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Science
 
 
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Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 11:00 am

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, who profoundly challenged the understanding of human cultures, has died at the age of 100. We’ll look back at his work and its meaning.

Comments [20]
 
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Friday, July 24, 2009 at 11:00 am

Forget summer heat. We’re talking glaciers, igloos, blizzards, and adventures in the world’s coldest places.

Comments [14]
 
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 10:00 am

We’ll look at a nation moving from instant gratification to an age of thrift, and the psychology of self-control.

Comments [38]
 
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Friday, April 10, 2009 at 11:00 am

We talk with top neuroscientist Bruce Hood about his new book, “SuperSense: Why We believe in the Unbelievable.”

Comments [46]
 
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Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 11:00 am

Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt is one active volcano. And other volcanoes are roaring or rumbling. We’ll ask vulcanologists what’s going on.

Comments [13]
 
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Friday, March 13, 2009 at 11:00 am

Galileo Galilei and Pope Urban VIII, back, onstage, in a play by Richard Goodwin. Faith and science tangle again.

Comments [28]
 
Friday, March 6, 2009 at 1:27 pm

What Would Be the Military Response?
Many people are confident that, sequestered deep within the cryptic machinery of the United States Department of Defense, are plans and personnel ready to deal with the aftermath of discovering extraterrestrials. It’s a pleasant assumption, and one that gains currency from the fact that, a half century ago, [...]

Comments [1]
 
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Friday, February 27, 2009 at 11:00 am

Heavens and Hells and more – a top neuroscientist offers forty ways to imagine the afterlife.

Comments [40]
 
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Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 11:00 am

“CSI” it’s not. A new report on crime labs from the National Academy of Sciences calls into question decades of forensic techniques. We’ll investigate.

Comments [10]
 
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Monday, February 9, 2009 at 11:00 am

Sylvia Earle has spent a lifetime exploring ocean depths. She tells us about her new brainchild, Google Ocean, and the bottom of the deep blue sea.

Comments [15]
 
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Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 10:00 am

Stem cell researchers are making up for lost time, and looking forward to big medical breakthroughs. We’ll talk with two top scientists on the leading edge of stem cell research.

Comments [24]
 
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Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 11:00 am

Pharmaceutical companies – and some scientists – are pushing to make drugs like Adderall and Ritalin mainstream performance enhancers.

Comments [73]
 
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 10:00 am

President Obama has pledged to “restore science to its rightful place.” We’ll ask what that means, for America – and the future of science.

Comments [22]
 
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 11:00 am

We’ll talk with the field biologist who tracks new threats, to jungle and stream, before they become pandemic.

Comments [6]
 
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 11:00 am

Descartes said “I think, therefore I am.” Bestseller Russell Shorto reminds us it’s more complicated than that, in his new tale of faith, reason, and “Descartes’ Bones.”

Comments [18]
 
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Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 11:00 am

Way faster than a speeding bullet, protons are whizzing through the Large Hadron Collider. Big Bangs, black holes, and the Great Beyond.

Comments [21]
 
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Monday, July 21, 2008 at 11:00 am

Physics and the presidency. A top scientist says our challenges require breakthroughs.

 
Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 10:00 am

Robotic Mars exploration has been no picnic. Half of all Mars missions have ended in failure. But right now, the Mars Phoenix Lander is up there, well-landed, sending back astonishing images, and — it appears — shaking off its problems extending the eight-foot arm that will dig for ice.
The Phoenix is looking for conditions that [...]

 
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 11:00 am

Jill Price has a memory like few others in the world. She’s 42 years old, and she remembers everything.
Every instant of her life, and the life around her, since she was fourteen. Down to the smallest detail. Like a movie that never stops running. Whether she likes it or not. And not just what happened, [...]

Comments [1]
 
Monday, April 21, 2008 at 11:00 am

Perfumes are more than a scent. They are a state of mind — at least that what all the ads tell us.
A little dab here and you’re picnicking in fields of wild flowers, or experiencing the blush of first love. A spritz there and you’re rolling in satin sheets, and feeling oh so Hollywood. Dab [...]

 
On Point Today
The Pandora Effect
Friday, November 20, 2009 image

We’ll talk with the founder of Pandora, the online music service that claims it knows what you’ll want to hear.

Comments [53]
 
Week in the News
Friday, November 20, 2009 image

Obama in China. Healthcare crunch time in the Senate. And the mammogram controversy rages on. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Comments [44]

Recent Shows
Poker: America’s Game
Thursday, November 19, 2009 image

Poker and American history. How the game of presidents, cowboys, gangsters, and online gamblers helped shape America.

Comments [9]
 
Google vs. Murdoch
Thursday, November 19, 2009 image

Rupert Murdoch wants to block the search giant from scooping free content from his newspapers. We’ll look at the staredown.

Comments [129]
On Point Blog
Michael Wolff and Jeff Jarvis on Murdoch v. Google

We had a rousing discussion about Google vs. Murdoch, and what it says about the whole future of news, with Michael Wolff, Jeff Jarvis, and Steven Brill. Here’s what Wolff and Jarvis had to say about the delusions of both Murdoch and Google.

More » | Comments [18]
 
Video: Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Last week, host Tom Ashbrook was on stage with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, asking him about some of the biggest technology and business issues of our time.

More » | Comments [4]
 
California, here we come! And we need your questions!

On Point is headed west!
No, no. Not for good. Only for one show. But it’s a very special show!  The NPR station in Thousand Oaks, California – KCLU – is celebrating their 15th anniversary. We’re lucky to have been on their airwaves for nearly seven years, and they invited us out west to host a live [...]

More » | Comments [10]