Curiosity. Obsessions. Serial. Hermaphroditic snails. The “shape” of a radio show. When you sit down with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, creators and cohosts of the innovative, hugely popular podcast Radiolab, you never know where the conversation will lead. As millions of listeners know, Abumrad and Krulwich regularly blur the boundaries between storytelling, science, and philosophy in their sound-rich show, which airs on more than 450 NPR stations around the country. Hold That Thought’s Clai...
Jun 17, 2015•34 min
While Shakespeare wrote his plays, English theater itself was changing. The first actual theaters like the Globe were built, so companies could perform in places built soley for performance rather than marketplaces, pubs, or inns. Instead of religious and morality plays, writers brought politics, race, and class issues to the stage for the first time in London, which made authorities wary. Musa Gurnis, an associate professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, explains what early m...
Jun 09, 2015•14 min
Almost 500 years after William Shakespeare lived and wrote, students are still studying his work, and actors are performing his plays to packed theaters around the world. What keeps us coming back to his texts? Why has Shakespeare's work lived on when so many other great writers have been abandoned? As a sneak peak of the series to come, all of the participants of "Summer with the Bard" share their answers and perspectives on this tricky question.
Jun 01, 2015•17 min
After talking with Shakespeare Festival St. Louis about their current production of Antony and Cleopatra, I decided to meet up with Roman historian Karen Acton at Washington University in St. Louis to get a sense of the real people behind the legend. Together, we look back at Plutarch's The Life of Antony, which William Shakespeare used to write his play, and the texts that survive about the lovers from their contemporaries, rivals, and ancient Roman writers.
May 25, 2015•15 min
Shakespeare is not just in the theater and the classroom anymore. In St. Louis at least, you can find performances of the Bard's work in Forest Park and in the streets of your own neighborhood, thanks to the efforts of Shakespeare Festival St. Louis. Bruce Longworth, the organization's associate artistic director, and Mike Donahue, the director of this year's Shakespeare in the Park performance, come together to talk about the Shakespeare Festival's many projects and to share their insights into...
May 18, 2015•14 min
As managing director of the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Emre Toker has encountered many innovative ideas for products and businesses - some of which succeed, most of which do not. In addition to running the Skandalaris Center, Toker himself has founded or co-founded five companies. Here, he discusses his own experiences as an investor and entrepreneur and explains some of the common pitfalls that keep innovators from bringing their ideas to life.
May 14, 2015•24 min
As director of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University, William Powderly believes that in order to be innovative and find useful solutions to global health challenges, effective partnerships are key. But how do these partnerships form, and what types of partnerships are most effective? To continue our collaboration with the graduate student group ProSPER, graduate student Kuan-lin Huang interviews Powderly about the importance of working with teams both around the world and acro...
May 06, 2015•28 min
Barak Cohen has some words of wisdom for the future biologists of the world: "If you’re doing this to get rich, you’re going to be disappointed. If you’re doing this to get famous, you’re going to be doubly disappointed. The reason to do a PhD in biology is because you’re fascinated by biology." As Cohen and graduate students like Shelina Ramnarine know, being a professional scientist is typically not glamorous. It involves hard work and stress - often over funding. To continue our Where's My Je...
Apr 30, 2015•23 min
Psychology graduate student Lameese Eldesouky has noticed a trend in research. In some cases, scientists in fields like genetics or biology have an easier time getting funding than researchers who study topics that are less easy to put into numbers, like relationships. In this episode, Eldesouky interviews professor Sarah Gehlert about her thoughts and experiences bridging the divide between the social sciences and the life or physical sciences. Gehlert, who has led cross-disciplinary research e...
Apr 23, 2015•22 min
Ever wonder why innovations in areas like health care and energy always seem just over the horizon, instead of already here? You're not alone. At Washington University in St. Louis, graduate students wrestling with this question created the "Where's My Jetpack?" speaker series to shed light on barriers to innovation. Rebecca Lowdon, cofounder of the graduate student group ProSPER, and Kimberly Curtis, assistant dean for graduate student affairs, discuss the creation of ProSPER, the "Where's My J...
