There are a lot of comedians whose work I'm partial to, but I have a special place in my pantheon for Garry Shandling. He was funny, unsparing, compassionate, psychologically acute and epistemologically astute all at once, an uneasy combination of entertainer and truth-seeker. When I learned of his untimely death on March 24, like many fans I felt bereaved, and I sought out someone to talk to who loved his work as much as I do: Paul Provenza. Paul is a comedian and a sort of comedy curator, chronicler and catalyst, and he was responsible for one of Garry's more memorable public appearances, which I was fortunate enough to attend thanks to Paul. We talked about Garry the person and the performer – and the complicated relationship thereof.

If the news coverage of recently discovered gravitational waves left you with lingering questions, you've come to the right place. Theoretical physicist Anthony Aguirre, our go-to guy on all things general relativistic, provides some great insight into the details and subtleties that popular accounts ignored or glossed over.

Gwendolyn Mok may have flunked her first Juilliard audition at the age of 5, but that was just a speed bump en route to a distinguished recording and concert career. Gwen sees herself as a kind of medium, doing her best to channel the spirit and intentions of composers such as Brahms, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, and particularly Ravel. Her brand of originalism extends to playing historic pianos like those the composers themselves knew and wrote for, and Gwen demonstrated with some exquisite renditions on an 1868 Erard and 1871 Streicher as we talked about her life as a student, performer and teacher. Also discussed: her school days with Yo Yo Ma, apprenticing with Ravel's last living student, performing with Astor Piazzolla, driving the Silk Road in a 1940 Chevy, making mistakes in concert, and the best place to listen to a piano.

“As a black male in the United States,” says George Yancy, “to do philosophy in the abstract would be to deny the reality of my own existence.” Yancy grew up in a tough North Philadelphia housing project, where young men were far more likely to end up in early graves or jail than in academia. He beat the odds and now enjoys the status of a tenured professor at a major university, but he hasn't forgotten where he came from, or the racial realities that made his story so unlikely. George and I talked about his beginnings, becoming a philosopher and using his brand of "down to earth" philosophizing to explore the structure of blackness, whiteness and lived experience in a racialized society.

It's one thing to genetically modify an organism in the lab. It's another thing entirely to spread those modifications in the wild, altering whole populations or even species. A new technology, the “CRISPR gene drive,” promises to do just that, giving human beings an unprecedented ability to fine-tune the natural world and nudge evolution in new directions. Malaria-resistant mosquitoes? Lyme-blocking ticks? Those are just a few of the applications floated so far, but the possibilities are endless. I talked to molecular biologist and “evolutionary sculptor” Kevin Esvelt, who first proposed the CRISPR gene drive, about its potential, perils and steps to ensure that we use our new powers wisely. Topics covered include: The CRISPR revolution: fast, cheap gene editing Gene drives: CRISPR on auto-pilot Using gene drives to fight disease and suppress pests Safeguards, controls and oversight More evo-sculpting: Kevin's PACE system, harnessing viral evolution to create novel biomolecules Personally, I find the implications of gene drives to be fairly head-spinning. Imagine self-propagating genes that spread inexorably even when they offer no selective advantage – even when they're maladaptive! Of course, like a too-virulent pathogen, really maladaptive CRISPR drives might put themselves out of business by killing off their hosts, and selective pressures would favor mutations that incapacitate the drive, but still…

If you're going to tell cool stories in comic books, it helps to have had a colorful life and interesting friends. Dean Haspiel has had both. His dad was a writer, occasional street vigilante and confidante of Marilyn Monroe. Mom's pals included Shelly Winters and the young Bobby De Niro, who was one of Dean's babysitters. Dean worked with Harvey Pekar and Jonathan Ames on their respective graphic novels, and won an Emmy for his title work on Jonathan's HBO sitcom "Bored to Death." He was also the inspiration for Ray the cartoonist, played on BTD by Zack Galifianakis. We talked about all of the above, plus Dean's beginnings as a comic artist, his love of superheroes and his own hero complex, his residencies at the Yaddo artist colony, and his latest comic memoir, "Beef with Tomato."

Jonathan Gottschall's career as a college English prof was on the rocks, and he was desperate to do something completely different. So in his late 30s he left the classroom for the cage, taking up mixed martial arts and training for an amateur bout. It was more than a mid-life escapade, though. Jonathan had some unresolved issues around bullying in his own youth, and wanted to better understand the relationship between violence and masculinity, including his own. We talked about MMA, male aggression and Jonathan's book "The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch," as well as his ill-fated stint as a literary scholar with an evolutionary bent.

"I was an obscure novelist and then I was given the keys to this production, and I had to learn on the spot.” And learn he did, helming HBO's "Bored to Death" for three hilarious seasons and now "Blunt Talk" on Starz. Jonathan Ames describes the delights and terrors of television auteur-dom, the dubious distinction of being TV's first showrunner to go Full Monty, being manhandled by Zack Galifianakis, his friendship with Jason Schwartzman, the comedic excellence of Patrick Stewart and more, while making decorous use of euphemism.

It's been called the "decline effect," "the proteus phenomenon," and "the reproducibility crisis": the startling realization that a lot of seemingly solid scientific research doesn't pan out under repeated testing. The latest blow to scientific confidence comes from the Reproducibility Project, which attempted to replicate 100 published psychology studies and found that, when the experiments were repeated, half or more failed to uphold the original findings. So is it time to start doubting the credibility of research in general? Stanford University psychologist and Reproducibility Project participant Mike Frank joined us to explain what the results really mean, misconceptions about statistical rigor in science, the various ways experimenters blunder and sometimes delude themselves, and the gradual, cumulative nature of scientific progress.

Cop shows and tough-on-crime rhetoric often depict a world so brutish that police have no choice but to play rough and kick butt, but Seth Stoughton says we've been misled. The former cop turned law professor and policing expert contends that civility, a cool head and patience are far more effective in fighting crime and reducing risks to the public and police than the warrior mentality getting so much emphasis these days in popular culture and some police departments. Seth and I talked about the psychology of police-civilian confrontations, alternatives to deadly force, and some recent cases where things went famously wrong, including the Walter Scott shooting, the Sandra Bland arrest and the McKinney pool party.

Huang Ruo's career wasn't his to choose. His fortune-teller grandfather and composer father did that for him, and at the age of 12 he was bundled off to a distant music conservatory in Shanghai as his mother wept. Sad as that may sound, it all worked out remarkably well. Huang Ruo's path eventually took him from China to the U.S., to Oberlin and Julliard, and today it's hard to imagine him as anything other than the prolific and exuberant composer he's become. His work draws on all the music he heard growing up in China and in the years since – from ancient ritual chants and folk songs to classical, rock and pop (both Chinese and western) – to create something that feels integral, vibrant and new. He's also a wonderful singer, as you'll hear in this very musical interview. I met Huang Ruo when he was in town for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and getting to know him and his work was a highlight of the festival for me. Here are some of the things we talked about as we listened to a selection of his incredibly varied oeuvre.

People suffering from Cotard's Syndrome think they're dead. Victims of body integrity identity disorder believe their own limbs don't belong to them, and schizophrenics feel their thoughts aren't their own. By chipping away at our sense of a unified, stable self, these and other mental conditions hint at how selfhood might be assembled in the first place. What exactly is a self, anyway? Is it the product of specific neural mechanisms, or perhaps a psych-social construct? Does it ever go entirely away? Science writer Anil Ananthaswamy examines the evidence from neuroscience along with theories of the self from psychology, philosophy and spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, in his new book "The Man Who Wasn't There: Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self."

The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music brings together some of the best and brightest composers working today. I spoke to three from this year's lineup as we listened to some of their pieces. Harpist/composer Hannah Lash confided her love of tuned percussion and hidden structure. Missy Mazzoli discussed her "River Rouge Transfiguration" – inspired by the iconic Ford auto plant–and "Vespers for a New Dark Age": secular music with sacred sources. Nico Muhly reflected on cartoon travelogues and Disneyfied gamelan in his piece "Wish You Were Here" and his "technical exercise with a heart of gold," "Étude #3" featuring violist Nadia Sirota.

Viewers of Joshua Oppenheimer's jaw-dropping documentary "The Act of Killing," about the men who conducted Indonesia's genocidal anti-communist purges in 1965, might well have concluded that it was an impossible act to follow. Yet its sequel is, if anything, even more accomplished and affecting. While "The Act of Killing" gave us a portrait of mass murderers refracted through their own anamorphic imaginations, The "Look of Silence" performs a kind of perspectival correction by introducing the victims' POV that was missing from the earlier film (and from public discourse in Indonesia). We follow Adi Rukun, whose brother was one of the massacred, as he confronts the killers and dares to speak the truth. That Adi happens to be an optometrist, who prescribes corrective lenses even as he restores moral clarity, is just one of many metaphorical harmonies that make "The Look of Silence" such a rich and layered experience. Joshua and I talked about the making of the movie, its visual and sonic poetry, how violence distorts the psyche, the possibility of reconciliation, and the resolve that kept him working during years of difficult filmmaking. Josh is uncommonly thoughtful and eloquent on these questions, and this interview is well worth a listen whether you've seen his films or not.

I used to think that the Civil War ended at Appomattox. But the next 150 years of conflict – including the events of recent months – make it clear how naive I was. Yale historian David Blight explains how the nation dropped the ball when it abandoned Reconstruction and set about reconstructing history itself, embracing some convenient myths and turning its back on civil rights and African Americans. In the second part of the show, Pulitzer prizewinner Tony Horwitz reflects on confederate nostalgia, the Lost Cause tradition and "How the South Lost the War but Won the Narrative.”

The recent case of Rachel Dolezal – the “black” activist outed as white – may have seemed novel, but she's actually part of an old tradition of racial passing in this country. How long has passing been going on and how has it changed over the years? What's it tell us about racial categories and color lines? Why are we so fascinated with passing stories? I spoke with historian Allyson Hobbs about her book A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life.

Sara Solovitch grew up playing classical piano, a dedicated student and aspiring performer. But she quit at 19, undone by chronic jitters. Thirty years later, she decided to face her old fears, start over and brave the concert stage again. She tells the story in her new book, "Playing Scared: A History and Memoir of Stage Fright." Sara and I discussed the psychology of stage fright, its sufferers and treatments, how perfectionism and pressure set us up for failure, and the culture of classical performance.

Astronomer Robert Kirshner is an expert in supernovae – those spectacular exploding stars that can outshine a galaxy. It's a specialty he chanced on in grad school, and his timing was perfect. The field was really taking off, and it was supernovae that would lead to the biggest cosmological surprise of the last 20 years: the revelation that mysterious "dark energy" os pushing the universe apart at faster and faster rates. Bob and I talked about his career, the discovery of dark energy and what it might mean for the future of the cosmos.

A century before the first electronic computers, there was the Analytical Engine, a giant, coal-powered mechanical brain. Sounds like a steampunk fantasy, but it was the real deal: a general-purpose computer capable not only of number-crunching but also logical operations. Not even its inventor, the brilliant and eccentric Victorian-era mathematician Charles Babbage, grasped its full potential. It was his friend and fellow visionary Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, who had that critical insight. Alas, though worked out in painstaking detail by Babbage, the Analytical Engine was never built. But now it's been drawn – at least parts of it – by the illustrator and animator Sydney Padua. Sydney's new book, "The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer," mixes comics, explanatory footnotes, historical documentation and some wonderful cartoon diagrams. It's a funny and absorbing portrait of one of history's great intellectual partnerships – and the magnificent machine that brought them together.

We know life is made of molecules, but how did those molecules come together in the first place? Was it more than a series of rare and highly improbable coincidences--the parts just falling into place? MIT biophysicist Jeremy England thinks so. He says that under the right circumstances, which aren't rare at all, matter tends naturally toward greater organization, complex structures and adaptive behavior, making life a likely, even inevitable result of physics. His theory of pre-biological evolution provides a much-needed complement to Darwinian biological evolution.

One of America's most prominent philosophers says his field has been tilting at windmills for nearly 400 years. Representationalism – the idea that we don't directly perceive objects in the world, only our mental images of them – has bedeviled philosophy ever since Descartes, and now it's mucking up neuroscience as well, John Searle alleges. He has long defended the “naïve” alternative – that our senses do give us direct access to reality – and he fires his latest salvo in his new book “Seeing Things as They Are.” John is well-known for his no-nonsense approach to philosophical problems and there was plenty of straight talk as we discussed his theory of perception, the subjective-objective divide, the scientific study of consciousness and his dog Tarski.

Kazuo Ishiguro returns to the show to talk about his first novel in 10 years. The Buried Giant may sound like fantasy fiction, with its ogres, dragon and nod to Arthurian legend, but if so it's fantasy in the same sense that Ishiguro's previous novel, Never Let Me Go was sci-fi: an exotic premise used to accentuate some stark realities of the human condition. Ish and I talked about memory and forgetting in the lives of couples and societies, the comforting lies we tell ourselves, decency as a small victory, samurai films and the right way to stage a sword fight.

It wasn't long after Einstein amazed the world with his theory of general relativity in 1915 that physicists were busily working out its more outlandish implications. And none freakier than the spacetime disruptions we now call black holes. Black holes have been making trouble for theorists ever since: putting ideas to the test, exposing gaps and contradictions, and forcing physics to search for new unifying principles beneath the rifts. The latest bit of black hole mischief is a set of paradoxes whose solution, some say, threatens one or more pillars of modern physics and may require a rethinking of general relativity itself.Cosmologist and relativist Anthony Aguirre, who so ably introduced us to GR in our two-part primer, returns to discuss the black hole information paradox and firewall hypothesis, which are fueling one of the hottest controversies in theoretical physics today. Anthony also provides an update on the BICEP2 experiment and the reported – now retracted – discovery of primordial gravity waves that created such a stir last year.

Eugene Robinson has been a body builder, disco dance instructor, streetfighter, bouncer, mixed-martial artist, rocker, author, journalist and actor. We talked about his early days fending off bullies in Brooklyn, training at martial arts, becoming a journalist, performing as frontman and occasional enforcer of audience decorum with the experimental rock band Oxbow, and learning to tango (his latest passion). Plus, working for Larry Flynt, acting in one of the worst movies ever, interviewing Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, and plenty of fight stories, along with some bits of fistic philosophy from Eugene's book "Fight: everything you ever wanted to know about ass-kicking but were afraid you'd get your ass kicked for asking."

