What Twins Tell Us

Stories about unlikely heroes have captivated people for thousands of years. This week, social scientist Ben Rogers explores why the "hero's journey" resonates so deeply, and how the stories we tell about our own lives can shape our sense of purpose. He explains why seeing oursel ...  Show more

Pain feels like a simple message from the body. If your elbow hurts, there must be something wrong with your elbow. If your back is painfully stiff, you need some work done on your back. But psychologist Rachel Zoffness says our minds play a much larger role in our experience of ...  Show more

From movie plots to ad campaigns to viral videos, if they feature twins, they grab our attention every time. But it’s not only the general public who are fascinated with twins. Over many decades, twins have garnered attention from psychologists and other researchers because of wh ...  Show more

This episode is a conversation based on two of Nancy Segal's books The Twin Children of the Holocaust: Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive and Gay Fathers, Twin Sons: the Citzenship Case that Captured the World.

Shermer and Segal discuss: her hist ...

Twins are used to fielding all sorts of questions, like "Can you read each other's minds?" or "Can you feel each other's pain?" Two of our Planet Money reporters are twins, and they have heard them all.But it's not just strangers on the street who are fascinated by twins. Scienti ...  Show more

Kate and Oliver are joined by Dr. Nancy Segal, a psychologist and Director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton for a fascinating conversation about all things twins. They discuss the science behind twins, nature vs. nurture, stories of twins wh ...