how to be happier in her podcast, the Happiness Lab. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
John Lithgow talks with Alan about his new book of satirical verse and drawings – and the joys and challenges of writing satire at a time when events themselves can defy belief. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Six months after he first briefed Alan on the then novel coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci explains both why it turned out to be so unpredictable and dangerous and the gains science has made in understanding how to bring it under control. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Female mosquitoes need your blood to live and breed. So figuring out who among us attracts them and why can not only help in avoiding annoying bites but also help stop the spread of deadly diseases. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
The celebrated and beloved actress on her successful mission to help schoolkids use their brains better. And how they become better students and more collaborative classmates. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
The Kavli and Nobel Prize Laureate on his groundbreaking work finding out how our bodies ship vital molecules to where they are needed — enabling profound advances in medicine. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
What dogs and bonobos tell us about what has made humans survive and why we’d better not lose it. It’s not how fierce we are. On the contrary. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
The Kavli Prize Laureate on her research suggesting it may be possible to return aging and damaged brains to a state where they could learn as they did when young. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Reporting from the front lines of medical research with the with the skill of a storyteller while struggling to keep up with the outpouring of research on the coronavirus. “It’s like a firehose that we’re all trying desperately to drink out of.” Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Up until now, we’ve been smarter than our tools. But that might change drastically sooner than we know. Isn’t it time to think about that? Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
The two celebrated journalists explore the turbulent story, often forgotten, of women’s struggle to have the right to vote and what it means to us today. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
We invite Pardis back to hear her account from the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus. She’s a leader in scientific breakthroughs aimed at stopping its insidious ability to spread undetected. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
The President of MIT on how we can lead the world in technology again—and how he’s helping change the educational model so it can survive in the new world of at-home learning. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
The renowned researcher and author on emotional literacy and the strengths that lead to better relationships. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
His recent book Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, could hardly be more timely. And it has a fascinating twist, seeking links between how individuals deal with crises – with insights from his clinical psychologist wife – to how nations succeed or fail when confronted with a crisis. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Alan Guth is the man who put the bang in the Big Bang, when late one night he came up with the astonishing idea – astonishing even to him – that the universe grew from a fraction of an ounce into the entire cosmos in an incomprehensibly brief moment of time. His insight that night, the theory that became known as inflation, is now the foundation for ideas about the cosmos that are as astonishing as inflation itself, including the idea that an infinite number new universes are being created all t...
Alan talks with old friends Marlo and Phil about their interviews with 40 couples who have enjoyed long marriages. What did they find out about the happy marriages of other couples, and what did they find out about their own, as they approached their 40th anniversary? Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Jake Tapper can turn things around when he interviews politicians and government leaders. This time he does it by interviewing Alan, who usually would be interviewing him . It becomes a conversation about interviewing that throws light on how we all talk to one another. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Alan talks with the woman who’s been given the job of leading the fight to conquer all disease by 2100. They discuss whether it’s actually possible and how her life has led her from studying a tiny transparent worm to such a challenging task. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Steven Pinker and Alan explore the words we use that bind us together, even when asking someone to pass the guacamole. A conversation that explores the surprising ways we have of connecting through language – and why, despite our current crises, some things in the world really have become better. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Alan gets Loretta Swit and Mike Farrell on the horn to see how they’re doing during the lockdown. It’s like old times again. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
The co-inventor of the powerful gene editing tool called CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna describes for Alan her hopes for new treatments and possibly even cures for diseases that are today incurable. She also tells him about her efforts to make sure that ethical concerns over gene editing are addressed — and how she copes with having become a scientific superstar. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Alan checks out this year’s Kavli Prizes and discovers how figuring out why hot peppers are hot could lead to new pain killing drugs; how putting a tiny black hole in your gas tank would give you a mileage of a billion miles per gallon; and why giving a new generation of electron microscopes the ability to see atoms was a little like being able to see inside a baking cake while it’s still in the oven. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid...
He’s a Nobel and Kavli prizewinner for his role in what’s been described as one of humanity’s greatest scientific achievements – the detection of ripples in the fabric of space. He can also explain what that means! Kip Thorne is deeply committed to communicating science, even bringing it before the public by working with artists and filmmakers. Including, more than once, with Alan Alda. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid...
