Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda
Episodes
Edda Fields-Black: The Harriet Tubman you didn’t know
31 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 plant...
Gary Marcus: Is AI mostly hype?
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 L...
Shermin Kruse: When empathy becomes a strategy
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 33 Trailer
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd look ahead to the new season with clips from episodes on empathy – both helping defuse a dangerous situatio...
Carol Burnett: A favorite conversation
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Adam Frank: Are there aliens out there? Probably. But UFOs – not so much
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 sk...
David Baron: When Martians were real
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
…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 ...
Rebecca Goldstein: Why it matters to matter
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Steve Ramirez: Forget about it
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 hel...
Michael Shermer: Want to know the truth?
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
These days, despite the internet providing us access to every imaginable source of information, the truth is harder than ever to find. A conversati...
Loretta Ross: Better than calling out? Calling in
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
She has spent over 50 years fighting racism, sexism and sexual violence, often fiercely. Now in her 70’s, her experiences have led her to move past ...
Marc Abrahams: Laugh… then Think
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Ig Nobel prizes are awarded every year in a ceremony that is as charming as it is ridiculous, awarding research that itself may seem ridiculous at...
Elena Hoicka: What makes a baby laugh?
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Babies find things funny long before they understand language – surprising even the author of the most detailed study to date of when and how babies...
Marlo Thomas: That Girl who changed Television
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Almost 60 years ago she defied television conventions with her depiction of a young woman succeeding on her own in the big city. And for the last 30 y...
Morgan McSweeney aka Dr. Noc: Earning trust, delivering truths
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the almost six years since the beginning of the pandemic he’s developed an on-line personality that’s an exuberant mix of medical expert and ne...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 32 Trailer
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and executive producer Graham Chedd look ahead to the new season, which includes episodes on how babies who giggle become socially smarter; priz...
Alex "Sandy" Pentland: Shared Wisdom
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The computer scientist talks with Alan about the explosive growth of AI, through a lens of computational social science. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsW...
Jelani Cobb: Journalism at a Crossroads
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism talks about how social media is overtaking traditional newspapers and television as most people’s sour...
The MASH Gang: How a Television Show Changed Us
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
MASH changed Alan’s life as well as the lives of the rest of the MASH cast. In this revisit of a free-wheeling conversation recorded in 2019 Alan, a...
Michael J Fox: Looking Back with Attitude
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan revisits a conversation he had with Michael seven years ago, at a time when Fox had been grappling with Parkinson’s Disease for 27 years and Al...
Bill McKibben: Tomorrow Will be Sunny
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A confident prediction from the man who first brought our warming planet to public attention some 35 years ago. Energy from solar and wind is now chea...
Kate Marvel: Feeling For Our Planet
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a surprising shift in how we communicate about the climate crisis, Kate Marvel explores the feelings evoked by her research. Her new book tack...
Justin Evans: Data Heroes
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Data: dry and boring, right? Not in the hands of Justin Evans, a data expert himself, who set out to show that data is not only the lifeblood of today...
Melanie Kaplan: Travels With a Beagle
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After adopting a beagle that had spent the first four years of his life as an experimental subject in a laboratory, she set out – with Hammy the bea...
Erica Chenoweth: A Better Way to Protest?
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Not only are non-violent protests more effective than armed resistance, but a surprisingly small percentage of the population – around three and a h...
Nicky Clayton: Why Crows Are “Feathered Apes”
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With long memories and the ability to figure out what other crows are thinking – then plot to outdo them, using what Nicky Clayton calls “sleig...
Steven Pinker: When You Know That I Know That You Know…
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It then becomes “common knowledge,” and can be both beneficial – like cementing friendships or empowering peaceful protests – or destructive, ...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 31 Trailer
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd look ahead to next season and some unexpected connections between our first guests. They include best-selling...
Leanne Guy: A New Eye on Space
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Perched on a mountain top in Chile, the new Vera Rubin Observatory’s telescope will view the universe as it’s never been seen before, seeking ans...
Michael Osterholm: Can We Stop The Big One?