Just as some of us are getting used to the idea of the multiverse, along comes Max Tegmark telling us that we're not thinking big enough. According to Max, there are actually multiple multiverses containing endless copies of and variations on the "pocket universe" we've quaintly come to think of as everything. And while it may sound like he's tripping, Max assures us that he's only high on mathematics and logic, following where they lead. In our tour of the multi-multiverse, he and I discussed the implications of infinite spacetime, eternal inflation, the quantum mechanical wave function, the many worlds interpretation and the idea that reality is at bottom mathematical.

Tweezing, shaving, waxing, corrosive chemicals, hormones, radiation, electrolysis, lasers and now the prospect of genetic engineering: human beings have gone to extreme — and sometimes suicidal — lengths to rid themselves of unwanted body hair. Whence the follicular fear and loathing? Why is a hairless body to die for? Rebecca Herzig examines the modern stigmatization of body hair — especially on women – and the vast arsenal of treatments arrayed against it – in her fascinating new book “Plucked: A History of Hair Removal.”

(From March 2014) Rebecca Goldstein says some of her best friends are “philosophy jeerers,” convinced that anything philosophers can do, scientists can do better. She begs to differ, and offers the grandaddy of Western philosophy as exhibit A. 21st-century America has a surprising amount in common with Athens c. 400 BCE, Rebecca says, and Plato still has a thing or two to teach us moderns. She shows how well the 2,400-year-old-man has aged by transporting him to our own times in her new book “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't go Away.” Rebecca and I talked about the world of the ancient Greeks, the death of Socrates, the relevance of Plato and what philosophy is good for. Plus a bonus segment: just how timely is Plato? Philosophical rapper Dr. Awkward makes the case in rhymes.

(From Feb 2014) Harry Greene is a much-admired natural historian and herpetologist with a soft spot for black-tailed rattlesnakes. He's spent years in the field studying venomous serpents, when not in the classroom or lab (he's currently a prof at Cornell; before that he was at UC Berkeley, where he both taught and curated the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology). Harry's a very thoughtful guy and serious writer, as evidenced in his new memoir Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art. We talked about his career, about field biology vs. theory and experiment, about the wonders of snakedom and some of his favorite rattlers (like “Superfemale 21”), and life and death in the natural and human worlds.

Cosmologist Anthony Aguirre and I continue our jaunt through General Relativity. Last week we presented some of the basics. This week, we talk about the evidence, the impacts and implications, including the cosmological constant, the expanding universe, gravity waves, time dilation, black holes, and spacetime singularities.

It was Einstein's greatest idea, and one of the most audacious leaps of scientific imagination ever. Much of what physicists know or think they know about space, time and the cosmos depends on it. But General Relativity is usually brushed over in pop sci accounts, because GR is considered too GD difficult for ordinary brains. Even on this scientifically-minded program, we've given it pretty cursory treatment. But not this time. I'm devoting two whole shows to the subject with physicist Anthony Aguirre. He's taught relativity and applies it in his own cosmological research, and does a yeomanly job here of making some very alien concepts approachable. We originally broadcast this series in 2012 but seeing as 2015 is the centenary of Einstein's great discover, we're airing these shows again.

(From Jan 2014) If you've bought into the simplified notion that genes are top-down bosses, issuing marching orders that your cells, body and brain merely obey, it's time to rethink. Biobehavioral scientist Steve Cole and colleagues are assembling a new picture of genes that don't just talk, but also listen. Though scientists have long known that external inputs affect gene regulation (which genes are switched on or off), the degree to which large numbers of genes are influenced moment-to-moment by our experiences – including our social life, our feelings and perceptions – is an important developing story. Steve and I talked about this new understanding of the mind-body connection, how feelings and perceptions may impact the immune system via changes in gene regulation and the emerging field he calls “social genomics.” After hearing this interview, you may never feel the same about your genome again.

With apologies to Bob Newhart and others, my favorite TV shrink will always be Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. A lot of the best comics of our era tried out their routines—and worked out their issues—on Dr. Katz's couch, and the effect was certainly therapeutic for viewers like me. The animated series ran from 1995-1999 and marks its 20th birthday this year with a live performance at SF Sketchfest. I spoke with co-creator and star Jonathan Katz about the show, his life and career. Including: improv with H. Jon Benjamin and Laura Silverman; hustling ping-pong with David Mamet; how not to pitch a project; ripping it up on a mobility scooter.

Growing up, Nore Davis used laughter to ease family friction and foster mutual understanding. As a professional comedian, that's still his M.O., applying some healing humor to divisive subjects like race, homophobia, and police-civilian tensions. We talked about his youth in Yonkers, being a cop's kid, becoming a comic, using his baby face to good advantage, his transgender "sisbro," his bit part on "Boardwalk Empire," the unequal power of black and white racial slurs, and more.

(Originally aired April, 2014) It took Meklit Hadero a while to realize she could be a singer, and a while longer to start recording, but man, has she made up the distance. Over the last few years she's released a series of impeccably produced albums showcasing her own craftily written songs as well as some pretty beguiling cover versions, moving seamlessly from jazz to soul to hip-hop, indie rock, folk and even a little country. Her supple, spirited vocals invite comparisons to Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Nora Jones and Joan Armatrading. But she has a sound all her own, drawing on musical influences in all the aforementioned genres as well as the Ethiopian pop she heard growing up and the North/East African music she's been exposed to in her work on The Nile Project, which she co-founded. Meklit and I surveyed her discography, including her new album We Are Alive, while talking about her life and career, her exuberant approach to performance and the way creativity takes its own good time.

Ever wondered what life is like for medical workers treating Ebola patients? Or what sort of people volunteer for such hazardous duty? Davis Perkins is a paramedic, a former paratrooper and retired firefighter with a passion for landscape painting and overseas medical missions. He's just returned from Liberia, where he worked in an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU). As Davis waited out his mandatory 21-day homecoming quarantine, we talked about his decision to go to the hot zone and what he experienced there.

Before reading Eula Biss's new book "On Immunity," I thought the anti-vaccination movement was a recent phenomenon. But as she makes clear, the roots go much deeper: not only historically, but psychologically, sociologically, maybe even theologically. We talked about vaccines and their safety, the history of inoculation and its discontents, public vs. personal health, choosing what to fear, purity and pollution, illness as metaphor, and vampires.

The criminalization of psychedelic drugs did little to stop casual use, but did make it nearly impossible to do legitimate research on their effects and medicinal potential. Rick Doblin has spent most of his life trying to change that. Now, he and the organization he founded, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), may be on the verge of a breakthrough: the first FDA approval for therapeutic use of psychedelics. On today's show, I spoke to Rick about the long road from proscription to prescription; where the previous generation of psychedelic advocates went wrong and what's going right this time; how psychedelics might work to assist psychotherapy for conditions such as PTSD, severe anxiety and drug and alcohol addiction; and how that model differs from conventional psychopharmaceutical approaches. Also Rick talks about his own psychedelic experiences and why mind-altering drugs can be so life-altering.

Cultural commentator Laura Kipnis is one of our sharpest surveyors of sexual politics and gender relations. She's written bracingly about porn, femininity and feminism, self-deception and scandal, love and marriage… So why'd it take her so long to get around to the subject of men and masculinity? Actually, Laura's been writing about and puzzling over guys—and her relationship to them—for years, and now she's collected some of her best essays on the topic in her book "Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation." We talked about male anxiety, male power, male excess, her own envy of men and her sometimes confused expectations of them. Also the challenges of self-exploration and self-revelation in writing, and what to wear when you meet Larry Flynt.

Michael Robbins says he wanted to be a rock star even more than a poet. His devotion to music, from rap to rock to pop and country, is plain in almost every line of his verse — not just in the lyrics he samples and remixes, but in the sounds and the syllables themselves. Michael's just released his second poetry collection, "The Second Sex," following up on 2012's critical smash, "Alien Vs. Predator." We talked about his sources and inspirations, both literary and musical, and listened to some tunes of his choosing.

Richard Ford and I don't always see eye to eye on his long-running protagonist Frank Bascombe, and he thinks that's OK, even a good thing. Amidst differing readings and some good-natured contrariety, I learned a lot about Richard the writer, his craft and the man himself. With Frank Bascombe's return in Richard's new collection of stories, this interview feels as timely as it did when first broadcast eight years ago to the day.

It's not just organisms that compete in nature—molecules do, too. Sofie Salama and colleagues have been exploring an age-old tug-of-war inside our genome, between genes that spread like kudzu and others that perform a kind of weed control. The conflict between jumping genes (aka transposons), and repressors may have a biological payoff, contributing new regulatory elements that drive organismal complexity and new evolutionary possibilities. Among the subjects Sofie and I discussed: *The pioneering work of Barbara McClintock, discoverer of transposons *The possible viral origins of jumping genes *Do transposons hurt us or help us? *Watching the intragenomic “arms race” in action *There's so much more to the genome than genes *Combinatorial complexity: how a modest number of genes give rise to much more complicated systems *Epigenetics: beyond classical inheritance

Tillie Olsen didn't publish much, but her work has had an outsize impact. Her stories were instant classics and part of the great democratization of 20th-century American lit. The fact that they were painstakingly written while working menial jobs, raising four kids and campaigning tirelessly for human rights added to her legend. With the recent publication of some of her previously out-of-print works, I talked with teacher/writer Julie Olsen Edwards and poet/teacher Rebekah Edwards – Tillie's daughter and granddaughter, respectively – about her life, writing and legacy.

When we last spoke to Bammer in 2008, she was still flying a little under the mainstream radar. In recent years she's broken through, and success couldn't happen to a nicer, funnier person. Maria's especially well-known and lauded for her hilarious-yet-sympathetic depictions of her own dysfunctional family and struggles with depression, unwanted thought syndrome and other DSM-listed conditions. This time we talked about the latest chapter of her career, comedic solutions for world problems, joke-theft, heckler-handling, pug-herding, love, relationships and meds.

Jonathon Keats is still searching for the perfect job title. In the meantime he's making do with “experimental philosopher,” though he's also been called a conceptual artist and a poet of ideas. His chosen form is the Gedankenexperiment, brought to life and acted out. In his decade-plus career he has “genetically engineered God,” made porn movies for plants, built a church to science and hustled extra-dimensional real estate. His latest venture: a consulting firm that trains bacteria for careers in corporate management. Microbial Associates has its public launch event at Modernism Gallery in San Francisco on October 21st. Funny yes, but it's not all a big joke. For all the funning there's a serious intent at the heart of Jonathon's antics. By taking ideas to unreal extremes, Jonathon aims to explore the very real implications of our beliefs.

Abigail Washburn always considered singing and songwriting a sideline and never thought she could make a career of it. But a sharp-eared music exec knew better. After overhearing her play at a bluegrass convention, he signed her on the spot to a Nashville record deal. She set aside her plans to become a lawyer in China, took up music full time, turned out a series of highly regarded albums and began a musical partnership with banjo master Béla Fleck. Then came love, marriage, baby carriage – and now their first duo album. Abby and I talked about her highly empathetic approach to song, the evolution of her voice, how a suburban Midwestern girl became a countrified tunesmith and how she and Béla learned to blend their two very different banjo styles and sensibilities.

As Ira Glass was getting ready to perform Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host in our area as part of his cousin Philip Glass's Days and Nights Festival, I grabbed the opportunity to chat with him. We talked about Three Acts, a movement-and-storytelling piece he created with dancers Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass. Willy-nilly the conversation turned to Ira's radio career, the version of himself he plays on air and the benefits of keeping some things close to the vest.

I included parts of this interview on the radio show, but this online version is the first time it's been available uncut. Brian was coming to Philip Glass's Days and Nights Festival to present and narrate the film adaptation of his relativistic physics fable, Icarus at the Edge of Time. We talked about the principles the story conveys, especially the way gravity stretches time, and about his collaboration with Philip Glass, who composed the film's score. Also, a bit on Brian's passion for physics education, teaching free online courses at World Science U and grappling – literally – with fellow celebrity physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Julia Reynolds never planned on becoming an expert on gang violence. But as a reporter covering towns like Salinas, CA, she found the carnage hard to ignore, and she wondered why so many young men were keen for a career that often ends in an early grave or a prison cell. After a decade of getting to know gang members, their families and anti-gang law enforcement officials, she's produced a vivid portrait of life and death in one of California's most notorious crime organizations. Drawing on her own first-hand reporting as well as police surveillance tapes and court discovery documents, her new book "Blood in the Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang" has a novelistic, you-are-there immediacy while remaining resolutely factual.

You wouldn't know it from watching CSI, but forensic science may not be so scientific after all. In recent years the use of DNA evidence has exposed just how badly traditional crime lab techniques can fail, helping to convict the innocent while the guilty go free. Jim Dwyer, Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter and columnist for the New York Times, has been covering wrongful convictions and DNA-based exonerations for years. He and I talked about the many ways conventional forensics can go wrong, as described and demonstrated in his recent eBook "False Conviction: Innocence, Guilt and Science."

Max Brooks on his best-selling graphic novel "The Harlem Hellfighters," the true story of a heroic black U.S. regiment in World War I who fought the Germans abroad and racism at home. Also thoughts on WWI, Max's best-selling zombie fiction, and his battles with dyslexia, self-doubt and the stigma of being a "legacy kid" (he's the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft).

"The point of math isn't solving problems," Jordan Ellenberg told me, "it's understanding stuff." And all too often these days we're misunderstanding stuff, even if we have more numbers than ever to work with. Jordan and I discussed some of the mathematical muddles we get into in politics, economics, finance and scientific research and how we can do better. He's a professor of math at the University of Wisconsin and the author of the acclaimed new book "How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking."

Banjo phenom Béla Fleck discusses his nerve-racking foray into orchestral composition, the influence of Earl Scruggs and more. Then Dylan Mattingly, lauded by his mentor John Adams as “a hugely talented young composer who writes music of wild imagination and vigorous energy” discusses his emotionally-driven approach to music.

When he was 14, Persi Diaconis ran away from home to become one of the world's great magicians. Now he's a world-class mathematician, and his two professions have more in common than you might think. Persi and I had a very entertaining conversation about his careers in show biz and academe, covering topics such as: -His friendships with other magicians, including Ricky Jay, Randi and Dai Vernon -Some surprisingly profound mathematical card tricks -Why science needs statisticians -Duping others and being duped himself -Why he's so secretive about his magic

Andrew Nemr has been tapping practically since he was out of diapers. He's studied and performed with some of the best, including Gregory Hines and Savion Glover. He's also a tap historian and co-founder of the Tap Legacy Foundation. Andrew told me about his life in tap and the tradition he's a part of as he retraced his own steps and those of his predecessors, occasionally letting his feet do the talking.

