Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Finding humor in the many absurdities of everyday life – including our own foolishness – can help us see things in new ways, foster understanding… above all, mend our ability to connect with others.

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Alan revisits a conversation with his old friend to compare notes on staying happy when old, as Roger’s new book, More Rules for Aging: Making the Most of Your Ridiculous, Wondrous Life, hits the bookshelves.

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In her new book she argues that if you want to feel more loved, you don't need to change yourself, you don't need to change the other person (which is sure to backfire!). You just need to change the conversation.

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Wondering why she and her husband got into frequent spats while practicing competitive ballroom dancing led her to a career in social psychology with a focus on disagreements; not just on why and how we have them, but on how to turn them from toxic to constructive.

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In her cookbooks and TV shows the Barefoot Contessa uses her early fascination with science to create meals that are not only great to eat but are also ways to connect and communicate.

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CBS News’ medical correspondent, he also heads the Empathy Project, creating Hollywood-quality short films that train healthcare providers to be more humane and help empower patients to be effective participants in their own care.

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Whether it’s the accent that hints at your hometown, your group, your social status or your ethnicity, the sounds we say reveal a lot about who we are and where we’ve been – even for those who might think they have no accent at all.



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Flowering plants were late to evolve, but once they did, they took over most of the planet, connecting and communicating with a network of other living things and making possible our own evolution.

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Best known for his writings on food – and for his crisp summation of advice for healthy eating – “Eat food. Not too much. Mainly plants” – he has now taken a deep and very personal dive into the nature of consciousness.

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The remarkable and little-known story of how Harriet Tubman played a critical role in a daring raid that in 1863 freed some 700 slaves from rice plantations along South Carolina’s Combahee River.

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For over 20 years he has been a relentless critic of the extravagant claims made for the current generation of AI based on Large Language Models, or LLMs. But he is even more concerned about what may come next.

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Her mother’s skillful use of empathy to defuse a potentially dangerous encounter on the streets of Tehran when she was nine has stayed with her ever since. It led to her developing the concept of stoic empathy as a way to navigate challenges. 

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At age 92, Carol Burnett still graces our screens with her presence and humor. Alan revisits a 2019 conversation that explores with her what made The Carol Burnett Show a comedy masterpiece and recalls the time she played his wife in his movie The Four Seasons.

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It’s highly likely that life – maybe even intelligent life – has evolved elsewhere in the universe. But that aliens bother to hang out in our skies, or are even able to get here...Really?

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…at least according to a bold-face December 1906 headline in the New York Times. This was in the middle of a decades-long fascination with the idea that Martians not only exist but were much smarter than us Earthlings. How Martians came… and went.

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A philosopher and novelist, she has spent 40 years pondering why we all have a longing to matter. She’s talked with dozens of people about their own need to matter, and tells their stories in her new book, The Mattering Instinct.

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Experiments with mice have shown it’s possible to tinker with and even erase a memory. The goal for neuroscience now is to apply the science to help people struggling with PTSD and other mentally crippling memories.

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