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With lessons learned from the Covid pandemic, he points to how we might better tackle the next, inevitable, global pandemic — at a time when scienc...
Herman Pontzer: Diversity: Humanity’s Superpower
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Unlike most other land animals, we can live almost anywhere – from deserts, to mountains, rain forests, even the arctic. We are supremely adaptable,...
Stephen Hall: Snakes: Do they Deserve Our Dread?
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Along with revelations about snake sex, their contributions to medicine, that flickering tongue and why slithering is a secret to their success, Steph...
Kyra Davis Lurie: Reimagining Gatsby
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
She’s had a love-hate relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald since she was a teenager. And she’s now written a wonderful new take on The Great Gat...
Robert Sapolsky: Why Do We Do That?
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
An old friend of Clear and Vivid is back to enlighten Alan on some of the oddities of human behavior – both good and bad – and to talk about his e...
Bob Odenkirk: Comedy? Action? Drama? Better Call Bob!
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From his long running role as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, to his recent Broadway appearance in Glenngary Glen Ross, and his new...
Tara Roberts: Diving for Stories
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With her Black scuba-diving companions she has sought to reveal the appalling cost in lives lost in sunken slave ships, while at the same time honorin...
Roger Rosenblatt: Rules for Aging
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan joins his old friend to compare notes on staying happy when old; and Roger shares tips from a forthcoming book, including some that may seem cou...
Tina Fey: The Return of The Four Seasons
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tina Fey’s reimagining of a movie Alan made over 40 years ago has been a big hit for Netflix. She and Alan have fun talking about how she went about...
If Robots Had a Podcast
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan lets bots mostly run the show to see how much they can do and still be under human control. For a while, it seems to go well, but then dangers st...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 30 Trailer
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and Clear and Vivid’s executive producer Graham Chedd chat about and play clips from some of the shows coming up in season 30. Guests include a...
Carly Anne York: Taking “Silly Science” Seriously
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Research often derided for being a waste of money has led to world-changing breakthroughs, ranging from GPS to Ozempic. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWi...
Paul McCartney: Dreams, Dickens… and Oobleys
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To celebrate Sir Paul’s 83rd birthday June 18th we are reprising a wonderful conversation recorded five years ago. Alan and Paul exchange their exp...
Itzhak Perlman: Encore! Encore!
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reaching back to the first season of Clear and Vivid, a replay of the July 2018 episode when the violin virtuoso tells Alan why he likes to talk to hi...
Adam Kucharski: What’s True to You?
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a world awash with misinformation, how do we know what’s true? How can we be certain about anything? It turns out one of the most effective ways ...
Noah Wyle: Learning from The Pitt
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Playing attending physician “Robby” Robinavitch in the hit HBO Max series The Pitt has given him insights into how the harrowing world of the em...
Mario Livio: Hello? Anybody Out There?
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The recent discovery on a distant planet of a chemical that could be a sign of life has this astrophysicist intrigued if not convinced. But if it turn...
Colman Domingo: Magnetic. Fearless. Unstoppable.
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Now starring in the Netflix series The Four Seasons – based on Alan’s 1981 movie – he’s won an Emmy and has been nominated for two Oscars and...
Eric Topol: Live Longer, Better
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While promises of extending the human lifespan to 125 and beyond are premature, recent breakthroughs in the early detection of killer diseases of the ...
Sarah Bell: Alexa’s Ancestors
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI generated voices like Alexa and Siri are now so much a part of our everyday experience that disembodied chatbots that talk are edging ever closer t...
Carl Zimmer: The Living Sky
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stories of the discovery that the air is full of invisible life – and how that discovery was tragically overlooked when the covid pandemic struck. H...
John Leguizamo: Meticulously Spontaneous
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
His far-reaching career acting, writing and producing on television and film spans voicing a sloth in the movie Ice Age to hosting a PBS series on the...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 29 Trailer
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and Clear and Vivid’s executive producer Graham Chedd chat about and play clips from some of the shows coming up in season 29. Guests include a...
Bill Pullman: From a Stage Fall to Curtain Calls
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A chat with an actor who does it all. After recovering from a near fatal fall on stage as his career was beginning, Bill Pullman has not only had a bu...