Apr 16, 2015•17 min
Throughout our series "Into the Earth," we've heard how Earth science topics cross between different disciplines like geology, physics, and chemistry. This has been true for postdoctoral research associate Steven Chemtob, whose recent research looks closely at a type of rock called banded iron formations. These rocks were created some 2.5 billion years ago, before there was oxygen in Earth's atmosphere and oceans. To understand how rocks like these formed, researchers like Chemtob have to approa...
Apr 09, 2015•9 min
Michael Wysession, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and contributor to the Next Generation Science Standards, continues his commentary from last week's podcast about science education. When the NGSS were released in 2013, state governments reacted to lessons about climate change in varying - and sometimes surprising - ways. In the second of two episodes featuring Wysession, he discusses the intersection of politics, education, and what scientists understand about Earth's clima...
Apr 02, 2015•10 min
Ever wonder why some subjects are taught in high school while others are not, or why students spend so much time memorizing facts? According to geophysicist Michael Wysession, science curricula in the US are based on standards that are more than 120 years old, and being stuck in the past has had serious consequences. Wysession, the Earth and space science writing team leader for the Next Generation Science Standards, believes in a new approach to science education.
Mar 26, 2015•11 min
Aubreya Adams, a postdoctoral researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, describes the Cameroon Volcanic Line as "one of the most interesting features in Africa that most people have never heard of." These volcanoes are something of a mystery, even to geologists - nobody knows exactly how they were created. However, Adams' research is shedding light on the puzzle. Here she discusses her findings and shares some of the process behind seismology fieldwork.
Mar 20, 2015•13 min
Deep under the ocean, enormous tectonic plates push against one another and spread apart. Shawn Wei, a doctoral student and McDonnell Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis, wants to understand what's really going on down there. Deep in the Pacific Ocean, how do rock, magma, and water interact? To find out, Wei analyzed data collected at the famous Lau Basin, one of the most geologically active places on Earth - and his results surprised all the experts. Here, Shawn describes his discover...
Mar 06, 2015•12 min
In his rock deformation laboratory here at Washington University in St. Louis, Phil Skemer applies huge amounts of heat and pressure to rock samples. Crushing rocks may sound just like fun, but he and his team are seeking answers to fundamental questions about how Earth works. Why does our planet have plate tectonics, when neighbors like Venus do not? To look for clues, Skemer uses - and builds - instruments that replicate the intense conditions found deep in the interior of the Earth.
Feb 25, 2015•13 min
For thousands of years, Chinese New Year has been celebrated in the spring to mark the beginning of a new lunar year. Traditions surrounding this festival have varied across time and cultures - here at Washington University in St. Louis, they include the student-run Lunar New Year Festival. To commemorate the occasion this year, Linchei Letty Chen, associate professor of Chinese language and literature, shares personal memories from new year's festivals she experienced growing up in Taiwan.
Feb 19, 2015•7 min
Mentioning the word "physics" brings to mind things like gravity, relativity, mass and volume. Rarely do we think about how these principles affect the inner workings of our own bodies. This week, Jim Miller, professor of physics, medicine, and biomedical engineering at Washington University, talks about the 'physics' of 'physiology' and explains how cardiologists and doctors use physics in their every day work.
Feb 11, 2015•11 min
Before becoming the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was a successful lawyer in Virginia. His legal training influenced the way he thought about government and politics, yet this earlier part of his career has largely been ignored by historians. David Konig, professor of history and law at Washington University in St. Louis, has spent years analyzing the complex legal notes and papers that tell the story of Jefferson's time as an attorney. He is currently wri...
Feb 05, 2015•10 min
In 1913, Poetry magazine published Ezra Pound's "A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste." The piece offered would-be poets such memorable advice as "don’t imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music" and "don’t retell in mediocre verse what has already been done in good prose." A hundred years later, acclaimed literary scholar Marjorie Perloff, the recipient of the Washington University's 2014 International Humanities Medal, put her own spin on Pound's famous guidelines. Perloff sha...
