Mary Catherine Bateson — Living as an Improvi...

From Krista: These days I sometimes have to remind myself to keep breathing. I think this is true of human beings across all of our differences and divides. But in a room in New York City just before the turn of this year, I was regrounded by this fierce and joyous conversation w ...  Show more

Five new On Being episodes will begin to roll out next week … We begin with the delightful beloved poets (and friends) Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith in conversation together with Krista. We move on to the neuroscientist Gül Dölen; a community of Israelis and Palestinians who will ...  Show more

Join Greg Jenner for a fun homeschool history lesson on the life of palaeontologist Mary Anning. Due to her gender and social standing, Mary’s vast contributions to palaeontology were often overlooked by the science community during her lifetime. She has since been voted one of t ...  Show more

Our primate cousins fascinate us, with their uncanny similarities to us. And studying other apes and monkeys also helps us figure out the evolutionary puzzle of what makes us uniquely human. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s work brings a female perspective to this puzzle, correcting sexist s ...  Show more

Mary Somerville (1780-1872) chose to study science and mathematics, even when society tried to tell her she was only good for keeping house. She found her own way in a world dominated by men. And became a self-taught preeminent astronomer and mathematician. Special thanks to Merc ...  Show more

Gemma Arterton’s latest acting role is in a play called Walden. It's on in London’s West End and it's the story of estranged twin sisters: one's a botanist for Nasa and the other's a former architect for Nasa. They meet up in a remote cabin in the woods sometime in the future, wh ...  Show more