To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Sometime in the last couple of years, America’s collective morning routine shifted. We used to start the day with coffee. Now it’s coffee and Wordle. Or Spelling Bee. Or both, plus the crossword. We’re living in a golden age of word games – which is fun, and one way to get just a tiny bit of relief when the world feels out of control. Original Air Date: November 09, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Getting into the puzzle mindset — Welcome to my crossworldGuests: A. J. Jacobs, Anna ShechtmanNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

One of the toughest things about trying to understand climate change – arguably the most important story of our time — is wrapping our minds around it. To even imagine something so enormous, so life-changing, we need a story. Some characters, a metaphor, and even some lessons learned. For that, we turn to the novelists and journalists telling the story of climate change – as we – and our children – live it.Original Air Date: August 14, 2021Interviews In This Hour: The Climate Change Stories We Need To Hear — The Climate Crisis Gets Biblical — Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dream World: How Dreams Shaped Her Dazzling Speculative Novel — A Climate Dystopia Of Cold, Concrete, Wind and a WallGuests: Alice Bell, Lydia Millet, Lidia Yuknavitch, John LanchesterNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

When you’re on the clock, you’re always running out of time – because in our culture, time is money. The relentless countdown is making us and the planet sick. But clock time isn’t the only kind. There are older, deeper rhythms of time that sustain life. What would it be like to live more in tune with nature’s clocks?Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.Original Air Date: June 03, 2023Interviews In This Hour: How time came to rule our lives — and how we might free ourselves — The past and future of keeping timeGuests: Jenny Odell, David RooneyNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Life is the sum total of the time between birth and death. But have you ever really wondered, what is life? It’s mysterious - and even science doesn’t quite have an answer. But there’s a new biology of life that’s overturning decades of assumptions. We report from a gathering of biologists, geologists and artists at the Island of Knowledge in Tuscany.Original Air Date: July 12, 2025Interviews In This Hour: Why we need a new theory of life — Beyond the genome: A new science of life — How humans can learn to be animalGuests: Marcelo Gleiser, Bob Hazen, Phil Ball, Melanie ChallengerNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What would it be like to live in a world where magic is still alive? Not weird, not woo-woo, just ordinary. 400 years ago, consulting a magician in downtown London was as unremarkable as calling a plumber today. Even now, there are places where magic never died – like Iceland, where 54 percent of the population believes in elves, or thinks they might exist. Original Air Date: October 12, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Why do Icelanders believe in elves? — Deborah Harkness uncovers the real history of witches — Practical magic and the 'cunning folk' of Tudor EnglandGuests: Nancy Marie Brown, Deborah Harkness, Tabitha StanmoreNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Do you ever feel like there’s something missing in your life? You don’t know exactly what it is. And there’s never enough time to really think about it. You might get a glimpse of it if you slow down, or look deeply at something (or someone), or remember some childhood joy. What if that thing you’re missing is a sense of wonder?Original Air Date: March 18, 2023Interviews In This Hour: A sense of wonder through the eyes — and ears — of a child — What goosebumps, tears and grief can teach us about being awestruck — Finding sacred meaning through poetryGuests: Lulu Miller, Dacher Keltner, Jennifer Michael HechtNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

America is in the midst of a new debate over how we tell our history. You can see it everywhere – in arguments over critical race theory and AP history classes, in museums and state capitals, in the news and on talk radio. It’s fueled in part by an emerging generation of public historians who are re-shaping our national narratives.Original Air Date: February 25, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Uncovering The Blind Spots In Historical Narratives — Columnist Jamelle Bouie on dispelling 'civic myths' with American history — How 'Praise Houses' Reclaim A Lost Piece of Black History Guests: Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei, Jamelle Bouie, Charmaine MinniefieldNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

