Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchJames Wynn and G. Mitchell Reyes, "Arguing with Numbers: The Intersections of Rhetoric and Mathematics" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2021)
Episode 69
One pervasive stereotype about mathematics is that it is objective, unbiased, or otherwise exempt from the influence of human passions. James Wynn an…
4 years, 6 months ago
Benjamin Labatut, "When We Cease to Understand the World" (NYRB, 2021)
Episode 25
An interview with Benjamín Labatut, author of When We Cease to Understand the World (2021), a New York Times Top Ten Book of the Year. Benjamin and I…
4 years, 6 months ago
Nina Kraus, "Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World" (MIT Press, 2021)
Episode 102
Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World (MIT Pr…
4 years, 7 months ago
Shaking the World: How Geology Can Help Us Address the Big Challenges of the 21st Century
Episode 46
Southeast Asia is the most tectonically and geologically active region on Earth. These processes have enriched the mountains and basins with world-fa…
4 years, 7 months ago
Oliver Rollins, "Conviction: The Making and Unmaking of the Violent Brain" (Stanford UP, 2021)
Episode 299
Exposing ethical dilemmas of neuroscientific research on violence, this book warns against a dystopian future in which behavior is narrowly defined i…
4 years, 7 months ago
Edie Widder, “Ocean Enlightenment” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Episode 98
Ocean Enlightenment is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Edie Widder, Founder, CEO and Senior Scientist at Ocean Res…
4 years, 7 months ago
Nolan Gasser, "Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste" (Flatiron Books, 2019)
Episode 131
Why do we love the music we love? In Why You Like IT: The Science & Culture of Musical Taste (Flatiron Books, 2019) musicologist Nolan Gasser, archit…
4 years, 7 months ago
Robin Ince, "The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity" (Atlantic Books, 2021)
Episode 103
Comedian Robin Ince quickly abandoned science at school, bored by a fog of dull lessons and intimidated by the barrage of equations. But, twenty year…
4 years, 7 months ago
Brandy Schillace, "Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)
Episode 101
Today I talked to Brandy Schillace about her book Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant…
4 years, 7 months ago
Frans de Waal, “On Atheists and Bonobos” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Episode 95
On Atheists and Bonobos is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and primatologist Frans de Waal, Emory University, who is r…
4 years, 7 months ago