The Science of Attention and Distraction
Your smartphone might be making you miserable and you might not even realize it. These machines are technological marvels, but our addiction to them is causing us to miss out…
Latest
How Accurate Are Antibody Tests?
Dr. Alex Marson, the Director of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute for Genomic Immunology, explains what antibodies tests can and cannot tell us.
The Invisible Lady
In 1804, an Invisible Lady arrived in New York City.She went on to become the most popular attraction in the country. But why? And who was she? In this episode,…
The Coach Effect
Colleges today talk a big game about valuing diversity — so why are so many of them failing to retain first-generation students?We meet a homeless straight-A track star and her…
On the Front Lines
Dr. Emily Rubin, a critical care pulmonologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses what she has learned from treating coronavirus patients since March.
Jess Walter: The Ponz
Michael Cohen, Trump’s infamous fixer, was just released from prison to home confinement. Jess Walter, author of the international bestseller Beautiful Ruins, imagines Cohen’s life in the slammer: betterment, celebrity, and…
Nick Lowe
Nick Lowe wrote the classic “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding” (made famous by Elvis Costello), produced one of the UK’s first punk records (“New Rose” by the…
For Whom the Alarm Clock Tolls
“Time famine” is when you just don’t feel you have a spare moment… and it can make you miserable. It’s a feeling Dr. Laurie Santos knows only too well, so…
The Second (and Third, and Fourth) Wave of COVID-19
Yonatan Grad, an assistant professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explains why we may have to practice social distancing intermittently until 2022.
Detection of Deception
When James Frye, a young black man, is charged with murder under unusual circumstances in 1922, he trusts his fate to a strange new machine: the lie detector. Why did…
Coronavirus and Climate Change
Bill McKibben, who was one of the first people to warn us about climate change more than 30 years ago with his book “The End Of Nature,” discusses what COVID-19…
The Coach in Your Head
Just about anyone today can call themselves a coach. Michael traces this trend back to its source and finds out that the secret to effective coaching lies not in retraining…