Anxious apes, depressed dolphins, parrots on prozac: we homo sapiens aren't the only ones with mental health issues, and animal psychiatry (and psychopharmacology) is booming. What does this new, broader understanding of mental illness reveal about our fellow creatures and us? We talk to Laurel Braitman about her new book “Animal Madness.”

Does science have all the answers? The answer is no, and the proof comes from science itself. Mathematician/computer scientist Noson Yanofsky and I talked about his latest book, The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Cannot Tell Us. It's a treasury of insoluble problems, undecidable propositions and practical or theoretical barriers to understanding. We discussed Alan Turing's Halting Problem, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, Heisenbergian uncertainty, the mathematics of infinity and the simultaneously simple and ridiculously difficult traveling salesman problem. Also quantum computing, the trouble with self-referentiality and the wondrous correspondence between math and the physical world.

Ever wondered what life is like for American basketball pros who leave the states to play overseas? Coleman Collins can tell you. He's played for teams from Germany to Ukraine to Bahrain. He's also a very perceptive writer, reporting on his travels for ESPN's TrueHoop blog. We talked about his cross-cultural experiences, what it's like to be a 6'9" African-American in places where that's a novelty, cutting through stereotypes, basketball culture abroad and more.

Maybe it's not so surprising that someone named after a hurricane and whose Shinnecock Indian grandfather taught her that “it's your sweat up there in the clouds” would have a special feeling for meteorological phenomena and the cycles of nature. But there were miles to go and a lot of serendipity before Camille Seaman found her calling as an acclaimed photographer of ice and storms. She was an at-risk teen when a teacher gave her her first camera. And then there was and impetuous trip to the arctic years later, and the emotional jolt of 9/11, and some mentoring from a National Geographic photographer… We spoke about her sinuous and chancy career path, the lives of icebergs and clouds, the allure of stormchasing, nature photography as portraiture and her next project, an ambitious experiment in urban reclamation. Plus a bonus online segment of photo-geekery: film vs digital, SLRs vs rangefinders, Photoshopping vs au naturel.

Computational Cosmologist Tom Abel of Stanford University and the Kavli Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology is using some badass computers and sophisticated simulations to recreate a mysterious period of cosmic history called the "dark age," when the first stars and galaxies were formed. Tom shares some truly mind-boggling insights into how the universe got made, and made us.

In 2006, Fortune magazine estimated that 40 million Americans worked in cubicles. How did the office cubicle, "reviled by workers, demonized by designers, disowned by its creator" (as Fortune put it), conquer our workplace? And were things so much better before? What forces have shaped the evolution of offices? Nikil Saval pondered all these questions when he was trapped in a cubicle, and finding no comprehensive history, wrote one himself.

Growing up as an aspiring marine scientist in Sri Lanka, Asha de Vos didn't have any local role models – other than sci-fi writer/scuba diver Arthur C. Clarke. At times she's had to make her own way with a combination of persistence, pig-headedness and duct tape. That hasn't stopped her from becoming an expert on a population of “unorthodox” blue whales and a noted ocean conservationist. We talked about Asha's path to ocean science, her defining moment (involving whale poop), the wonders of cetology, her efforts to protect whales from ship collisions, and how she's inspiring a new generation of marine biologists.

It took Meklit Hadero a while to realize she could be a singer, and a while longer to start recording, but man, has she made up the distance. Over the last few years she's released a series of impeccably produced albums showcasing her own craftily written songs as well as some pretty beguiling cover versions, moving seamlessly from jazz to soul to hip-hop, indie rock, folk and even a little country. Her supple, spirited vocals invite comparisons to Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Nora Jones and Joan Armatrading. But she has a sound all her own, drawing on musical influences in all the aforementioned genres as well as the Ethiopian pop she heard growing up and the North/East African music she's been exposed to in her work on The Nile Project, which she co-founded. Meklit and I surveyed her discography, including her new album We Are Alive, while talking about her life and career, her exuberant approach to performance and the way creativity takes its own good time.

Fady Joudah is a doctor, a poet and the son of Palestinian refugees. And in so labeling him, I run the risk of doing exactly the sort of categorizing he and his writing resist. Fady is deeply suspicious of the way linguistic habits, packaged narratives and institutional norms buttress social inequities and occasional iniquity. So what's a practicing doctor and serious poet to do? We discussed how Fady responds to the challenge in both of his vocations. Including readings from Fady's books “The Earth in the Attic,” “Alight,” and “Textu.”

Rebecca Goldstein says some of her best friends are “philosophy jeerers,” convinced that anything philosophers can do, scientists can do better. She begs to differ, and offers the grandaddy of Western philosophy as exhibit A. 21st-century America has a surprising amount in common with Athens c. 400 BCE, Rebecca says, and Plato still has a thing or two to teach us moderns. She shows how well the 2,400-year-old-man has aged by transporting him to our own times in her new book “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't go Away.” Rebecca and I talked about the world of the ancient Greeks, the death of Socrates, the relevance of Plato and what philosophy is good for. Plus a bonus segment: just how timely is Plato? Philosophical rapper Dr. Awkward makes the case in rhymes.

Big physics is on a roll. It seems like only yesterday we were applauding the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. And then this week came word that the BICEP2 microwave telescope at the South Pole had found evidence of gravitational waves from the inflationary epoch – a glimpse of the universe at the time of the Big Bang, or maybe even before. "Holy crap!" was my reaction, but I needed something more for a radio show, so I got in touch with Anthony Aguirre. Cosmic inflation is one of his specialties, and I thought he'd be a great person to explain the new findings. He was. And I stand by my initial assessment: holy crap!

Among those popping the champagne when the discovery of the Higgs boson was announced in July 2012 was Howard Haber. And deservedly so. He'd been studying and theorizing about the Higgs for decades, long before it became headline fodder. Howie wrote about the then-notional particle in his 1978 doctoral dissertation and co-authored a definitive text on how to find it, “The Higgs Hunter's Guide,” in 1989. Though we've touched on the Higgs in previous shows, we've never gone into detail on the backstory and theoretical significance. I thought it was high time we did, especially as a new documentary film on the Higgs search – “Particle Fever” – is opening around the country.

Cultural historian John Beckman says America's tradition of fun-loving isn't frivolous, it's fundamental to our democracy. Home-grown American fun, John contends, is one way we express our humanity, push back against elites and would-be autocrats, and make a more perfect union. John traces the history of rebellious fun in America from the Massachusetts colony of Merry Mount in the 1620s to the Merry Pranksters of the 1960s, and from the Sons of Liberty to flappers and jazzmen, b-boys and punks in his new book “American Fun: Four Centuries of Joyous Revolt.”

Harry Greene is a much-admired natural historian and herpetologist with a soft spot for black-tailed rattlesnakes. He's spent years in the field studying venomous serpents, when not in the classroom or lab (he's currently a prof at Cornell; before that he was at UC Berkeley, where he both taught and curated the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology). Harry's a very thoughtful guy and serious writer, as evidenced in his new memoir Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art. We talked about his career, about field biology vs. theory and experiment, about the wonders of snakedom and some of his favorite rattlers (like “Superfemale 21”), and life and death in the natural and human worlds.

Sandra Faber loves telescopes. It's one of the reasons she became an astronomer. And if ‘scopes could speak, I suspect they'd have some loving words for her. She's helped bring major new telescopes into being, developed instruments that greatly enhance their power and saved one famous scope from an early demise. And she's put them to good use, too, participating in major astronomical discoveries and contributing to leading cosmological theories, like the cold dark matter theory of galaxy formation. The thing that pleases her most, though, is being part of the 13.7-billion-year-old cosmic story going back to the big bang. Sandy and I talked about her career and accomplishments, her sense of the universe and our place in space.

Keeping a family together is hard enough. Now try adding a chimp. Over the decades, psychologists exploring the animal-human cognitive divide have launched a number of studies in which humans attempted to raise chimpanzees as children. With their often-sloppy science and often-sorry outcomes (see, for example, the documentary film “Project Nim”), most such experiments have done less to limn the inter-species boundary than to highlight our confusions about it. These studies also trace the larger tale of familial dreams and disappointments in general, a point brought achingly to life in Karen Joy Fowler's latest novel, “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.” It's the saga of one chimped-up family and its inevitable dissolution. Karen and I talked about the troubled history of chimp cross-fostering experiments, about the splintering of families, of siblings and selves, and storytelling as a source of self-knowledge, real or illusory.

Musical explorer Rick Walker pauses for a moment to retrace some of the ground he's traversed in the last 35 years, from his early days as a punk/ska/new wave drummer to a serious student of world percussion traditions to electronica and looping to jazz. We surveyed his career while listening to a lot of musical examples and chatting about such things as: -His early involvement in the “world music” movement of the '80s -Playing with the late guitarist Bob Brozman -A paternal blessing from Babatunde Olatunji -Falling in love with looping -Rhythm, repetition and trance -Singing and other really scary things

Even the most commonplace social interactions can get awfully dicey when race is involved. Enter Jenée Desmond-Harris, who writes the Race Manners advice column at theroot.com, helping readers sort through racially charged situations in everyday life. Jenée and I talked about her own background, the complexities of contemporary race relations and the predicaments we find ourselves in.A small sampling of the topics we discussed: -Identity as a matter of choice -Being biracial in America -Talking to kids about race -Aestheticizing and sexualizing race -The racist uncle at the dinner table and what to do with him

If you've bought into the simplified notion that genes are top-down bosses, issuing marching orders that your cells, body and brain merely obey, it's time to rethink. Biobehavioral scientist Steve Cole and colleagues are assembling a new picture of genes that don't just talk, but also listen. Though scientists have long known that external inputs affect gene regulation (which genes are switched on or off), the degree to which large numbers of genes are influenced moment-to-moment by our experiences – including our social life, our feelings and perceptions – is an important developing story. Steve and I talked about this new understanding of the mind-body connection, how feelings and perceptions may impact the immune system via changes in gene regulation and the emerging field he calls “social genomics.” After hearing this interview, you may never feel the same about your genome again.

A musical gets a second life as Cabrillo Stage rolls out a new version of “Lunch: A Modern Musical Myth” this week. I spoke to two members of the Emmy/Grammy/Oscar/Golden Globe-nominated creative team: composer Steve Dorff and book writer Rick Hawkins. They told me why they felt the story of 11th-hour redemption was ripe for revival, and how they updated both script and songs. We also listened to some of the original music, recorded in 1994 with an all-star studio cast including Carol Burnett, Michael Rupert, Laurie Beechman and Davis Gaines. Lunch Reimagined premieres Jan 3 at Cabrillo Stage.

I've spoken to Paul Bloom previously about the precocious moral awareness of young infants and the ingenious experiments used to demonstrate it. Now Paul has synthesized those findings in a far-reaching exploration of our ethical capacities and limitations. His new book is "Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil" Topics covered in this interview include: -Are we born with a sense of right and wrong? -Gut feelings vs. rational deliberation as a basis for ethical behavior -The roots of racism -Mafia morality -Sitcoms and moral uplift

Up and coming comic Ron Funches is trying to make it in the big time, and so far, so good. He's moved to LA, has a part in a new TV comedy series and is writing for another. We talked about Ron's path from open mics to paying gigs, developing his comic chops, his partiality to women comedians, why he still gets confused for a homeless person and what it's like to be meeting and working with some of his comic role models.

Since winning the Fields Medal (the closest thing in mathematics to the Nobel Prize) in 2010, Cédric Villani has become a roving ambassador for math and science. He's well-suited to the role: a patient explainer and broad-minded thinker, passionate about education and social engagement, with a seemingly limitless range of interests. We talked about Cédric's emergence as a math whiz, what it's like to spend years exploring a single equation, his fascination with statistical mechanics and entropy, whether math is "real" in some more-than-conceptual sense, what mathematicians do that computers can't, his love of comic books and his signature retro look.

That old 60's phrase "consciousness raising" may sound quaint and overblown today, but for a generation of progressive intellectuals it wasn't hyperbole. Feminism, for example, was more than a push for equality and social justice; it was a wholesale re-evaluation of all sorts of unexamined "truths" about the world and the stories we tell. It's easy to underestimate how much the ground shifted back then, which is why I wanted to talk to Helene Moglen. She was there for, and part of, the whole shebang. In this interview, Helene offered a very interesting look at her life, her times and work as a critic. Topics include: Faculty parties before and after the women's movement, what really happened at those consciousness raisings, and feminist readings of "Frankenstein" and "Robinson Crusoe.

David Harris-Gershon grew up regarding Palestinians as the enemy: “They were just the latest in a long line of people wanting us dead, lined up throughout history: Arabs, Germans, Russians, Romans, Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians.” So you might think a Hamas-orchestrated bombing in Jerusalem that left two of his friends dead, his wife badly injured and him with a nasty case of PTSD would only harden those feelings. Instead, it led to a re-evaluation, a visit to the bomber's family and a more complicated view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. David and I talked about his new memoir and his change of heart.

"Filmmaker Michel Wenzer isn't interested in the lurid fare that typifies popular depictions of prison. He is interested in how some inmates manage to find a way to live and to grow in a place of desolation. For the men profiled in Wenzer's documentary At Night I Fly: Images from New Folsom, salvation comes in the form of self-examination and artistic engagement, helped along by the remnants of California's once-thriving Arts In Corrections program. We talked about Michel's experience filming in New Folsom (younger sibling of the original Folsom Prison) and the life lessons we could all learn from some of the lifers he met. I played some clips from At Night I Fly and also some bits of interviews I've done over the years with prison artists, including the poet Spoon Jackson, who was the inspiration for Michel's film.

"I consider an essay to be the biography of an idea," says Richard Rodriguez. Yes, ideas not as airy abstractions but as lived, embodied and temporal things. Richard's writing has always balanced intellectual sweep with lyrical particularity, threading its way between big-picture cultural criticism and intimate memoir. In his latest collection he is as broad and deep as ever, musing on faith in the dark days after 9/11; Judaism, Christianity and Islam as "desert religions"; his own relationship to Catholicism and his argument with the "new atheists"; the role of women in his emancipation as a gay man; and finding a way to live in love and live with death. Richard brings the same intensity and acuity to conversation as he does to the page, which made this interview a special one.

