Near the end of STS-125 , NASA’s final space shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope back in 2009, bad weather in Florida initially stopped the seven-member team from returning to Earth. The two-day delay that followed presented the astronauts with some unusual but much needed downtime. So what did they do with it? Looked out the windows. “I liked to listen to music and watch the world go by,” said Megan McArthur, a mission specialist on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. “It was pretty awesome.”...
May 04, 2018•20 min
Let’s be real: life can be hectic sometimes. You don’t need to tell that to Amy Schumer and Aidy Bryant, two of the nation’s top female comedians. Who better to kick off our new project, Power Up ? For the next few months, we're asking fascinating people how they set themselves up for success in an exhausting world. Knitting? Bowling? Researching the presence of alternate dimensions? “I literally will say to myself out loud in the mirror, like, ‘You got this, bitch,’” Schumer tells Nerdette host...
Apr 27, 2018•18 min
Here at Nerdette we’ve been thinking a lot about how much the world can wear us down. Which has led us to a very important question: How do so many successful, inspiring people have the time and energy to be so successful and inspiring? Power Up is a new project where we ask fascinating people how they set themselves up for success in what can be an exhausting world. How do amazing (non-robot) humans recharge their (hypothetical) batteries? We want to know! Because we all have the same number of...
Apr 20, 2018•3 min
Tomi Adeyemi is the 24-year-old author of 'Children of Blood and Bone,' a new young adult novel that — in terms of pop culture blockbusters — could be on par with 'The Hunger Games' or 'Harry Potter.' The book, the first in a West African-inspired fantasy series, hit shelves earlier this month — more than a year after the movie rights were picked up by Fox 2000. Adeyemi tells Nerdette that part of her motivation to write the book stemmed from racist reactions to 'The Hunger Games' movies. “There...
Mar 16, 2018•35 min
As a four-year old in Juneau, Alaska, Nerdette host Greta Johnsen was diagnosed with an eye condition known as "Best disease." That name is a misnomer for several reasons — the big one being that "Best disease" causes premature macular degeneration — but curiously it happens to be among the best diseases for experimenting with CRISPR, a genetic engineering tool that can be used to edit DNA. This very special episode of Nerdette follows Greta, her father, and Dr. Bruce Conklin, the scientist who'...
Mar 09, 2018•32 min
Anna Deavere Smith might be best known for her acting roles on NBC’s The West Wing and Showtime’s Nurse Jackie . But she’s also one of the most prolific playwrights of “documentary-style theater,” where she uses verbatim interviews as source material in hopes of pushing her audience toward “an adjustment in the way that they think.” Her latest work is a one-woman show called Notes From The Field , which was recently released on HBO . It examines how minority students living in poverty often end ...
Mar 02, 2018•31 min
If you’re looking for a way to combat the online trolls and bots fomenting unrest in the U.S., comedian Negin Farsad might have a solution for you. “I guess if I were to name it, it’s a philosophy called ‘being aggressively delightful,’” she tells us. Farsad, an Iranian-American Muslim, is the co-host of the podcast Fake the Nation , the author of the book How to Make White People Laugh , and sometimes you can hear her on our very own WBEZ as a panelist for NPR’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! She t...
Feb 23, 2018•29 min
Ilene Chaiken has been a showrunner for TV hits like Fox’s Empire, an executive producer for Hulu’s The Handmaid's Tale, and a writer, producer, and director for Showtime’s The L Word in the mid-2000s. In other words, she’s a boss. “I don’t like the word that much,” Chaiken said on Nerdette. “I mean, I like it as in, ‘Oh, she’s a boss.’ You know, ‘She’s a badass. She’s a boss.’ But I don’t like the kind of hierarchical aspect of it.” Chaiken talked with Nerdette co-hosts Tricia Bobeda and Greta ...
Feb 16, 2018•25 min
Olympians and experts on the science of fear, the physics of sliding down ice super duper fast, and the feminist fight to get women into more sports. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
Feb 09, 2018•27 min
When Teresa Woodruff started working for a biotech company fresh out of graduate school, her employer revealed that the first studies for a new heart attack treatment had been performed on 50,000 men. “And so I kinda raised my hand and said, ‘That’s interesting. Where are all the women?” Today, Teresa is an expert in ovarian biology and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University in Chicago. We ask her why so many prescription drugs were tested only on men for so many dec...
