How to Spot an Alien Civilization (with Adam Frank and Claire Webb)
For the first time in human history, we can see other worlds. Nearly six thousand planets have been discovered orbiting distant stars — and more appear every year. Each one is a reminder that Earth is...
11 Nov 20251h 8min
When the Machine Becomes the Medium (with Ken Liu and Nils Gilman)
The first machines mimicked our muscles. Today, they’ve learned to mirror our minds. Now they’re beginning to imitate something even closer to the core of our humanity – imagination itself. Sci-fi aut...
4 Nov 20251h 26min
A Cosmic Voyage Through Deep Time (with Ross Andersen and Grant Slater)
Humanity has a deep time problem. Our internal clock simply cannot compute on a time scale that takes into account the rise and fall of civilizations, star systems, and superintelligences. Unable to f...
30 Sep 20251h 26min
The Spiritual Life of the Microbiome (with Aminah Bradford and Jonathan Blake)
In 2014, the breakthrough Human Microbiome Project confirmed that – within our own bodies – we are outnumbered. For every human cell, there are three bacterial microbes residing in our gut and through...
23 Sep 202541min
The Wisdom of Not Knowing (with Pico Iyer and Nathan Gardels)
We live in a culture hooked on speed and certainty. Hot takes, quick fixes, and algorithms that claim to know us better than we know ourselves. Yet despite all the information at our fingertips, the w...
16 Sep 202559min
The Artful Politics of Picturing the Cosmos (with Lois Rosson and Claire Webb)
Each and every image of the cosmos is an act of interpretation. Scientists collaborate with artists and illustrators to saturate the colorless data of distant nebulae and galaxies and invoke awe. They...
9 Sep 20251h 31min
Why Globalization Can't Stop War Anymore (with Pascal Lamy and Lorenzo Marsili)
For decades, world leaders told us that global trade would keep the peace. Markets would bind nations together, and economic interdependence would make conflict too costly to pursue. That logic shaped...
2 Sep 202544min
The Making of Ideas That Matter (with Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels)
The Berggruen Institute began with a simple conviction: ideas shape the world. Out of the wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis,the Institute's co-founders – Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels – set...
26 Aug 20251h 5min