Two hundred years ago James Tilly Matthews described a sinister political plot using the latest technologies to influence official opinion and plunge England into war. He was branded a lunatic and sent to the notorious Bedlam insane asylum. But was Matthews really bonkers, or was he just ahead of his time? Historian Mike Jay says Matthews' dark vision of technology-assisted conspiracy has become a defining idea of our own age. How reality caught up with paranoid delusions.

James Dawes has written extensively on atrocity and trauma, but he'd never encountered flesh-and-blood perpetrators until he visited Japan in 2008. He went to interview reformed war criminals from the genocidal Sino-Japanese War of the 1930s and 40s, when Japanese forces raped, tortured and killed millions of Chinese. His meetings with the now-elderly men, and the memories they shared with him, left him unnerved and beset by questions. After some years of processing the experience, he's written a wide-ranging meditation on the causes and nature of inhumanity, the stories we tell about it and the very complicated business of bearing witness.

In this interview, filmmaker Henry Jaglom describes the Orson Welles he knew and loved. Their friendship began in 1970, when the upstart Jaglom impertinently asked Welles to be in his first movie ("A Safe Place") and the master improbably assented, and it continued until Welles's death in 1985. They were frequent dining companions at LA's then-trendy Ma Maison, and Henry recorded many of their conversations. Now film historian Peter Biskind has transcribed and edited some of the Welles-Jaglom tapes into a book, "My Lunches with Orson." Though the dishy parts have drawn most of the media attention, I was more interested in the sheer breadth and insight (both Orson's and Henry's) on display.

I've had music writer Don Cohen on the show previously, discussing two of his favorite musical genres: Portuguese Fado and Argentine Tango. He joins me again with his latest book, "Gypsy Voices: Songs from the Romani Soul," which collects Roma songs from the Balkans, Romania, Hungary and other parts of eastern/central Europe. We talked Roma history and music while playing tracks (some classics, some lesser-known) from the book's companion CD and doing our best not to overuse the term "Gypsy."

Joshua Oppenheimer isn't the only documentary filmmaker to aim his lens at the perpetrators of atrocities. But he may be the first to find such willing subjects. In his new film The Act of Killing, former Indonesian death squad members are only too pleased to describe their participation in the anti-communist purges of 1965-1966, when they helped butcher anywhere from 500,000 to more than a million people. So enthused were the aged genocidaires that they took an active role in Oppenheimer's project, re-enacting their youthful exploits for the camera. Werner Herzog, who served as executive producer with Errol Morris, says, “I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade… it is unprecedented in the history of cinema.” Joshua Oppenheimer has been interviewed relentlessly as The Act of Killing debuts across the country, so when I got my chance, I tried to skip some of the compulsories and dig a little deeper into the details of the film and the queasy questions it raises.

Composer Kevin Puts returns to this year's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music with his new Flute Concerto and a Pulitzer Prize on his credit. Kevin and I talked about the new work and its charming backstory; about his love of heartfelt music, whatever proponents of modernist abstraction may say; and about his choice of a contemplative composing career over the athletic rigors of concert piano. In the second part of the show, globe-trotting composer/clarinetist Derek Bermel describes Dust Dances, an orchestral piece based on his studies of the West African xylophone known as the gyil. Both Dust Dances and the Flute Concerto will be performed on opening night of the Cabrillo Festival.

David Hoffman picked up his first spring-wound Bolex 16mm movie camera in 1963. Over the next five decades he proceeded to make scores of films on a huge range of subjects: profiles of famous and not-so-famous people; music docs (including BB King at Sing-Sing, Earl Scruggs, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez); political, historical and military docs for public television; documentary-style commercials for Mobil Oil and other companies; and one notorious film that challenged the whole documentary form. He's still at it. David and I discussed his prolific career, his adventures behind the camera and his thoughts on truth and fabrication in documentaries.

If you fretted that you were merely a billiard ball on the pool table of life, Dan Dennett says take heart: you're actually a team of tiny robots. Dennett is often cast as the arch-reductionist, but he's actually more of an emergentist, as you'll hear in this interview. I've been wanting to talk to him again ever since we discussed his religion-as-biology book "Breaking the Spell" in 2006. We didn't have time then to get around to what he considers his life's work on mind, consciousness and free will. So when an opportunity finally came up last week, I did my best to cover all that ground in the hour Dan granted me.

Our previous interview with jazz/soul singer/songwriter Gregory was surely one of our best shows of 2012, and this second one picks up where the first left off. We talked about his precocious taste for jazz, performing gospel in church, the influence of his minister mother and her message of love even in the face of hate, turning life into song, and his seemingly meteoric – but actually long-in-the-making – rise on the jazz scene. We listened to some of Gregory's recorded music and some that hasn't been recorded (at least not until now), including his first original song, composed at the age of six.

New Orleans brass band music is alive and thriving, thanks to a procession of younger musicians who've kept things fresh while staying true to the roots and the tradition. Following in the path of groups like the Dirty Dozen and the Rebirth Brass Band, the Stooges have put their own stamp on the music with a sound that layers generous helpings of hip-hop, funk, modern jazz and pop over a body-shaking beat and a propulsive intensity stoked by countless hours of second-lining on the Nola streets. After seeing them perform, I got founder and trombonist Walter Ramsay, saxman Virgil Tiller and drummer/trombonist Garfield Bogan into the studio for some talk and tunes, including a sneak peek at their forthcoming EP, their first CD since 2003's "It's About Time."

The latest edition of the DSM – the diagnostic and statistical manual of psychiatry – is hot off the presses, and it once again redraws the map of mental malfunction. Hoarding disorder and caffeine withdrawal are in, Asperger's is out. Critics like psychotherapist Gary Greenberg say there's a reason the DSM is a palimpsest: despite its quasi-scientific airs, it has little to do with any clear understanding of mental illness and a lot to do with changing societal attitudes, politics and money. Gary and I discussed his new book, "The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry."

New York Times contributor Jon Mooallem says our efforts to save endangered species depend in large part on the tales we tell about them. Jon traces the history of wildlife in the American imagination and offers his own stories of three imperiled species (bear, butterfly and bird) and the people who defend them in his new book "Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America." Among the many topics we discussed: Tom Jefferson and the woolly mammoth, Teddy Bear vs. Billy Possum, conservationists and nature fakers, teaching whooping cranes to migrate, and fighting for beauty. Also, music from Black Prairie's new album "Wild Ones," inspired by Jon's book.

When not laboring at his his day job or raising a family – and sometimes even when so engaged – Ian Bell is likely to be summoning forth a new song or three. "When ideas come, they come," he says of himself, "and you don't question how or why, you just scramble to get it down on something quick." He may not question how or why, but I did. Joining Ian in his studio for conversation and music, I asked about his passion for rendering real-life stories in song and about his own story: growing up on the working-class fringes of London dreaming of America, then chasing his own version of the American dream in California.

Jill Wolfson was last on the show discussing the Beat Within writing program for incarcerated teens. Jill has also written extensively on juvenile justice, crime and retribution as a journalist and non-fiction author, and those themes figure prominently in her latest young adult novel, "Furious." Inspired by Greek myth and the tragedies of Aeschylus, it's about three high school girls who become modern incarnations of the avenging Furies. We talked about the challenges of writing for the "YA" audience, the wages of revenge, the indelible impress of high school and Jill's own teen years.

Last time I spoke to the theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind, it was about his long-running debate with Stephen Hawking on the nature of information and black holes, as retold in the book "The Black Hole War." This time, we talked about Lenny himself: his humble beginnings as a plumber's son in the Bronx, becoming a physicist, his thought process, his best ideas and some of his duds. Also, why he loves to explain physics to non-experts – a talent he put to good use in this interview, describing some of the initial insights that led to string theory and shedding light on the mind-stretching holographic principle. Overall, a very interesting glimpse into a highly original mind.

The neurologist Robert Burton has spent years exploring our shaky reliance on what he calls "involuntary mental sensations": the internal perceptions by which we come to "know" our own minds. He says these inner representations, offered up by the brain itself, are partial at best, delusory at worst. And that's a problem not only for ordinary seekers of self-knowledge but also for an ambitious group of neuroscientists attempting to explain consciousness and the human psyche, while beholden to many of the same, suspect intuitions that bamboozle the rest of us. Bob raises these and other problems in his latest book, "A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell us About Ourselves." We had a long and wide-ranging tête-à-tête on the difficulties that loom when science shifts from studying the brain to mapping the mind, and the deep and dubious assumptions built into categories such as conscious and unconscious, self and other, choice and non-choice.

As a preamble to next week's interview with neurologist and neuroskeptic Robert Burton, I re-aired this earlier conversation with Bob from 2008. In it, we discussed his book "On Being Certain: Believing You're Right Even When You're Wrong," about our brain's often unreliable sense of self-certainty. Bob says our inner sensation of knowing or not knowing something, of familiarity or unfamiliarity – so critical to perception, judgment and decisionmaking – is based on neural mechanisms that can go badly awry and, even when things are working OK, is hardly a dependable arbiter of truth.

This radio program mostly ignores the large body of water that sits only a short block from our studio. Inexcusable, I know, but it's not too late to make amends. For a start, I spoke to David Helvarg, marine conservationist, head of the Blue Frontier Campaign and author of "The Golden Shore: California's Love Affair with the Sea." We talked about David's own love affair with the sea as well as his earlier career as a war correspondent in Central America. Also, a history of beachgoing, the popularization of surfing, the future of the California coastline and a defense of the SpongeBob lifestyle.

As the second anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami nears, the writer Gretel Ehrlich considers what nature wrought and how humans responded. She made three trips to Japan's ravaged northeast coast in the months following the quake, trying to fathom the magnitude of what happened. Her new book Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami is part post-disaster travelogue, part meditation on death, life and impermanence.

150 years after its creation, Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt remains sui generis and uncategorizable: folktale and fever dream, existential inquiry and social satire, straddling romanticism and modernism. Its locales include Norwegian mountain villages, a troll castle, the Moroccan coast and a Cairo lunatic asylum. A new adaptation mounted by Kimberly Jannarone at UC Santa Cruz turns Gynt into a kind of living gallery, with different scenes staged simultaneously in multiple venues and the audience wandering among them. Kimberly spoke to me about the history of the play, her own Gynt-mania (including a trip to Gynt's Norwegian stomping grounds) and the play's enduring popularity. Joining us was actor Nancy Carlin, who plays Peer Gynt's mother Åse in the production.

Sound as vibration, sound as sensation, sound as means of manipulation. Sound as a state of mind and as a weapon. Seth Horowitz considers sonic phenomena from these and other angles in his new book The Universal Sense. And he's a good one to do it: as a neuroscientist specializing in auditory phenomena, sound recordist, musician and aural explorer, not to mention the guy who proved that tadpoles can hear, Seth is an expert guide to the sonic world. He and I listened to a sampling of audio curiosities while contemplating questions such as: -What's faster, our ears or our eyes? -What's it like to be a bat? -What's it like to be Evelyn Glennie? -How do we build a picture of the world from sonic data? -Why are low sounds ominous? -Can sounds kill?

In the early 1960's Bob Moses risked life and limb as a civil rights organizer in the deep south. In recent decades he's taken up a new cause, promoting math instruction for educationally disadvantaged kids. Bob believes quality education is a fundamental right, and math skills are a key to economic opportunity. Bob is soft-spoken and not one to play up his accomplishments, but his story is extraordinary, as you'll hear in this conversation.

Historian George Dyson on his new book "Turing's Cathedral," which tells the story of the Electronic Computer Project. Led by the brilliant polymath John Von Neumann in 1940s and 1950's, the project laid the groundwork for much of modern computing. In doing so, Dyson says, it birthed a new, digital ecosystem, a world of self-reproducing, ever-evolving numbers that may be said to have a life of their own. Dyson is the son of famed physicist Freeman Dyson and grew up at the Institute for Advanced Study, where Von Neumann and crew did their pioneering work.

Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola, is in many ways a world apart: a former slave plantation bigger in area than Manhattan, nestled in a crook of the Mississippi, where prisoners still work the fields overseen by guards on horseback. Many live out their days there and are buried on the grounds. It's a world Marianne Fisher-Giorlando counts herself lucky to be a part of. She's a criminologist who's spent a good share of her life studying and volunteering in Angola. She's become an authority on its workings, culture and history, and despite the fear and loathing the place may conjure, her experiences there have been surprisingly upbeat.

The critic David Thomson is so alert to the seductions and subterfuges of film it's hard to imagine he was ever a sucker for cinema. Of course, we were all young and innocent once. Now he's uneasily aware of what movie-watching entails: the voyeurism, the passivity, and the ideologies concealed in images, characters and plots . He charts his – and our – increasingly distanced relationship with film in his latest book, "The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies." David and I talked about how moviegoing has changed over the decades, what the medium has done to us, and our new infatuation with other, smaller screens. Along the way we discussed immigrant filmmakers and American mythmaking, Citizen Kane, California light and Germanic shadow, film noir, masculinity and movies, Hitchcock and Tarantino.

People love to trip out on the future of homo sapiens, usually conjuring some kind of twinkly transcendence (a seraphic super-race) or dystopian degeneracy (machine-dependent dullards enfeebled by our own technology). But those stories owe more to wishful thinking or baseless anxiety than to actual evolutionary theory. I decided to forgo the fantasizing and explore the science itself: the forces that shaped our species and that are still at work, however subtly, today. Evolutionary biologist Barry Sinervo joined me to explain the scientific fundamentals and offer some educated guesses on what comes next.

In 1933, folklorists John and Alan Lomax went inside Louisiana's Angola prison and made a series of celebrated recordings and musical discoveries. Eighty years later, filmmaker and musicologist Ben Harbert followed in the Lomax's footsteps, visiting Angola and other Louisiana penitentiaries to document the state of prison music today. Ben and I discussed his new film Follow Me Down: Portraits of Louisiana Prison Musicians. As we listened to performances from the film, Ben talked about the place of music in inmates' lives and the ethics and challenges of shooting a doc in the joint. Also featured: Tony Seeger, musicologist (and nephew of Pete, Mike and Peggy Seeger), who advised Ben on the film.

