Deborah Tannen, author of the hugely influential best seller, You Just Don’t Understand, swaps stories with Alan about conversations that went wrong; and talks about her new book, Finding My Father: His Century-Long Journey from World War I Warsaw and My Quest to Follow Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Embedding themselves in a fundamentalist Mormon community, journalists Sarah Ventre and Ash Sanders wove together the stories of both those in thrall to its all-powerful prophet and others seeking escape. They take Alan behind the scenes of their gripping and evocative podcast Unfinished: Short Creek. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Propelled by events in her own life, Reisa Sperling is working hard to defeat this disease that cruelly destroys brains and crushes families. As we live longer lives, more of us are in danger of contracting Alzheimer’s. But Reisa’s work is exciting. And so are the signs that we’re making progress. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
The British actor, Sanjeev Bhaskar, started his career later in life and is glad he did. He didn’t try to portray human experience until he actually had some. It’s led to useful wisdom, both on the stage and off. Fans of Masterpiece Theatre will recognize him as the co-star of the crime drama Unforgotten. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
They walk among us. Some percentage of the genes of many modern humans have been handed down to us from Neanderthals. Alan, who has about 2% of those genes, is more than a little excited to hear from expert Rebecca Wragg Sykes how Neanderthals looked, lived and loved. Her new book is Kindred. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
First impressions are supposed to tell us a lot, and they often do. Problem is, as Malcolm Gladwell explains in his latest book Talking to Strangers, sometimes what they tell us is wrong – dangerously wrong. Even deadly. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
A passionate astronomer and a vivid writer, Emily Levesque describes a life of watching what’s out there in the universe so vividly, you may want to run out and get a telescope. Her new book is The Last Stargazers. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Recently nominated as the first presidential science advisor with a seat in the cabinet, Eric Lander talks with Alan about his leading role of the Human Genome Project and how the insights it’s revealed into diseases as different as Covid-19 and cancer are leading to treatments, and even cures, that he never imagined possible. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
When we see a magic trick, is the magician fooling us, or are we fooling ourselves? Penn Jillette, the talking half of the magic team Penn and Teller, tells Alan how tricks are a test of how we process reality. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
We not only need to sleep, we need to dream, too. Robert Stickgold explains why we must go to the movies every night when we sleep – it’s to make sense of our waking world. And it’s all in his book When Brains Dream. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
They did their military service, not in Vietnam, but in the world's largest research hospital – and over the years their work has saved millions of lives. You’ve probably never heard this story, even though someday yours may be a life that is saved by the Soldiers of Science. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
An in-depth preview of the upcoming eleventh season of Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
Two old friends who have played together on stage and on camera have a chat. And not only discover new things about each other’s approach to acting, but also share their joy of connecting on stage – and the role the audience plays in those moments of spontaneity that make a live performance magical. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid
A leading scientist who studies how genes make bodies, Cassandra Extavour almost became a musician and still sings professionally. She works with an extraordinary insect gene called oskar. Hundreds of millions of years ago oskar borrowed a fragment of a bacterial DNA that made sexual reproduction possible in the vast majority of animals– including you, me, and scientists who sing. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid...
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