Feb 02, 2018•25 min
Comedian John Hodgman, longtime fan of the lovingly-reviled Swedish spirit called Malört, tells Nerdette , “I’m fascinated with things that are still regional in an increasingly non-regional country.” He also calls the disagreeable beverage "“a delightful, heady blend of pencil shavings and shame.” Nerdette 's Tricia Bobeda talked with Hodgman about his new book, Vacationland , before inviting in Sam Mechling, director of marketing for Jeppson's Malört, to better help us all understand this uniq...
Dec 08, 2017•29 min
Jennifer Egan won a Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. Her most recent novel, Manhattan Beach, was among 10 works of fiction long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award. Not too shabby, right? But Egan told Greta that an early draft of Manhattan Beach was so bad she almost scrapped the whole thing. “I probably came as close to abandoning this as I have to any project I’ve worked on,” she said. On this week's Nerdette , Egan explains why things got rough, how she p...
Dec 01, 2017•28 min
“I think it’s going to last more than a moment,” said the celebrated author on this week’s Nerdette . “But how much more than a moment, it remains to be seen." Nerdette co-host Greta Johnsen talks with author Margaret Atwood about the recent TV adaptations of her novels Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale , how her take on feminism has changed in recent years, and what needs to happen to make sure the “Harvey Weinstein moment” isn’t just a moment. Plus, we explore one of Atwood's nerd obsessions...
Nov 22, 2017•26 min
Daveed Diggs says starring in the hit musical Hamilton opened a lot of doors for him. One of those doors? Meeting hip hop legend Busta Rhymes. “Like, I can text Busta Rhymes right now. That? That is a crazy thing to me.” Diggs stopped by WBEZ to talk with Greta about his first feature film, Wonder, out in theaters Friday. They also talk about Hamilton, his ABC TV series The Mayor , and his rap group Clipping. Note: In the audio of this week’s episode, we state that a groundnut is “an acorn that ...
Nov 17, 2017•28 min
Knitting can be dangerous. Just ask author, scholar, and (of course) knitter Eve Ewing. She explains what she calls “the sweater curse” to Nerdette hosts Tricia Bobeda and Greta Johnsen. They also discuss the impact of the late music icon Prince, the rise of Afrofuturism, and why Ewing can’t wait to get off social media. Plus, an excerpt from Ewing's new book of poetry Electric Arches . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-...
Nov 10, 2017•32 min
In her seminal work on 'Muppet Theory,' Slate reporter Dahlia Lithwick once wrote that "every living human" can be categorized as either a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet. On this super-special Supreme Court edition of Nerdette , lifelong SCOTUS-nerd and Nerdette host Tricia Bobeda asks Lithwick to apply her Unified Theory of Muppet Types to each Supreme Court Justice. The results are pure madness! Then Greta talks with Bryant Johnson, who is Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's personal ...
Nov 03, 2017•32 min
Like the Flintstones meeting the Jetsons, Betty and Veronica taking down the Predator alien, and Sabrina the teenage witch dating Eric Matthews on Boy Meets World , nothing beats an epic crossover. That’s why Nerdette hosts Greta Johnsen and Tricia Bobeda sat down with Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow, hosts of CALL YOUR GIRLFRIEND , the premiere podcast for long-distance besties everywhere. They talked friendship, feminism, and bodily fluids before playing a Newlywed -esque game to determine which...
Oct 27, 2017•31 min
It’s a "dinner and a TV show" kind of night for Nerdette this week. We talk to Jane the Virgin actress Yael Grobglas about what it’s like to play your own twin and creating a villain who people love to hate. Then Iron Chef winner and Chopped judge Alex Guarnaschelli joins us to help dive into Grobglas’ obsession with food. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Oct 19, 2017•30 min
To celebrate the arrival of Star Trek: Discovery , we decided to talk to the biggest Trekkie we know: On The Media co-host Brooke Gladstone. She told us about her all-time favorite characters, why science fiction is so good at capturing a moment in time, and where Star Trek-beginners might want to get started. Oh yeah, and what better way to keep the party going then by calling up Star Trek legend Kate Mulgrew? Captain Janeway herself helped us talk through some of Brooke’s favorite episodes, in...