And you thought sequencing the human genome was a big job. MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung is proposing something even more Herculean: tracing the trillions of neuronal connections in the human brain, collectively known as the "connectome." He believes the connectome may hold the key to understanding the brain and the self. That follows from connectionism—the notion that learning, memory and personality are embedded in the brain's wiring. Like so much else in neuroscience, that's still hypothetical, and Sebastian is refreshingly candid about the limits of current understanding. We discussed what is and isn't known about the workings of neurons, how the brain's circuitry might encode information, the relevance of computer models, and artificial intelligence techniques that may help map the connectome. Also: the "Jennifer Aniston neuron," whether or not to freeze your posthumous head, and the cautionary tale of the South Park underpants gnomes.

Despite an old-school classical education in the Soviet Union, where she grew up before emigrating to Australia as a teen, composer Elena Kats-Chernin is anything but tradition-bound. Her influences run the gamut from ragtime to nuevo tango to minimalism and pop. Her work is powerfully evocative and unabashedly listenable. Elena says for her, “music is a living thing.” She writes daily, and a lot of her own life inevitably makes its way into her compositions. In this interview, we listened to some exquisite tunes and dug deep into the sources of her music, including the very personal story behind some of her most affecting works.

Thirty years ago, human happiness seemed like a pretty unserious subject for scientific study. These days positive psychology, as happiness research is known, is de rigeur. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Roko Belic ("Genghis Blues") explores the science of contentment in his latest doc, "Happy." Belic traveled to five continents, talking to researchers, comparing the state of satisfaction in various countries and finding some very jolly people. Does happiness depend on our material conditions? Just how much control do we have over our own sense of well-being? And whence the intellectual prejudice that happiness lacks gravitas?

Of the many fields in which gender equality has been a long time coming, comedy might not seem as important as, say, high political office or corporate captaincy or astronaut-hood. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the power and centrality of humor in modern-day America. The fact that comedy – especially stand-up – was until recently considered mostly a guy's game, and the speed with which funny women have closed the gap in the last couple of decades is worth pondering. Why the disparity in the first place? What changed, and why does it matter? I spoke to Yael Kohen, author of the recent oral history "We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy."

A tune-filled celebration and cerebration with neuroscientist, musician and record producer Daniel Levitin, author of "This is Your Brain on Music." Originally broadcast in 2007.

Geoff Nunberg says that when he told people he was writing an entire book about "asshole," both the word and the cultural condition, they laughed. But he soldiered on and produced a revelatory work in the tradition of the great exploratory essayists. Tracing the history of one of our favorite put-downs, "Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism--the First Sixty Years" maps some of the most important currents in American society over the last century.

Nate Silver isn't the only forecaster to project the results of last Tuesday's presidential election with preternatural accuracy. Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium and Drew Linzer of Votamatic both hit the bullseye, too, and they explained to me why it's not really so preternatural after all (hint: statistical science works). We talked about their methods, why so many pundits and political partisans missed the boat, and whether it's bedtime for bloviators.

The last time I had journalist and author Don Lattin on the show, we discussed his book "The Harvard Psychedelic Club," about Timothy Leary and Co. This time, we talked about a previous generation of consciousness raisers. Don's new book, "Distilled Spirits: Getting Drunk, Then Sober with a Famous Writer, A Forgotten Philosopher and a Hopeless Drunk," tells the intersecting stories of Aldous Huxley, spiritual voyager and author of "The Doors of Perception"; his compatriate Gerald Heard, philosophical mystic and early acid head; and Bill Wilson, friend of Heard and founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The book is also a memoir of Don's own psychedelic experiences, his drug and alcohol addiction and AA-assisted recovery.

Science writer David Quammen explores one result of our "infernal, aboriginal connectedness" to the animal world: a lot of diseases spilling over from other species to us. Examples include SARS, HIV, avian flu, Lyme disease and Ebola. Quammen says the phenomenon is on the increase, thanks to human actions. We discussed the science behind these "zoonotic" diseases and David's globe-trotting research for his new book "Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic."

Two new movies pay tribute to musical instruments and/or traditions that haven't always gotten their due in mainstream USA. In part one, Tad Nakamura, director of "Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings." It's a moving portrait of the musician who's taken the ukulele—-sometimes wrongly dissed as a novelty instrument—-to virtuosic heights. In part two, Tom Gunderson director of "Mariachi Gringo," the tale of a young man from the midwest who falls in love with Mexico and devotes himself to mariachi music. Lead actor Shawn Ashmore devoted himself to the music too, going to school on vihuela. The film also includes Mexican diva Lila Downs.

Martin Rees isn't just one of the world's most respected cosmologists (and Britain's Astronomer Royal), who's contributed to some of the field's biggest advances over the last four decades. He's also an ecumenical thinker with a broad view of the sciences and their limits, our historical moment and the long-range prospects for earth and its inhabitants. We talked about cosmology past and present, the politics of science in the US and Europe, science vs. religion, climate change and the human (or post-human) future.

British comic Shazia Mirza has been taking her act to places where stand-up comedy is virtually unknown, and the spectacle of a woman cracking jokes on stage is almost revolutionary. Some audiences are ready for it, and some aren't. We talked about the sometimes surprising reactions she's gotten in Pakistan, India and back home in England.

Do I have to write a description of this interview? Can I simply say, “just listen”? Since his debut album came out in 2010, jazz/soul singer Gregory Porter has quickly won a passionate following around the world. It's easy to see why: there's so much depth and warmth and poetry in his vocals and compositions. And as our conversation made clear, those qualities come straight from the man himself. So just listen, and don't miss the end.

Do I have to write a description of this interview? Can I simply say, “just listen”? Since his debut album came out in 2010, jazz/soul singer Gregory Porter has quickly won a passionate following around the world. It's easy to see why: there's so much depth and warmth and poetry in his vocals and compositions. And as our conversation made clear, those qualities come straight from the man himself. So just listen, and don't miss the end.

We've talked to Errol Morris about his investigative ardor in our previous conversations, and we've mentioned his decades-long delvings into the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret doctor serving life in prison for murdering his wife and children. This time we get into the details, working our way through the evidence and Morris's contention that MacDonald was railroaded. Morris says the investigation was bungled from the beginning (one forensic expert called it a "colossal clusterfuck"), and that MacDonald was the victim of a peremptory narrative that blinded the police, the courts and the public to many of the facts. Errol's new book "A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald" isn't just a meticulous anatomy of a murder case, but a sobering reflection on our sometimes wayward truth-finding process and justice system.

Down the mean streets of old Hanoi goes Mike Vann, a historian specializing in Vietnam during its nearly 70 years under French rule. Mike has uncovered some wonderfully tawdry tales that reveal a lot about the whole strange business of colonialism, when much of the globe was claimed by a handful of European countries. We discuss sex in the colonial city, the great rat massacre, murder on the Rue Hue, Hanoi in the time of cholera, and some charming French postcards.

Jim Holt is a rarity: a writer who throws light on some of the most daunting problems in physics, philosophy and math in ways that are impressively knowledgeable, artful and entertaining. He's outdone himself in his latest book, "Why Does the World Exist: An Existential Detective Story," which confronts the enigma of existence itself, considered from the perspectives of physics, metaphysics and theology. As Kathryn Schulz wrote in the New York Times, "the book is deep, absorbing, associative, challenging, and makes you laugh, unexpectedly and a lot" – much like my experience talking to Jim in this interview.

Originally broadcast in Feb 2011, my conversation with theoretical physicist Anthony Aguirre on the new, more complex picture of the universe that cosmologists have been sketching out in recent years. Anthony gave some of the clearest explanations I've heard of eternal inflation, the multiverse and why the Big Bang might not have been the beginning of everything.

I continue interrogating the interrogator in this second of two wide-ranging conversations with filmmaker/detective/truth-seeker Errol Morris. Among the many subjects discoursed on: Whether and how much the past can be recaptured through the art of investigation; Errol's latest book "A Wilderness of Error," about the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case; how he gets people to spill the beans on camera; Errol's beef with his former PhD adviser, historian of science Thomas Kuhn; and his next movie (The Fog of War with more fog?).

Errol Morris's relentless search for answers – philosophical, psychological, forensic – has led to a vast and ever-growing body of work that includes his celebrated documentaries, dozens of short films, weighty essays (and cognitive experiments) in the NY Times, books, actual criminal investigations and some pretty fetching commercials (example below). The backstories are as interesting in some ways as the finished products,and Errol shared some of them with me in a very illuminating look at his career, his preoccupations and motivations.

An hour-long interview wasn't enough to cover but a fraction of Lou Harrison's many accomplishments, but Eva Soltes and I did our best to hit some of the high points. Her new documentary, "Lou Harrison: A World of Music," uses footage she shot during her decades-long friendship with the eminent American composer, musical innovator and political activist, who died in 1982. The film was recently screened as part of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, which Harrison helped found and which is honoring him this year with a performance of his Third Symphony.

As an Emmy-winning soundtrack composer for TV and film and as a session/backing musician (piano, violin, viola), John Wineglass can write or play just about anything. Gospel, classical, R<B, country, folk, Latin – he can swing it. But it's his serious concert works he's most proud of, like his new orchestral piece Someone Else's Child, premiering at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music on August 4. We discussed the new composition, John's dual-track musical education – playing classical in a well-known youth orchestra and gospel in church – and his jack-of-all-genres commercial work.

Like so many other radiophiles, I was inspired to get into the medium by the work of great independent producers like the Kitchen Sisters—Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson. So it was really nice to finally sit down with Nikki and learn about her own radio beginnings. We listened to some of the earliest and still-cool Kitchen Sisters recordings ("Rattlesnakes," "The Road Ranger" and "Ernie Morgan, World Champion One-Handed Pool Player") and discussed the latest evolution of their work: "The Hidden World of Girls, Stories For Orchestra." Adapted from their "Hidden World of Girls" radio series, the new orchestral/multimedia production premieres at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music on July 28 and 29. Listening to Nikki talk, you can hear one of the essential ingredients in the Kitchen Sisters' success: a lot of passion and a lot of heart.

When it comes to science, we at the 7th Avenue Project usually stick to the professional, institutionally sanctioned variety, even when discussing unorthodox notions and minority opinions. In this episode, though, we ventured further afield, into the alternate reality that Margaret Wertheim calls "outsider physics" and that some people less generously dub "crackpot science." Margaret says the sheer number of folks who reject much or all of modern physics and persist in spinning out their own DIY theories raises some important questions about our relationship to science these days. We discussed her book, "Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons and Alternative Theories of Everything."

It's been about 50 years since Noam Chomsky conclusively established that the basic structures of human language are pre-wired in our brains, not gleaned from experience. Or… maybe he didn't. While several generations of theoretical linguists have been diligently expanding the Chomskian program, another faction says there's little or no evidence for his "universal grammar" and it's time to scale back or even scrap the theory. Former innatist Daniel Everett is in now part of the opposition. On last week's show, I aired a 2007 interview with Dan talking about his adventures as a missionary turned Amazonian linguist, and how he lost faith first in Christianity and then in Chomskianism. This time, a new interview with Dan discussing his latest book, "Language: The Cultural Tool." In it, he advances the idea that grammars and other aspects of particular languages are shaped by culture.

Dan Everett is twice a heretic, having strayed from the path of Christian missionary work to become a linguist, and then breaking with the dominant branch of theoretical linguistics led by Noam Chomsky. I did a report on Dan for NPR in 2007, but I never broadcast this longer interview, from which that piece was taken. I decided to air it now because Dan will be on the show next week, talking about his new book on the origins of language. The earlier interview provides the fascinating backstory: how he went from rock n' roller to missionary to Amazonian linguist, his years in the rain forest with the isolated Pirahã tribe, their anomalous language, and how he came to doubt Chomsky's idea of universal grammar.

I've never much liked the phrase "confined to a wheelchair," and it certainly doesn't apply to Paul Bendix in anything more than a physical sense. In his new book of essays, "Dance Without Steps," Paul writes about aging, travel, gardening, love, loss and disability with a breadth and clarity that feels liberating. Paul is an old friend, but we'd lost touch, so the release of his book gave us a chance to get reacquainted. We talked about his writing, his life, the random act of violence that left him partially paralyzed at the age of 21, and how he's adjusted (and is still adjusting) in the four decades since.

I've been nipping at the edges of this subject for a while on previous shows, and now I've found someone to tackle it head-on: Jonathan Gottschall, author of "The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human." Jonathan and I discussed the central place of narrative not only in art and entertainment, but in our deep understanding of the world and ourselves. With us humans, it's storytime all the time, or at least much of the time. We talked about storytelling's pervasive influence, possible evolutionary explanations, its hazards and if/how we ever escape its confines.

She's an avowed red-till-dead Republican (though an iconoclastic one) and daughter of John McCain. He's a comedian and self-described East-Coast liberal. Though hardly on the same ideological team, both decry the hyper-partisan bloodsport that passes for political discourse these days in America. So they conducted a little experiment in political fence-mending, crossing the country together in an RV in search of common ground. I talked to Meghan and Michael about their travels, as retold in their new book "America, You Sexy Bitch."

Joshua Mellars has a thing for world travel and world music, and he combines both passions in his latest pair of films. Play Like a Lion: The Legacy of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan is a portrait of the late Indian classical virtuoso and his son Alam Khan, who's carrying on the family musical tradition. Heaven's Mirror: A Portuguese Voyage is about Portuguese Fado music, and features some of the top contemporary fadistas (fado singers), including Katia Guerreiro, Ana Moura, Camané, and Carlos do Carmo. Joshua joined me to discuss the films and the music that inspired them.

Historian George Dyson on his new book "Turing's Cathedral," which tells the story of the Electronic Computer Project. Led by the brilliant polymath John Von Neumann in 1940s and 1950's, the project laid the groundwork for much of modern computing. In doing so, Dyson says, it birthed a new, digital ecosystem, a world of self-reproducing, ever-evolving numbers that may be said to have a life of their own. Dyson is the son of famed physicist Freeman Dyson and grew up at the Institute for Advanced Study, where Von Neumann and crew did their pioneering work.

When monologist Mike Daisey was caught fibbing on This American Life, it got me thinking about competing definitions of truth—artistic and journalistic—and the way they get blurred by storytelling. In part 1 of today's show, I spoke to Craig Silverman, who's written about fact-checking and who monitors journalistic accuracy in his blog Regret the Error. In part 2, erstwhile fact-checker Jim Fingal, co-author with John D'Agata of the book "The Lifespan of a Fact."