Jan 29, 2015•9 min
According to some estimates, just 6 percent of mothers in Peru wash their hands before preparing food. Is it possible that theater could help change this statistic? Art can surely offer personal comfort and emotional healing, but can it influence public health? By helping to develop the Arts for Behavior Change (ABC) program in Lima, Peru, Boston University music professor André de Quadros sought to answer these questions. In his research, teaching, and performances around the world, de Quadros ...
Jan 22, 2015•7 min
Five months after the death of Michael Brown, the community of Ferguson, Missouri, continues to work toward healing and define common goals - in many cases, with the help of religious leaders and institutions. Laurie Maffly-Kipp, professor of religion and politics at Washington University in St. Louis, reflects on the role of faith and church leadership in social and political movements, both in Ferguson and throughout American history.
Jan 14, 2015•9 min
Dr. Michael Friedlander, professor emeritus of physics at Washington University in St. Louis, describes how using historical writings to calculate when future eclipses will take place has revealed new questions about the earth's rotation which scientists are still puzzling over.
Dec 23, 2014•4 min
The Winter Solstice is on December 21 and marks the shortest day of the year, which was once a very important day to many cultures. In fact, there are thousands of structures across the globe, including the impressive Stonehenge, built by our early ancestors to predict the equinoxes and solstices. So why did they make all this effort? Michael Friedlander, a professor emeritus of physics, and John Kelly, a senior lecturer in archaeology, both at Washington University in St. Louis, introduce us to...
Dec 18, 2014•22 min
Hayrettin Yücesoy, professor of Islamic and Arabic studies at Washington University in St. Louis, takes us back to the political and theological debates of 9th-century Baghdad. Scholars later claimed that in the medieval Islamic world, religion and politics fit neatly together. However, as Yücesoy explains, the historical reality was much more complicated. Religious scholars, political leaders, and even elite anarchists all had competing ideas about the relationship between Muslim faith and poli...
Dec 11, 2014•9 min
Should fringe groups, even offensive groups like the Ku Klux Klan, be allowed to have a voice in American politics? Since the 1950s, social scientists have recognized that very religious people are more likely to answer "no" to this type of question. In other words, religion and political intolerance often go hand-in-hand. But why is this the case? Political scientist James Gibson discusses the intersections between faith and intolerance and explains why, though these ideas can often connect, ha...
Dec 04, 2014•10 min
Following the recent grand jury decision to not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting death of Michael Brown, protests and vandalism erupted in Ferguson and nearby St. Louis, Missouri. Rafia Zafar, professor of English, African and African-American Studies, and American Culture Studies, has written about protests in the civil rights movement and how, surprisingly, food and the sharing of meals played a symbolic role in that struggle. For activists such as Anne Moody, the ...
Nov 25, 2014•5 min
Guided by a passionate belief that the arts are for everyone, music professor André de Quadros has conducted research in over 40 countries and, closer to his home base in Boston, for the past two years has been teaching classes in two Massachusetts prisons. De Quadros, who will conduct a special performance of the Washington University Choirs as part of the Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program, walks us through his experiences in prison education and shares his conviction that all humans are m...
Nov 20, 2014•11 min
What can the history of one Broadway song reveal about American race relations? In Who Should Sing Ol' Man River?: The Lives of an American Song, now available through Amazon and Oxford University Press, musicologist Todd Decker explores how one show tune has been shaped and reshaped over time. Decker joined Hold That Thought to share how "Ol' Man River" transformed from a Broadway ballad into a dance ditty, an activist anthem, and more.
Nov 12, 2014•11 min
The results from the 2014 midterm elections are in, and Republicans stole the show. On the national scene, the GOP gained 15 seats in the House of Representatives and took control of the Senate for the first time since 2006. As predicted, conservative Christian voters played a significant role in these outcomes. Yet despite the recent focus on the political power of Evangelicals, the influence of liberal Protestantism may be more present in American culture and politics than you think. Historian...
Nov 06, 2014•10 min