Oct 13, 2017•34 min
In a conversation with Nerdette host and known Whovian Tricia Bobeda, Alex Kingston discusses her role on ‘Doctor Who’ as fan-favorite River Song, which helped pave the way for the show’s first female Doctor. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
Sep 22, 2017•30 min
Nadia Sirota is Juilliard-trained violist who hosts Meet The Composer , a podcast that shifts the conversation around classical music by featuring interviews with modern-day composers. She’s also worked with artists ranging from Kesha to Paul Simon. Plus, she explains how being on tour led to a love of aquariums, and Nerdette connects her with the Senior Curator of Fishes at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.c...
Sep 15, 2017•25 min
It might seem increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction these days, but Studio 360 host and author Kurt Andersen says the dilemma is old — and one that’s exacerbated by unique characteristics of America. Oh, and cosplay and the Internet. Andersen sat down with Nerdette to discuss his new book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History . He's also obsessed with maps, so we put him on the phone with geographical expert Anne Knowles, who told us all to get lost — in the l...
Sep 08, 2017•26 min
Tricia, Greta, Peter and about 400 wildlings met up in Chicago’s Lincoln Square for one last recap of Season 7. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the DANK House on Wednesday, August 30. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
Sep 04, 2017•45 min
As the 22nd United States Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith wants to make poetry more accessible to people across the country. So WBEZ’s Greta Johnsen put Smith to the ultimate test by having her analyze this summer’s hottest hit, “Despacito” featuring Justin Bieber. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Sep 01, 2017•31 min
Let’s be real: The true hero of this episode was that shot of Jon Snow’s butt. A lot of action went down in this season finale and not all of it involved those buns. The zombie summit went off the rails a little bit, Sansa dispenses some sweet justice, Theon discovers his super power, and the Night King has a 'Mr. Gorbachev' moment. Nerdette ’s Greta Johnsen and Tricia Bobeda review all of that and more with Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! ’s Peter Sagal See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privac...
Aug 28, 2017•58 min
As expected, Jon Snow’s Mission: Impossible turns into Mission: D’oh , Dany weighs in on her nickname, Arya tries to knock Bran down as the Stark family creep, and the Night King gets a new pet. Nerdette ’s Greta Johnsen and Tricia Bobeda team up with Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me host Peter Sagal to recap all of that in more in this week’s podcast. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Aug 21, 2017•1 hr
Everest climber, guide and mountaineer Melissa Arnot Reid is the first American woman to ever summit Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen — a feat only 7 women worldwide have accomplished. Arnot Reid joins Nerdette host Tricia Bobeda to talk about the mindset of a high-altitude climber, what happens when you have snot frozen to your face, and how to train your body to reach Everest’s peak. Plus, Arnot Reid reveals her secret obsession with true crime stories, so we bring in former FBI Profi...
Aug 18, 2017•32 min
Family barbecues take on a new meaning in this week’s Game of Thrones, and it may have some major consequences for Dany. In this week’s recap, Greta Johnsen, Tricia Bobeda, and Peter Sagal chew the fat over the fate of the Tarly family, Cersei’s big surprise for Jamie, Samwell’s late-night library raid, Jon Snow adding “zombie hunter” to his resume, and the return of another lovable bastard. They also answer listener questions and offer their predictions about what might happen in the last two (...
Aug 14, 2017•59 min
Nerdette host Greta Johnsen reveals that she has a secret nerdery: she used to play the bassoon. So this week, in one, grand, bassoon-filled extravaganza, Johnsen and co-host Tricia Bobeda bring back the bassoon. First, they talk with culture writer and bassoonist Eileen Reynolds about the history of the bassoon. Then, they call up the self-proclaimed “Bassoon King” Rainn Wilson. Plus, Chicago Philharmonic Principal Bassoonist John Gaudette plays a familiar tune. See Privacy Policy at https://ar...
Aug 11, 2017•32 min
The only thing that could have made the final scene of this week’s Game of Thrones better is if Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” started playing (but covered by Ed Sheeran). In episode four’s “The Spoils of War,” we get one of the baddest, most heavy metal scenes with Dany charging into Jaime’s army while riding on top of one of her dragons. So for this week’s recap, we asked Tricia, Greta, and Peter what song they’d listen to while riding a dragon into battle. The trio also weighs in on Bran’s p...
Aug 07, 2017•57 min