Michael Ian Black doesn't usually reveal a lot about himself in his comedy. He's generally more comfortable playing characters who at most manifest fragments of his personality, like the hilarious solipsism of "Michael Ian Black" in "Michael and Michael Have Issues." His new memoir, "You're Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex, Death, and Other Humiliations," is different. It's bracingly candid, full of unromanticized and unflattering real-life detail. It never seems self-indulgent or confessional, though, and it's both funny and insightful. Same goes for my conversation with Michael, in which we discussed all of the aforementioned humiliations.

Michael Turner, of the University of Chicago and Kavli Institute, has had his hands in some of the biggest cosmological advances of recent years. He's also contributed to the scientific lexicon, coining the term “dark matter” and presaging its discovery. We talked about that and some of the universe's other big head scratchers.

It was Easter Sunday, so I resurrected my 2011 interview with Carolyn Burke, discussing her book No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf. Carolyn is equally strong on the biographical details and the musical oeuvre of France's great songstress, and provided astute commentary on some of Piaf's signature songs.

I thought this might turn into an entirely satirical April Fool's interview with John Hodgman's mock-pundit character, but after some japery, the conversation got sorta serious. John may lampoon the whole notion of expertise and authority in his TV appearances and books, but his thoughts on the subject run deep. We talked about his days studying literary theory at Yale, the real-life model for his professorial persona, truth vs. artistic license, and John's up close and personal view of the Mike Daisey/This American Life debacle.

In the age of science, what's a philosopher to do? As physics, biology and other hard sciences advance, is philosophy left with only a few increasingly recherché questions? Nope, says philosopher Colin McGinn. McGinn argues that philosophy is a kind of science (though it could use some rebranding to that effect), and those other sciences would do well to pay it some mind. A dose of philosophy could help clear up many scientific confusions and save theorists from a mess of conceptual errors (homuncular fallacy, anyone?). Colin McGinn and I talk science vs. philosophy, different kinds of knowledge, the nature of objectivity, problems with the scientific study of consciousness, and his Campaign to Rename Philosophy (CRP), which he wrote about recently in the New York Times.

In his new book, "Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America," Christopher Bram says it was literature more than any other art form that opened America's eyes to same-sex relationships and paved the way for gay rights. In the years following World War II, when homosexuality was taboo territory for movies, TV and other mass media, it was writers who broke the silence. Chris and I discussed the impact of writers such as Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, James Baldwin and Allen Ginsburg; the sometimes nasty critical reaction to their work; and how Chris himself read his way out of the closet.

And you thought sequencing the human genome was a big job. MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung is proposing something even more Herculean: tracing the trillions of neuronal connections in the human brain, collectively known as the "connectome." He believes the connectome may hold the key to understanding the brain and the self. That follows from connectionism—the notion that learning, memory and personality are embedded in the brain's wiring. Like so much else in neuroscience, that's still hypothetical, and Sebastian is refreshingly candid about the limits of current understanding. We discussed what is and isn't known about the workings of neurons, how the brain's circuitry might encode information, the relevance of computer models, and artificial intelligence techniques that may help map the connectome. Also: the "Jennifer Aniston neuron," whether or not to freeze your posthumous head, and the cautionary tale of the South Park underpants gnomes.

Everybody loves a good dysfunctional family drama, which is one reason the Oresteia and other Greek tales of the strife-torn House of Atreus have never gone out of fashion. Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Electra and the gang are at it again in a new play premiering this week at UC Santa Cruz. The production draws freely on classical sources including the Illiad and the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and adds a high-tech twist: the performance is split between two stages representing two distinct realities, bridged by live video streaming. I spoke with writer/director Kirsten Brandt and producer Ted Warburton, both of UCSC's Theater Arts Department, about the performance, the timeless truths of Greek tragedy and the use of “telematic” technology in theater.

This episode originally aired on Feb. 15, 2009. Seeing as it was the morning after, I took a few swipes at love and romance with the help of some great guests and lots of music. This year, my broadcast slot fell on Feb 19, close enough to Valentine's Day to revive the show. Segments include: Science writer Hannah Holmes on the biology of hooking up and dogging around; critic Laura Kipnis on monogamy and marriage as social engineering; writer Jonathan Ames on love and its disappointments; and writer/guitarist Glenn Kurtz on the death of dreams.

Despite an old-school classical education in the Soviet Union, where she grew up before emigrating to Australia as a teen, composer Elena Kats-Chernin is anything but tradition-bound. Her influences run the gamut from ragtime to nuevo tango to minimalism and pop. Her work is powerfully evocative and unabashedly listenable. Elena says for her, “music is a living thing.” She writes daily, and a lot of her own life inevitably makes its way into her compositions. In this interview, we listened to some exquisite tunes and dug deep into the sources of her music, including the very personal story behind some of her most affecting works.

Matt Polly was 36 and overweight, his days as a student of Chinese kickboxing long past. On the precipice of middle age, he took one last shot at glory. He plunged into the bruising sport of mixed martial arts, trained with the pros and eventually tested his skills in an amateur bout, as detailed in his book Tapped Out: An Odyssey in Mixed Martial Arts. Matt and I had a very entertaining conversation about his experiences and about the world of MMA. Matt explains that contrary to its reputation for primal thuggery, MMA is a highly technical sport and even an art.

Robert Trivers is a widely influential evolutionary thinker whose is theories on the genetic trade-offs of altruism, parent-child relationships and other social interactions are a cornerstone of behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology. His new book, "The Folly of Fools," applies an evolutionary framework to another set of behaviors: deception and especially self-deception. Subjects discussed in our interview include: self-deception in nature, our capacity to simultaneously know and blind ourselves to the truth, the field formerly known as sociobiology, and Robert's own life and career, including his friendship with the late Black Panther leader Huey Newton.

The last time I spoke to John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, it was about the group's science album for kids. This time we talked about the whole TMBG phenomenon: their beginnings and ultimate success, aesthetic aims, being taken seriously while also goofing around, and Sleestaks. TMBG turns 30 this year and is about to launch a national tour with some retrospective elements. So this seemed like a good time to look back on their singular career.

Cosmologist Anthony Aguirre and I continue our jaunt through General Relativity. Last week we presented some of the basics. This week, we talk about the evidence, the impacts and implications, including the cosmological constant, the expanding universe, gravity waves, time dilation, black holes, and spacetime singularities.

It was Einstein's greatest idea, and one of the most audacious leaps of scientific imagination ever. Much of what physicists know or think they know about space, time and the cosmos depends on it. But General Relativity is usually brushed over in pop sci accounts, because GR is considered too GD difficult for ordinary brains. Even on this scientifically-minded program, we've given it pretty cursory treatment. But not this time. I'm devoting two whole shows to the subject with physicist Anthony Aguirre. He's taught relativity and applies it in his own cosmological research, and does a yeomanly job here of making some very alien concepts approachable.

From Jan. 2010: They play, they sing and make lovely, original and uncategorizable music. The four women of the Real Vocal String Quartet combine classical backgrounds with influences from across the musical spectrum: pop, folk, jazz and international… In the first part of the program, RVSQ founder and violinist Irene Sazer and violist Dina Maccabee discuss the ensemble's distinctive sound and special chemistry as we listen to tracks from their recent CD. Then, Irene and Dina are joined by the group's other half, violinist Alisa Rose and cellist Jessica Ivry, to perform some new pieces they're working on.

From Nov. 2010: Linguist Guy Deutscher discusses the restless, ever-shifting nature of human languages. Have languages gotten more complex or simpler over the centuries? Does improper usage threaten the integrity of language? How do grammatical systems arise? How much of our linguistic mastery is innate, and how much is acquired through experience?

Yes, people have been fretting that mechanization would render them redundant ever since the early industrial revolution. And though predictions of deep and persistent "technological unemployment" have failed to come true in the past, MIT researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee say this time it's for real. In their new book, Race Against the Machine, they argue that the current "jobless recovery" is in large part due to advances in machine intelligence and other technologies. I spoke to Erik Brynjolfsson about the problem and some possible fixes.

Hany Farid is an expert on photo fakery and develops tools for detecting whether and how much pictures have been ginned up by, say, advertisers hawking beauty products. He's testified about the veracity of photos in court cases, uncovered audacious forgeries, and helped authenticate some iconic images. We had a fascinating conversation about truth and deception in the age of Photoshop: the ways digital retouching has altered our relation to photography, sowed confusion in the legal system, altered our body images, and sparked a race between the technologies of authentication and tools for photo manipulation.

First broadcast in Jan. 2009: physicist and master explainer Brian Greene on the space-, time-, and mind-bending properties of black holes. This originally aired as part 1 of a black hole double-header. Part 2 was with the physicist Leonard Susskind, also available as a podcast.

The Pulitzer-winning writer Tony Horwitz has a new book out about anti-slavery crusader John Brown (Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War), and we consider the challenge that Brown still poses for American history. Was Brown right to spill blood fighting slavery? When is violent resistance to manifest inhumanity justified? I talk history and morality with Tony Horwitz, with my friend and John Brown buff Andrea Monroe, and with ethicist Peter Singer.

Peter Singer may be the world's best-known ethicist. He's regarded as the intellectual father of the animal liberation movement and has staked out prominent positions on euthanasia, abortion, the use of military force and economic inequality. We talked about those and other sticky moral questions, as well as Peter's brand of utilitarianism, which aims to provide a single logical framework for all ethical decision making. Originally broadcast in 2006.

Steven Pinker, celebrated for his books on language and the workings of the mind, ventures into big history with his latest volume, "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined." He unloads a truckload of evidence to argue that humans have been getting more peaceful, more cooperative and less murderous, on scales large and small, for quite some time. Among the reasons: civilization really has made us more civil. That might seem a surprising conclusion for a card-carrying evolutionary psychologist, but Pinker hasn't gone all liberal artsy on us. Historicity has a role to play, he says, but so do biology and game theory.

Errol Morris's passion for sleuthing dates back at least to his days as a private detective and runs through his work as a documentary filmmaker in movies like "The Thin Blue Line" and his most recent, "Tabloid." In his new book, "Believing is Seeing," he turns his magnifying glass on photography. He and I discussed (and occasionally debated) the veridical nature of photography, the impact of digital retouching and the truth value of his own films. Then, in the second half of the show, an excerpt from my 2009 interview with documentarist Jonathan Stack on his film Iron Ladies of Liberia. It's about the presidential administration of Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who shared in this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

I was saddened to learn this past week that gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny had died. For today's show I replayed my 2010 interview with Frank, in which he looked back on his life as an activist. This is a somewhat longer cut of the original 2010 broadcast. In part 2 of the show, more on the subject of political activism and the sacrifices it sometimes calls for: an excerpt from a 2009 interview with former track star John Carlos, who talks about the famous black power salute he and fellow medalist Tommy Smith gave at the 1968 Olympic Games.

Last time we had Marlene Zuk on the show, the subject was parasites. This time, it's insects, what they do or don't have in common with human beings, and how we go wrong when we anthropomorphize too much.

For the last 15 years, Brian Nosek has been studying the hidden biases, preferences and thought patterns that lurk just below the threshold of self-awareness. Those unconscious attitudes are often at odds with our conscious account of ourselves, yet they may influence our outlook, our choices and even our actions. One of the tools Nosek and colleagues have used to expose latent racial preferences and other forms of bias is a simple online test, the Implicit Association Test, or IAT. In this edition of the show, I take the test myself and talk to Brian about implications of his research for our understanding of the mind, decisionmaking, politics and society.

In part 1 of this two-part series, I talked to sociologist and writer Teresa Gowan about her years among the homeless recyclers of San Francisco's Dogpatch district. As we walked through the neighborhood, Teresa described how much it's changed. Most of the homeless have been pushed out, and therein hangs a tale of societal attitudes—-toward poverty, property and rootlessness—-going back hundreds of years. In this second and final part of the series, we found out where some of Dogpatch's remaining homeless are holing up and how they're hanging on.

Donny McCaslin grew up in Santa Cruz, where this program is based, and got his musical start here. Today he's a widely-known, much-admired tenor sax player based in New York. Donny returned to our area recently to play at the 2011 Monterey Jazz Festival. We talked about his formative years (playing with his dad's band on the streets of Santa Cruz) and rapid success (he joined Gary Burton's quintet right out of college). Donny's a very thoughtful and knowledgeable musician, and I took advantage of the occasion to ask some detailed questions about his work and development.

The sociologist Teresa Gowan spent years getting to know a community of homeless recyclers in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood, which she describes in her book "Hobos, Hustlers and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco." Now the neighborhood is gentrifying, and many of the homeless have been driven out. Teresa and I revisited Dogpatch to talk about her work there, to see how things have changed and to find out what's happened to the homeless. As we walked, we talked: not just about homelessness but also the ways we speak about it and how they hem us in; the meaning of work; class and underclass in America; and the not-so-heartening history of attitudes toward poverty and "vagrancy." Part 1 of 2.

What happens when America recovers from the current economic crisis? Do things go back to normal? Not necessarily, and certainly not for everybody, says Don Peck, features editor of The Atlantic. In his new book, "Pinched," he cites voluminous evidence that deep recessions leave lasting scars, and we may never be quite the same again. He says we need to take immediate action to limit the damage, and that the current narrow focus on government debt is wrongheaded. Economist Stephen Rose is less worried about America's long-term prospects, but he too says government needs to do more to revive the economy.

From 2010: Fifty years ago, a group of Harvard faculty began experimenting with psychoactive drugs and helped turn on a generation. Robert looks back on a defining cultural moment with Don Lattin, author of "The Harvard Psychedelic Club," and with Harvard alumnus Paul Lee, who took part in the experiments.

“Classically trained to rock your *#!@ socks off,” to quote Tenacious D. The very tenacious guitarist D.J. Sparr was in town to perform at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and he swung by our studio with instrument (Taylor T5 hollowbody) in hand. We talked about his many musical loves (country, rock, classical), his career from toddlerhood on, the folly of aesthetic snobbery and the moment he realized it's OK to play a G major chord. We also listened to a selection of his wide-ranging performances and compositions, and he demonstrated some wicked picking and finger tapping.

Re-broadcast from 2011. Developmental psychologist Paul Bloom explores the nature of human pleasures, from sex and food to art, music and fantasies. He says that what we like depends on what we think, and there may be no such thing as purely physical pleasure. He discusses his new book, "How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like."

Filmmaker John Waters and composer Philip Glass are both performing (separately) in our area this summer, which gave me an opportunity to talk to them about their lives and work. John discussed his journey from troublemaker to beloved elder, his own role models and his fascination with cults and brainwashing. Philip talked about the new Days and Nights performing arts festival he's launching in Big Sur and vicinity, about writing music for film and the dialogue between modernity and tradition in classical music.

