Norman Swan: Amit Etkin is in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in California Amit referred to computer-based brain training. In fact this is all the rage at the moment with a big emphasis on staving off deme...
We're at a tipping point in human history, a species poised between gaining the stars and losing the planet we call home. Even in just the past few years, we've greatly expanded our knowledge of how Earth fits within the context of our universe. NASA...
(Music excerpt: Minnie the Moocher) Hello, it's All in the Mind on RN, Lynne Malcolm with you. Today, music and memory. Excerpt from Alive Inside: Man: Henry Henry: Yeah? Man: Do you like the iPod, do you like the music you're hearing? Henry: Yeah, I...
Now to the ones that got away. In the US, one in four has a criminal record. They can be banned from many jobs, from housing, voting, even from owning a dog. American lawyer Emily Baxter was working at an NGO trying to get a second chance for clients...
Antony Funnell: It's often difficult to date the beginning of things. Hello, Antony Funnell here, welcome to Future Tense. Today's show is about the astonishing growth in popularity of Emoji, those little weird faces and symbols people increasingly u...
Imagine being unable to say, I am hungry, I am in pain, thank you, or I love you. Being trapped inside your body, a body that doesn't respond to commands. Surrounded by people, yet utterly alone. Wishing you could reach out, to connect, to comfort, t...
SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Members of Congress and a number of governors have said they oppose the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States. And they oppose President Obama's plan to welcome 10,000 Syrians. In Canada, the newly elected liberal go...
Robyn Williams: And so to WOMADelaide and the comedy of climate change. My name is Robyn Williams, and in 1971 I did my last Monty Python, and it was a raid on the Tate Gallery to put bras and knickers on all the rude statues. And one of the most del...
In 2008, Burhan Hassan, age 17, boarded a flight from Minneapolis to the Horn of Africa. And while Burhan was the youngest recruit, he was not alone. Al-Shabaab managed to recruit over two dozen young men in their late teens and early 20s with a heav...
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Long before the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, law enforcement officials argued that terrorists use technology like encrypted communication tools to evade detection. FBI Director James Comey has made the case that encryp...
SCOTT SIMON, HOST: One of the hottest gifts of the season is a little too hot, hot enough to catch fire. Hoverboards have been burning up because of problems with their lithium-ion batteries. And lithium-ion batteries are in a lot of things these day...
Antony Funnell: We're a noisy lot, we human beings. Visually as well as in an auditory sense. When we're not spruiking and selling, we're posting and commenting, elbowing for attention and easily distracted by the tangle around us. We like to tell ot...
On RN Summer this is Great Lovers, and part four of the story romance in the western world. I'm Amanda Smith. Today its a love story from the Renaissance that's become the greatest teenage love story of them all, or as William Shakespeare called it,...
Selfie was the Oxford Dictionary's word of the year back in 2013, but selfies are still the rage. And this year, we learned something interesting about the medium. It appears to be dominated by women. The five most popular people on Instagram are all...
SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Imagine there's something you've been trying to do for decades and then a total stranger steps in and makes it possible. That happened recently to a San Francisco nonprofit group. From member station KQED, Amy Standen has the story...