Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - podcast cover

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Alan Aldawww.siriusxm.com
Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country. You'll know many of the people in these conversations – they are luminaries in our culture. Some you may not know. But what links them all is their powerful ability to relate and communicate. It's something we need now more than ever.
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Episodes

Nita Farahany: The Battle For Your Brain

Her new book takes a deep dive into neurotechnology – the ability to read and record your brain waves. While there are many potential benefits – Nita herself uses a simple device to help control her migraines – she is alarmed at the prospect of others, be they employers or governments, being able to peer into your mind.

Mar 21, 202342 min

Liev Schreiber: The Ukrainian Connection

Inspired by his Ukrainian grandfather, Liev has launched a campaign to fund humanitarian relief for the people of Ukraine. His several trips there included a meeting with a fellow actor, now president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Mar 14, 202342 min

Alan chats with the bots

Mike Farrell makes a guest appearance to perform with Alan the first new MASH scene in 40 years – a scene written by a chatbot. Most of Alan’s other guests are themselves chatbots, including one that falsely claims to be a person and another that insults him horribly when Alan seeks advice.

Mar 07, 202344 min

Kevin Kelly: Help Wanted – AI Whisperers

Alan is a little obsessed with chatbots, and he’s become only too aware that these products of artificial intelligence can become seriously – even dangerously – stupid. What’s urgently needed, argues tech guru Kevin Kelly, are people with a particular talent – the ability to coax chatbots into being useful – AI whisperers.

Feb 28, 202342 min

Sy Montgomery: For the love of hawks… and turtles

Her almost uncanny ability to connect with creatures from rhinos to octopuses led her to a love affair with one of the planet's swiftest and fiercest predators. Meanwhile Sy Montgomery has been in a nurturing relationship with a collection of creatures who are the hawks’ polar opposites – turtles.

Feb 21, 202341 min

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 20 trailer

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 naturalist Sy Montgomery; comedian Judd Apatow; and founding executive editor of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly.

Feb 14, 202337 min

Cassandra Quave: Hunting Plants That Heal

A childhood illness robbed her of a leg, but that hasn’t stopped her from trekking through jungles, swamps and mountains in search of medicinal plants. Her hope: that her discoveries may lead to new medications to counter the rising threat of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

Feb 07, 202340 min

Sara Seager: Is There Life Out There?

Pioneering a new way to search for signs of life on planets circling other suns, Sara Seager battled through a devastating personal loss to see her method vindicated by NASA’s powerful new space telescope.

Jan 31, 202341 min

Pamela Adlon: Getting Better All the Time

She wrote, produced, directed and starred in the hit series “Better Things” for five years. Nominated multiple times for multiple awards, she recently directed her first movie. She trades reminiscences with Alan, who’s known her since she was a kid.

Jan 24, 202340 min

Karen Bakker: The Sounds of Life

Her new book lets us eavesdrop on the chatter between creatures – even plants – that our ears can’t detect. And reveals how new technologies, including AI, are opening the possibility of our being able to converse with other animals.

Jan 17, 202340 min

Daniel Lubetzky: On a Mission to Spread Kindness

The founder of the multi-billion-dollar nutrition bar company KIND has rolled out "Starts With Us," a non-partisan movement working to overcome cultural extremism by fostering curiosity, compassion and courage as daily habits.

Jan 10, 202341 min

Thomas Boothby: On a Tough Little Guy With Secrets

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.

Dec 27, 202238 min

Alison Gopnik: Making AI more childlike

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.

Dec 20, 202241 min

Les Johnson: Sailing to the Stars

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.

Dec 13, 202241 min

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 19 trailer

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.

Nov 22, 202233 min

Lindy Elkins-Tanton: What’s at the Core?

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.

Nov 15, 202242 min

James Zimring: Fuzzy thinking and the Big Whopper

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.

Nov 08, 202243 min

Scott Hershovitz: Little Kids Asking Big Questions

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.

Nov 01, 202242 min

John and Julie Gottman: Welcome to the Love Lab

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.

Oct 18, 202241 min

Kate Marvel: Human fingerprints on Hurricane Ian

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.

Oct 11, 202241 min

Jay Baruch: In the ER, your story matters

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.

Oct 04, 202240 min

Ken Auletta: Power and Abuse in the Movie Business

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.

Sep 27, 202241 min

Charles Limb: To be Creative Don’t Think So Hard

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.

Sep 20, 202243 min

Francis Collins: Bridging Science and Faith

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.”

Sep 13, 202244 min

Molina, Garber and Alda: Together Again

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.

Sep 06, 202243 min

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 18 trailer

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

Aug 30, 202241 min
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