Harry Noller has been doing molecular biology since before it was even called that, and he's been doing it very well. His work has helped illumine some of the fundamental processes on which all life (at least all earthly life) depends. He speaks about his fascinating career and research on today's show. We'll hear about his meetings with remarkable scientists, his own brush with Nobel laureate-hood and the dizzying intricacies of his pet research subject, the microscopic machines known as ribosomes.

From 2009: The soul-stirring Portuguese music known as Fado. We discusses and listen to the art of Fado with Donald Cohen, author of "Fado Portuges." Featuring music by Mariza, Caminé, Amalia Rodrigues and more.

Stories about becoming American: where we come from, how we got here, the connections we make and the connections we keep, at home and abroad. In part 1, KUSP's Sean Rameswaram joins Team America and swears some oaths. In part 2, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi attends naturalization ceremonies in all 50 states, meeting new US citizens. In part 3, Mwende Hahesy, also of KUSP, pays a visit to her mother's homeland and reflects on the relationship of family and nationality.

How one mathophobe conquered her fears, and others can, too. For years, science journalist Jennifer Ouellette made a living writing about subjects like physics, while avoiding the mathematics. Finally, she resolved to shed the dread and confront calculus, as she relates in her recent book "The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse." We talked about her reconciliation with math, the history and uses of calculus (e.g., predicting rates of zombification), the sources of math anxiety and techniques for getting over it.

Historian Peter Kenez has wrtten about some of the pivotal events of the the 20th century, and he's lived some of those events, too. We talk about his very interesting life: growing up Jewish in Nazi- and Soviet-controlled Hungary, fleeing the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and coming to America. We also discussed his new book on the Holocaust.

Viruses have had a huge impact on human history, the evolution of life on Earth, even global climate. Science writer Carl Zimmer discusses his new book "A Planet of Viruses."

Brooke Gladstone has been keeping tabs on the news media for the past decade and a half, first as NPR's media correspondent and then with On the Media, the nationally distrubuted radio show she co-hosts with the redoubtable Bob Garfield. Her new illustrated history, The Influencing Machine, traces the rise (and failings) of modern journalism.

A musical journey to North Africa with Fattah Abbou and Mohamed Aoualou of the band Aza. The versatile singer/instrumentalists are from Morocco and play a variety of styles, with special emphasis on their own Imazighen (Berber) roots. They visited our studio to perform some lovely tunes and talk about their music and culture.

The celebrated "sound sculptor" Trimpin has long been haunted by the story of the Gurs prison camp in southern France, where thousands of Jews were held during World War II. Now he's commemorating this little-known chapter of the Holocaust with a major new multimedia performance. We discussed the Gurs Cycle with Trimpin, director Rinde Eckert, Gurs survivor Manfred Wildman, and Victor Rosenberg, whose family letters are used in the performance.

The late philosopher, anthropologist and environmentalist Gregory Bateson wanted to change the way we think, attending less to things in themselves and more to the connections between them. We hear from his daughter Nora Bateson, whose new documentary "An Ecology of Mind" offers her perspective on her father's work. Then, how stories and characters get in the heads of authors and actors. We're joined by Rivera Sun Cook, who plays all 30 roles in her new dramatic trilogy, "A Star Called Love."

Thirty years ago, human happiness seemed like a pretty unserious subject for scientific study. These days positive psychology, as happiness research is known, is de rigeur. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Roko Belic ("Genghis Blues") explores the science of contentment in his latest doc, "Happy." Belic traveled to five continents, talking to researchers, comparing the state of satisfaction in various countries and finding some very jolly people. Does happiness depend on our material conditions? Just how much control do we have over our own sense of well-being? And whence the intellectual prejudice that happiness lacks gravitas?

Documentary filmmaker David Hoffman lost nearly everything he owned—-including his huge film and art archive—-in the fire that destroyed his home in 2008. But he was determined to salvage something from the ashes. A new documentary, Everything Which is… Yes, shows what he lost and what he found. I spoke to David Hoffman and the film's director, John Vincent Barrett.

Ordinary matter is so 20th century. In recent decades, scientists have found that the vast bulk of the universe (95-96 percent) consists of some as-yet-unidentified thingums known as "dark matter" and "dark energy." Astrophysicist Rocky Kolb explains what we know and don't know about these mystery ingredients. Then science writer Richard Panek describes the sometimes bumpy road to their discovery.

While criminal rehabilitation seems to have fallen out of favor in much of America's penal system, San Francisco's Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP) is bucking the trend. RSVP aims to reform violent felons in SF's county jails, and the program appears to be working. In this broadcast, originally from 2009, we spoke to RSVP founder Sunny Schwartz (author of "Dreams from the Monster Factory") and to Ramon Garcia, who participated in the program, first as an inmate and later as a teacher.

Lieutenant Colonel Jason Armagost of the US Air Force fired some of the opening shots of the Iraq War as he piloted a B2 bomber over Baghdad. He's also a writer and serious reader, who carried a small library of classic fiction, essays and poetry with him on that flight. He talks with us about his experiences, about his role in the war and how literature helps him make sense of it all.

How life may have begun on Earth, with a little help from outer space. I talk to biochemist and astrobiologist Dave Deamer about the hypothetical origins of life. Also, attempts to conjure life in the lab, and music from DNA.

The writer Carolyn Burke joins us to pay tribute to France's quintessential songstress. Carolyn's new biography "No Regrets: The Life of of Edith Piaf," sheds new light on both the artist and her art. Carolyn and I discussed Piaf while listening to some classic recordings.

Jasmin Darznik emigrated to the US from Iran when she was three and grew up knowing little about her Iranian family history. After her father's death, her mother began to tell her story. She dictated a series of cassette tapes for Jasmin, illuminating her own extraordinary life and the lives of many Iranian women over the last half-century. We discuss Jasmin's book "The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life."

Cosmologist Anthony Aguirre discusses the new, more complicated view of the universe described by the latest theories. The universe may be bigger, older and far stranger than previously thought. We discuss multiverses, eternal inflation, space-time wormholes and more.

Luis Valdez--famed playwright and founder of El Teatro Campesino--and his son Kinan discuss Luis's play Mummifed Deer, being directed by Kinan at UC Santa Cruz. We talk about family secrets, forgotten wars, the perils of identity and the theater of "rascuachismo."

We explore the changing sound of radio documentaries (and changing ideas of realism)--from the work of Norman Corwin in the 1940s to This American Life and Radiolab today--with John Biewen of Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies. He's the editor of "Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound," a book of essays by great radio producers.

Kumail Nanjiani's stand-up performances and one-man show (“Unpronounceable”) have earned him great reviews and a growing fan base. Pretty impressive, considering he took up comedy fairly recently, after immigrating to the US from Pakistan at 18. We talk about life and laughs in Pakistan and America, pushing back against South Asian stereotypes,learning American English from the movies, his creative work ethic (he tries to write new material every day) and more.

Marc Maron's hilarious, raw and often revelatory heart-to-hearts with fellow comedians such as Louie C.K., Carlos Mencia, Robin Williams, Janeane Garofalo, Sarah Silverman and many others have made WTF one of the most listened-to podcasts on the web. In this interview Marc talks about the impact of WTF on his life, his sometimes uneasy relationships with other comics, his on-mic persona and the differences between conventional radio and the faster, looser world of podcasting.

They play, they sing and make lovely, original and uncategorizable music. The four women of the Real Vocal String Quartet combine classical backgrounds with influences from across the musical spectrum: pop, folk, jazz and international… In the first part of the program, RVSQ founder and violinist Irene Sazer and violist Dina Maccabee discuss the ensemble's distinctive sound and special chemistry as we listen to tracks from their recent CD. Then, Irene and Dina are joined by the group's other half, violinist Alisa Rose and cellist Jessica Ivry, to perform some new pieces they're working on.

Comedian and humor honcho Paul Provenza returns to the 7th Avenue Project to discuss the state of his art and his new Showtime series "The Green Room." It's a comedy round table in which comics mix it up in no-holds-barred conversation (and occasional head-butting).

A rebroadcast of a show we recorded at Christmastime a year ago, about a writing program for incarcerated youths called "The Beat Within." We talked to kids in Santa Cruz Juvenile Hall who participate in the program, and to Beat Within workshop leaders Jill Wolfson and Dennis Morton.

Comedian and author Amy Sedaris stopped by to show off her latest book of demented domesticity, "Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People." Plus an excerpt from our Christmas 2005 interview with filmmaker John Waters.

Cal Tech theoretical physicist and Cosmic Variance blogger Sean Carroll considers various ideas of time, including Newton's, Einstein's and Sean's own pet theory (think bubbles and baby universes). We also talk a lot about entropy—the basis of time's arrow, Sean explains—and perforce about eggs.

San Diego's “Frozen Zoo” is one of the world's largest collections of living animal tissue, collected from hundreds of species for research, conservation and even cloning. We talked to geneticist Oliver Ryder, one of the scientists who manage the Frozen Zoo. Also, a conversation with David Haussler, coordinator of the Genome 10K Project, which is using samples from the Frozen Zoo and other sources to map the genomes of 10,000 species.

Historian and cultural critic Todd Gitlin examines the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel and says it's not just political; it's providential. The two countries have been shaped by a shared sense of heavenly purpose, a belief that God is on their side. We discuss his new book "The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel and the Ordeals of Divine Election," co-written by Liel Leibovitz.

Linguist Guy Deutscher discusses the restless, ever-shifting nature of human languages. Have languages gotten more complex or simpler over the centuries? Does improper usage threaten the integrity of language? How do grammatical systems arise? How much of our linguistic mastery is innate, and how much is acquired through experience?

Our adventures in subatomic wonderland with particle physicist Bruce Schumm continue. We'll pick up where we left off last week, searching for underlying order—maybe even simplicity—amidst all the quantum complexity. We'll learn about the Feynman rules, symmetry and gauge theory, as well as gaps in the Standard Model of particle physics, the search for missing pieces (like the Higgs field) and the possibility of grand unification (a “theory of everything”).

We get a tour of the subatomic realm from particle physicist Bruce Schumm, the author of "Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics." We'll focus on the Standard Model of particle physics, which encompasses most of what scientists know about the universe at small scales. In this first of a two-part series, we'll learn about some of the basic ingredients of the model, including particles, fields and forces. Coming up in part two, the deeper organizing principles (gauge theory and symmetry), holes in the Standard Model and next steps.

NPR recently fired news analyst Juan Williams after his controversial comments about Muslims on Fox News' O' Reilly Factor. We examine journalistic ethics in light of the Williams affair, asking whether news organizations need to better enforce the traditional separation of reporting and opinionating, or if it's time to lighten up. Guests include Alicia Shepard, NPR ombudsman; Kevin Smith, ethics chair of the Society of Professional Journalists; Tom Goldstein, professor of journalism at U.C. Berkeley; James Rainey, On the Media columnist for the Los Angeles Times; and Judy Muller of USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

The best-selling author of "This is Your Brain on Music" returns to our show. Neuroscientist, musician and record producer Dan Levitin discusses his most recent book, "The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature." Levitin contends that music played a key role in human evolution. (Interview originally broadcast in 2008.)

The Poetic Justice Project is a theater company for the formerly incarcerated, presenting stories of prison and jail by people who've been there. Members of the project discuss their lives behind bars and after parole, the impact of prison art programs and their performances in a new musical drama, "Off the Hook," that's been touring California.

The ever-trenchant social critic Laura Kipnis schools us on scandal and explains what public humiliations, meltdowns and flameouts tell us about their participants and the rest of us. Laura's new book is "How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior."

Co-host of NPR's "All Things Considered" Michele Norris contemplates America's racial past by way of family history in her new memoir "The Grace of Silence." In this interview she reflects on the things her parents did and didn't tell her about their lives as African Americans, the importance of oral history and her feelings about her own work as a radio journalist.

As the legendary Firesign Theatre comedy troupe prepared for a reunion tour, two of its members, Phil Austin and Phil Proctor, talked about their upcoming performances, their classic recordings, their methods and madness.

Scientific studies that highlight the nicer side of humans and our primate relatives: In part one of the show, developmental psychologist Felix Warneken looks for and finds evidence of instinctive altruism in young humans and chimps. In part two, neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky discovers that even baboons--long believed to be incorrigibly violent--can change their ways and get along.

Pianist Mark Levine jumped into Latin Jazz almost by accident 40 years ago. It became a lifelong pursuit, and Mark became a leading proponent of the music. He talks about his beginnings in the genre, his continued apprenticeship, his Latin Grammy-nominated tribute to Brazilian composer Moacir Santos and his performance at the 2010 Monterey Jazz Festival.

Saxophonist/composer Rudresh Mahanthappa has been lighting up the jazz scene with his blend of western and Indian musical influences. Mahanthappa aims for, and achieves, a sound that's both seriously cerebral and seriously swinging, both technical and tuneful. He talks about the identity crisis that led to his discovery of Indian music, his musical self-education and his upcoming performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

It's not all in your head. Philosopher Alva Noe says neuroscientists are looking for consciousness in all the wrong places: it's not in our brains after all.

Three people whose faces were altered by illness or injury talk about self-image, the meaning of beauty, and the realities of reconstructive surgery. David Roche is an inspirational speaker and humorist. Gina Butchin works to raise awareness of facial difference. Louise Ashby is an actress and writer. Originally broadcast Oct. 2009

For two decades, environmental activist John Francis travelled America on foot while keeping a vow of silence. Along the way, he got to know a side of himself and this country that few experience. Originally broadcast Aug 2009.

John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants discusses the delights and challenges of writing science songs for kids, as we listen to TMBG's new CD/DVD "Here Comes Science. And Michael Hearst of the band One Ring Zero talks about their new CD "Planets," which offers a fanciful tour of the solar system.

We talk to members of two ensembles who've helped change the sound of classical music. Violinist David Harrington is the founder of the Kronos Quartet, which has revolutionized the string quartet repertoire. Matt Albert is violinist and violist with Eighth Blackbird, a talented and inventive sextet who've further extended the range of classical expression. Both Kronos and eighth blackbird are performing at this year's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. David and Matt joined us to share their passion for music, reflect on their work and talk about their Cabrillo Festival performances.