Alison Wood Brooks: Talking About Talk
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How the letters in the acronym TALK can have a profound effect on the next conversation you have. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.ad...
Kafui Dzirasa: An Electrical Path to Mental Health?
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A psychiatrist, engineer and neuroscientist, Kaf Dzirasa is researching ways to reengineer the brain to make it better able to cope with stress and so...
Shannon Vallor: The AI Illusion
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence is poised to reshape our world, in many ways for the better. But the gains come with great risks – above all that its seduct...
Malcolm Gladwell: Tipping Points Old and New
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
His new book Revenge of The Tipping Point takes a fresh look at the tipping points of social change he opened our eyes to 25 years ago – and ...
Ann Patchett: Bel Canto Revisited
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a remarkable and illuminating tour de force, the novelist recently took a fresh look at her best-known book, going through it line by line and anno...
Matt Strassler: What Are You Made Of?
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The answer, regrettably, is unbelievable. That is, unbelievable to most of us, because we cannot imagine a universe – including ourselves – made o...
Julie Sedivy: How Language Shapes Us
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Her new book, Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love is an ode to the power of language to both shape us and be shaped by us. It’s informed by her o...
Mala Murthy: From a Fly’s Brain to Yours
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 500 feet of wiring packed into fruit fly’s brain has been fully mapped – giving insights into how the more that 300,000 miles of wiring pack...
Brenda Wineapple: When Evolution Was on Trial
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1925, a trial in a small town in Tennessee riveted the nation. In the dock was a young man named John Scopes, charged with violating a state law ou...
Daniel Levitin: Music as Medicine
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Music can lift our spirits, bring us to tears, spark our creativity, pace our workouts. Neuroscientist and musician Daniel Levitin explores all these ...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 28 trailer
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and Clear and Vivid’s executive producer Graham Chedd chat about and play clips from some of the shows coming up in season 28. A major theme of...
Marcia Bjornerud: The Wisdom of Rocks
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Offsprings of the Earth – Earthlings – we are most of us ignorant of the 3.5 billion years of experiments our planet has been through to produce u...
Matt Abrahams: Off the Cuff and in the Zone
31 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So much of our communication is spontaneous and yet we never really learn or are taught how to do it well – we’re just expected to do it. How to a...
Dean-David Schillinger: The Power of Patients’ Stories
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Eliciting the story behind a patient’s visit to the hospital can lead to better diagnosis and treatment than medical tests alone – and also reveal...
Kristin Andrews: Is that spider conscious?
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alan’s fleeting thought while chasing a spider around the floor sparked a conversation with an animal minds expert who argues that many more creatur...
John Pollack: The Surprising Power of Puns and Analogies
10 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Good analogies led to cheaper cars and Apple computers; bad ones to lives wasted and lost. And while puns might not always make you smile (or grimace)...
Jasmin Graham: She’s Down with Sharks
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As a Black graduate student disillusioned with academia, she founded Minorities in Shark Science (MISS). She now pursues her passion for sharks and ou...
Craig Foster: Life Lessons from an Octopus
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For most of us who live in the “tame” modern world, a reminder of how we can refresh ourselves by experiencing the wild world – even the wild wo...
Joshua Greene: Games That Build Bridges
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
His research figuring out how our brains make moral judgments has led to two on-line games: One aimed at overcoming political animosity (and that’s...
Dan Heath: In Someone Else’s (Working) Shoes
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us have no idea how others – even our friends and neighbors – spend their days at work. What’s it really like to be a plumber, a marriag...
Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods: How to Raise a Great Dog
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The puppy kindergarten at Duke University is discovering how to spot a future great service dog while the dog is still a puppy. And it turns out that ...
Backstage at The West Wing
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How the acclaimed TV series came to be and what it has come to mean since, as recalled in a new book by cast members Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCor...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 27 trailer
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and executive producer Graham Chedd look ahead to season 27. In a nostalgic look back at the TV series The West Wing, Alan recalls the scariest m...
Lynnae Quick: Could an Icy Moon Harbor Life?