In the world of internet influencers and YouTube stars, it’s not enough to be ordinary anymore. You need to be special. But where did this craze for personal branding come from? Why are we so obsessed with ourselves? To understand this cult of the self, we need to go back to 19th century spiritual movements and the rise of the huckster — and also the myth of rugged individualism. But if we’re always shouting “Me me me,” what are we losing? What has it cost us?Original Air Date: February 03, 2024Interviews In This Hour: If nobody sees you online, do you exist? — How personal branding became an American religion — Why rugged individualism is a dangerous myth — The philosophers who invented the modern selfGuests: Angelo Bautista, Tara Isabella Burton, Alissa Quart, Andrea WulfNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Contemplating the infinite is a time-tested way to shrink the present down to size. But if you think about it for very long, infinity can really mess with your mind. There’s something fundamentally paradoxical about it, and beautiful.Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.Original Air Date: June 07, 2025Interviews In This Hour: The glorious mathematics of infinity — Checking into the infinity hotel — Finding solace in the nature of space-time — The math and mysticism of Albert EinsteinGuests: Jordan Ellenberg, Jon Halperin, Michelle Thaller, Kieran FoxNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

It’s summer, and you might be pulling out your binoculars, filling your bird feeders, and looking up as you hear a melodious song. But for many birdwatchers, it's not just a simple pastime. Identifying bird calls, tracking rare breeds through marshes and waters, and watching our feathered friends as they watch you has turned into true love of birds — an avian obsession.Original Air Date: June 17, 2023Interviews In This Hour: 'Utterly unlike other birds': The inscrutable brilliance of owls — Mark Obmascik on Competitive Bird Watching — The Indelible Myth and Meaning of Ravens — Christopher Benfey on 'A Summer of Hummingbirds'Guests: Jennifer Ackerman, Mark Obmascik, Charles Monroe-Kane, Christopher BenfeyNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What’s the last dream you remember having? Some of us dream every night. But we’re in too much of a hurry to remember our dreams or think about them the next day. Others of us are dream-deprived. What if we embrace our dreams — and our night selves — as a way to understand ourselves better, to connect to each other, even to lead a better life?Original Air Date: February 24, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The perils of a 'wake-centric' world — The lives we live inside our dreams — A dreaming mind, illustrated — Embracing your night selfGuests: Rubin Naiman, Kelly Bulkeley, Roz Chast, Annabel Abbs-StreetsNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Most of us have no idea what will happen when we die. But some do — people who actually started the process of dying and then came back with remarkable stories — like meeting dead relatives. Science is not only extending the lives of patients who’ve been declared clinically dead; it’s also beginning to tell us what happens in near-death experiences.Original Air Date: September 21, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Sebastian Junger reckons with the possibility of an afterlife — How science is revolutionizing our ideas about life and deathGuests: Sebastian Junger, Sam ParniaNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

We celebrate Mother's Day with a collection of stories from our archives, by and about moms. Stories about care and about courage — about the work of mothering.Original Air Date: May 13, 2023Interviews In This Hour: The all-encompassing worlds of motherhood and poverty — Eula Biss on 'The Argonauts' — Jacqueline Plumez on Mother Power — Amanda Henry on the Road to Motherhood — Ayelet Waldman on Trying to Be a Decent MotherGuests: Stephanie Land, Eula Biss, Jacqueline Horner Plumez, Amanda Henry, Ayelet WaldmanNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

It can be hard to enjoy the natural world these days without anxiety. You notice a butterfly on a flower and wonder why you don’t see more. How’s the monarch population doing this year? And shouldn’t there be more bees? The challenge is to live in this time of climate change – but still find joy and refuge in it. Original Air Date: July 27, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Ecologies of love: Heather Swan’s stories of insects and the web of life — Becoming edible: Philosopher Andreas Weber’s mystical biologyGuests: Heather Swan, Andreas WeberNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Rooted in reality, written with a keen observer’s eye, and shaped with a sense of song, documentary poetry tells the truth in an artist’s voice. For generations, through wars, crisis, and political upheaval, documentary poets have helped make sense of some of our most difficult moments – by expressing what might otherwise be impossible to say. So what are they writing about today?This episode was produced in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.Original Air Date: January 13, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The gospel of Suncere Ali Shakur — This is how I drew you — The poetry that bears witness to the everydayGuests: Philip Metres, Suncere Ali Shakur, Kaia Sand, Camille DungyNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.