As the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music begins its 2010 season, we speak to two of this year's featured artists about their upcoming performances. Kevin Puts, best known for his composing, talks about the challenges of performing his own piano concerto "Night" for the first time. In part 2, percussion virtuoso Colin Currie describes his rendition of Jennifer Higdon's "Percussion Concerto." We listened to Colin's Grammy-winning performance of the concerto with the London Philharmonic as we discussed the piece.

A new HBO documentary film depicts life--and afterlife--in Lily Dale, New York. Founded in 1879, Lily Dale is the "world's largest spiritualist community," home to dozens of mediums and a destination for bereaved people hoping to contact deceased loved ones. "No One Dies in Lily Dale" is a fascinating and poignant look at love, loss and belief. We talk to the director, Steven Cantor, and three people depicted in the film.

In part 1, a 2006 interview with Harvey Pekar, who died this past week on July 12. We talked about his brawling youth, his autobiographical comics American Splendor and The Quitter, the impact of fame, his run-ins with David Letterman and other topics. In part 2, a 2009 interview with Jonathan Ames, discussing his own semi-autobiographical graphic novel The Alcoholic, the movie adaptation of his novel The Extra Man and his HBO comedy series Bored to Death.

Historian Rebecca Herzig describes a time in turn-of-the-century America when scientists were expected to lay down life and limb for their profession. Many did, but was it necessary? Then, writer and comedian Sandra Tsing Loh plays up the fun of science, but knows a thing or two about suffering for it, too.

Two stories for the 4th of July: In part 1, "Lift Every voice and Sing," also known as the black national anthem. We'll hear performances of the song as historian Imani Perry discusses its meaning and importance to the civil rights struggle. In part 2, Frank Kameny recalls the early days of the gay rights movement. Kameny, now 85, led some of the first public demonstrations for gay equality, picketing the White House and staging 4th of July protests in the mid-1960s.

Writer Kathryn Schulz considers what it means to be wrong, how we feel about it and how we deal with it. In her new book “On Being Wrong,” Schulz examines the sources of human error, and says that rather than try to perfect ourselves, we need to embrace our fallibility.

Composer David Cope discusses his 30-year investigation into the nature of musical creativity. Cope's computer programs generate new musical works in the style of historical composers, as well as original modernist compositions, delighting and/or enraging lovers of classical music. We listen to some of his old and new compositions, and consider what they reveal about art, originality and human intelligence.

Developmental psychologist Paul Bloom explores the nature of human pleasures, from sex and food to art, music and fantasies. He says that what we like depends on what we think, and there may be no such thing as purely physical pleasure. He discusses his new book, "How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like."

Wes Moore was a Rhodes Scholar on his way to a successful career when he learned of another Wes Moore, wanted by police for murder. He discovered surprising parallels in their two lives, despite their divergent paths. Wes Moore discusses his book "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates"

Comic and actor Paul Provenza (director of "The Aristocrats") and photographer Dan Dion take a searching look at contemporary comedy in their book "Satiristas," featuring conversations with and photos of many of today's leading satirical artists. Paul and Dan discuss the craft of comedy and the issues confronting contemporary comics.

Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom discusses recent research on infant morality. He says babies may not be saints, but they've got a much more developed sense of right and wrong than previously thought. Then, is youth wasted on the young? A large-scale study indicates that people get happier as they age, especially after 50. Psychologist Arthur Stone of Stoney Brook U. describes the findings.

A major new study led by UC Santa Cruz biologist Barry Sinervo has discovered that lizards around the world are dying off, and the culprit appears to be global warming. The finding suggests that an era of climate-driven mass extinctions may already have begun, sooner than scientists anticipated. Barry Sinervo and fellow biologists Donald Miles and Raymond Huey discuss the implications for reptiles and the rest of us.

For Mother's Day, we rebroadcast a 2009 interview with developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik. She's spent decades studying the minds of infants and young children. Her conclusion: babies are smarter, more aware and more caring than scientists previously realized. Also, inventor Joshua Klein on the surprising intelligence of crows.

Political scientist Brendan Nyhan studies the impact of facts on political views, and finds that often, reality doesn't matter. Journalist Robert Frank reports on the rich for the Wall Street Journal. He says that despite fears that they'd lose their fortunes during the financial crisis, many of the highly affluent are doing better than ever, and the gap between rich and poor has only grown.

Judith Tannenbaum was a teacher working in San Quentin. Spoon Jackson was an inmate serving a life sentence. We'll hear how they met, discovered a mutual love of poetry and forged a 25-year friendship. That friendship is the subject of their memoir, "By Heart."

Theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind on his long-running disagreement with Stephen Hawking about the nature of black holes, with the very foundations of physics at stake.

Anthropologist Hugh Raffles ruminates on human-insect relationships around the world in his new book Insectopedia. Japanese insect boys, Chinese fighting crickets, insect minds, insect music...

We consider the music and dance that captured the hearts of millions. Guests include tango historians Donald Cohen and Christine Denniston, and members of the Santa Cruz tango community. Show originally broadcast April, 2009.

Writer Gabriel Thompson went undercover to learn first-hand about the tough low-wage jobs done mostly by immigrants in America. He harvested lettuce in Arizona, toiled in a slaughterhouse in Alabama and did low-end restaurant jobs in Manhattan. He describes his year of working strenuously, and what he learned about immigrant labor.

In recent years, physics theory has gotten way ahead of the evidence. Now, researchers are going to extremes to figure out what's true and what isn't. They've launched a set of hugely ambitious experiments in some of the most forbidding places on Earth, from the South Pole to Himalayan mountaintops. Physics writer Anil Ananthaswamy travelled to these remote laboratories, and he tells us what he saw.

A tune-filled celebration and cerebration with neuroscientist, musician and record producer Daniel Levitin, author of "This is Your Brain on Music." Originally broadcast in 2007.

What Jane Goodall was to chimps, biologist Barry Sinervo is to lizards. He's spent the last 20 years studying lizards in the wild, gaining remarkable insights into the workings of evolution, social behavior and cooperation. He shares his discoveries, along with some very funny lizard stories.

Noted landscape painter Richard Mayhew discusses his life and work, including his childhood in a mixed African American and Native American community, joining the New York art scene at the height of the abstract expressionist movement, his second career as a jazz singer and helping to organize African-American artists in the 1960s.

Terry Castle takes on her own and others' self-deceptions in her latest collection of hilarious, brutally honest essays, "The Professor and Other Writings." Targets include sex, romance and youthful infatuations. She and Robert do their best to burst as many bubbles as possible.

Fifty years ago, a group of Harvard faculty began experimenting with psychoactive drugs and helped turn on a generation. Robert looks back on a defining cultural moment with Don Lattin, author of "The Harvard Psychedelic Club," and with Harvard alumnus Paul Lee, who took part in the experiments.

Philosopher/Novelist Rebecca Goldstein discusses her latest book, "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction." She and Robert consider the case for and against religion.

In the aftermath of the Port-Au-Prince earthquake, the medical organization Partners in Health has played a key role bringing emergency aid to Haiti. On this edition of the 7th Avenue Project, Robert's 2003 interview with writer Tracy Kidder, discussing Partners in Health, its work in Haiti and its founder, Dr. Paul Farmer. Farmer was the subject of Kidder's best-selling book "Mountains Beyond Mountains."

Over the last two decades, Joe Sacco has helped invent a new genre: comic-book journalism. He's reported from Sarajevo during the Bosnian War and from the Palestinian Territories during the two Intifadas. His latest book is "Footnotes in Gaza." In today's show, he talks about his career, his experiences in the Palestinian Territories and the roots of conflict in Gaza.

What Mark Twain's writing tells us about him and about America. Twain scholar Forrest Robinson looks behind the mask of America's favorite humorist and finds a troubled conscience, haunted by history.

"The Beat Within" is a weekly magazine that collects writings by teens in California juvenile halls. Host Robert Pollie talks to kids in Santa Cruz Juvenile Hall who participate in the program, and to Beat Within workshop leaders Jill Wolfson and Dennis Morton.

In this end-of-the-year musical special, we put 2009 to bed with some exquisite, ethereal lullabies and other songs from the famed Armenian singer Hasmik Harutyunyan and the Kitka women's vocal ensemble. Along with the music, Hasmik and Shira Cion of Kitka discuss the tragic history and haunting music of Armenia with host Robert Pollie.

Rick Walker spent 12 years in California prisons for a murder he didn't commit. In part 2 of this 2-part series, Walker talks about his life after prison, and film makers Gwen Essegian and Mark Ligon discuss their new documentary about Walker's fight to get restitution for the years he lost. Also, Lola Vollen, director of the Life After Exoneration project, on the plight of exonerees nationwide.

Rick Walker spent 12 years in California prisons for a murder he didn't commit. In part I of this multipart series he talks about his conviction, his years behind bars and his release.

Two interviews from the archives: Tracy Kidder discusses his 2006 memoir, "My Detachment," about the year he spent as a young army lieutenant in Vietnam. Novelist Andrew Sean Greer from 2008, on his most recent work: "The Story of A Marriage."

The stuff the universe is made of. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek talks to Robert about the fundamental ingredients of physical reality. Where mass comes from, why empty space isn't, and other marvels of modern physics explained.

Building the genome zoo. In the most ambitious effort of its type ever attempted, scientists are hoping to map the genes of 10,000 different animals. Proponents say the "Genome 10K project" will provide vast new insights into the biology, evolution and preservation of species. Robert talks to project coordinator David Haussler of UC Santa Cruz.

The soul-stirring Portuguese music known as Fado. Robert discusses and listens to the art of Fado with Donald Cohen, author of "Fado Portuges." Featuring music by Mariza, Caminé, Amalia Rodrigues and more.

Physician and human rights activist Ashis Brahma of the Phoenix Global Health Foundation talks about practicing medicine in conflict zones and refugee camps.

A theoretical physicist searches for the universal laws of life. Geoffrey West explains some simple mathematical rules that he says may explain everything from the length of our lives to the health of our cities.

Comics artist Art Spiegelman discusses "Breakdowns," the recent book collecting his work from the 1970's, and looks back on his life in cartooning and comics, from skin mags and Garbage Pail Kids to Maus and the New Yorker.

How people cope with calamity. Pulitzer prizewinner Tracy Kidder discusses his new book, "Strength in What Remains," about an African refugee fleeing ethnic violence. And social critic Rebecca Solnit talks about the response of ordinary people to the Loma Prieta earthquake, hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters.

Three people whose faces were altered by illness or injury talk about self-image, the meaning of beauty, and the realities of reconstructive surgery. David Roche is an inspirational speaker and humorist. Gina Butchin works to raise awareness of facial difference. Louise Ashby is an actress and writer. They speak to host Robert Pollie.

Art, authenticity, race and identity mix it up in the music of the acclaimed singer-songwriter known as Stew. He discusses his musical "Passing Strange," now out in a screen version from Spike Lee.

It's alive! Biochemist and astrobiologist David Deamer describes how life may have begun on Earth, perhaps with a little help from outer space.

Film maker Curt Worden discusses his documentary about Jack Kerouac's novel"Big Sur." Also, writer Robert Sullivan reflects on cross-country car trips.

Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik has spent decades studying the minds of infants and young children. Her conclusion: babies are smarter, more aware and more caring than scientists previously realized. Also, inventor Joshua Klein on the surprising intelligence of crows.

Two American heirs who grew up wealthy question their good fortune and now advocate greater economic equality. They discuss their own experiences of wealth and the distribution of wealth in the country.

For two decades, environmental activist John Francis travelled America on foot while keeping a vow of silence. Along the way, he got to know a side of himself and this country that few experience. He describes his pilgrimage to host Robert Pollie.

In his ongoing look at wealth in America, host Robert Pollie gets an alternative view from Zen abbot Steve Stückey and humanitarian doctor/clown Patch Adams.

Orchestral percussionist Galen Lemmon shares some of the sounds of this year's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Featuring marimba, vibes, steel drums, timpani, even a tuned anvil. Then, sacred drums: a visit with Afro-Cuban Batá drummer Michael Spiro.

More than the sum of the parts. Nobel prizewinning physicist Robert Laughlin says nature can't always be reduced to its individual components. Plus, Maestra Marin Alsop of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

Criminal justice reformer Sunny Schwartz discusses the Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP) in the San Francisco jails. Plus, Ramon Garcia, former jail inmate and RSVP facilitator, describes how the program changed his life.

Economist Russ Roberts about the nature of wealth, how it's created and destroyed, and whether economics really is a science.

A new film commemorates a legendary 1974 concert that brought together many of the greats of African, Latin and African-American music in Kinshasa, Zaire. Robert talks to filmmaker Geoffrey Levy-Hinte about the concert and the film, called "Soul Power." Plus, "Masanga": the story of a classic African song.

Paleontologist Neil Shubin describes how scientists are reconstructing the history of life from fossils and DNA, how genes shape bodies and what we have in common with fruit flies.

Iranian film maker Nahid Sarvestani describes her involvement in the Iranian revolution 30 years ago and discusses her latest documentary, "The Queen and I." Then, Iranian-American student Naveed Mansouri talks about Iran's "Green Revolution" and the role of social networking technologies.

Writer Mat Johnson talks about growing up as a black boy who looked white. Then, Yiddish makes a comeback in the punk klezmer songs of Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird.

Writer Jonathan Ames talks about his graphic novel, "The Alcoholic," his upcoming HBO comedy series and his double life as public and private figure. Plus: Short and Sweet: the Big Sur International Short Film Series.

Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal on the impact of the economic crisis on the upper upper crust. Also: where to stash your gold bullion: Lynel Berryhill of Brown Safe Manufacturing, purveyor of luxury vaults and safes.

Geoffrey Pullum, linguist and author of "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language," discusses the grammar wars, common misconceptions about English and whether we really can talk to the animals.

Philosopher Alva Noë says consciousness isn't in the brain.

What it means to have a mom, what it means to be one and the unspoken truths of motherhood.

New films on Youssou N'Dour and Australian sprinter Peter Norman, who supported the raised fist protest at the 1968 Olympics. Interviewees include 1968 Olympic bronze medalist John Carlos

Mathematician Keith Devlin discusses his collaboration with choral group Zambra. Plus dancer/mathematician Karl Schaffer, and the most important math discovery you've never heard of.

Evolutionary biologist and parasite maven Marlene Zuk. Plus, parasite music with singer Daniel Kahn.

A 2008 interview with Ry Cooder, discussing his 'California Trilogy' and its latest installment, 'I, Flathead.'