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Her doctoral thesis led to her becoming a member of the team behind yesterday’s successful launch of NASA’s Clipper mission to Jupiter’s moon Eu...
Terry Szuplat: Speak Your Mind
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For eight years he wrote speeches for President Obama. Today he applies much of what he learned then in helping others with public speaking – how to...
Steve Martin: Portrait of the Artist
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
He’s had a legendary life as a stand-up comedian, actor, writer, banjo player, even magician. As Steve talks about these threads in his life, a pict...
Ayana Johnson: We Can Do This!
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A clarion call to those of us acutely aware of the peril facing our planet yet feel powerless to help save it. Ayana Johnson urges us to stop fretting...
Frank Barry: Taking the Lincoln Highway to America
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Escaping the Covid lockdown in 2020 he and his wife Laurel set out in an RV to travel across America along the Lincoln Highway – a road more aspirat...
Randy Fertel: Improv Everywhere
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is improvisation at the heart of Western culture — music, art, literature, politics, even artificial intelligence? Author Randy Fertel thinks so....
Roger Rosenblatt: Wounds and Other Blessings
03 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alan talks with Roger Rosenblatt about his new book “A Steinway on the beach.” It explores that great mystery of how being wounded—emotionally ...
Lisa Kaltenegger: Alien Hunter
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
She’s a pioneer in figuring out how we might tell if any of the trillions of planets out there in the galaxy might harbor life – and if so, what k...
Mark Rank: As Luck Would Have It
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Chance events not only change lives, they can change history – as when a soviet sailor’s briefly stuck foot prevented a potential nuclear catastro...
Anne Curzan: Say What? Says Who?
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over time, the meaning of words often changes. The history of these changes suggests they're inevitable and that some of us (like our host) could be a...
Mo Rocca: Late Comebacks
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Older people, says Mo Rocca, have better stories. And he tells many of them – stories of people as different as Colonel Sanders and Henri Matisse –...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 26 trailer
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd chat about and play excerpts from Alan's conversations with some of the guests in the new season, beginning n...
David Toomey: Want to play?
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most creatures play– even octopuses, pigs, crows and bees. But play is much more than fun and games. Play teaches life skills and empathy – even m...
Sanjana Curtis: Sprinkling Stardust on TikTok
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An astrophysicist brings the universe down to earth. In brief captivating videos she tells the stories of how everything our world is made of – incl...
Chris French: Would you believe it?
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When we experience things that seem beyond explanation, are they evidence of the supernatural? Or instead, a quirk of our brains? A skeptical but open...
Cady Coleman: Sharing Space
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sharing her experiences of three space missions – including 159 days as the only woman on the 6-person crew of the International Space Station – C...
Charles Duhigg: Connecting and Communicating
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and the author of a new book called Supercommunicators share their thoughts on what makes a great conversation. The result? A great conversati...
When Small is Big News
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The world of the very small is very different from the one we are familiar with. (Gold for instance turns red.) Chad Mirkin and Robert Langer’s skil...
David Charbonneau and Doris Tsao: Looking for Something Familiar
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
He is searching space for planets that are something like ours. She is searching brains to discover how we recognize things. They are both 2024 Kavli ...
David Jewitt and Jane Luu: Is Pluto All Alone Out There?
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
That was the question two determined astronomers set out to answer. A frustrating five-year search revealed that Pluto, long thought to be a small, ...
Carla Shatz and Marcus Raichle: Brainwaves
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Between them these two neuroscientists changed the way we think of our brains. Their insights are now opening new ways to tackle the problems our brai...
Fred Guttenberg and Joe Walsh: Two Dads Defending Democracy
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Once sworn enemies in TV appearances and on social media, Fred Guttenberg and Joe Walsh got together privately and realized there is much that unites ...
Craig Venter: Oceans of Genes
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Aboard his 100 ft sailboat, the geneticist famed for his work deciphering human genes spent 15 years sailing the world’s oceans, discovering million...
Adam Moss: What Makes it Art?
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After a successful career as an award-winning magazine editor, Adam Moss decided to put it all aside to pursue a passion for painting. He became prett...