Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda
Episodes
Conny Aerts and George Whitesides: Starquakes and Tiny, Tiny Factories
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
She listens to quakes in stars far, far away, to help predict if they host earth-like planets. He makes it possible to build factories so small you ca...
Huda Zoghbi and Christopher Walsh: Hunting Genes that Damage our Brains
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Two of the winners of the just-announced Kavli Prizes in neuroscience on what inspired their breakthrough research. And how their discoveries may help...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 17 trailer
31 May 2022
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...
Ardem Patapoutian and Emmanuelle Charpentier: Touching the Horizon
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ardem Patapoutian discovered more about our sense of touch than we ever knew and Emmanuelle Charpentier co-invented the most powerful biomedical tool ...
Mike Brown and Millie Dresselhaus: Exploring the very big and the very small
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Brown, the man who demoted Pluto, is now hot on the trail of a new planet 9, much bigger than Earth and way beyond Neptune. And the brilliant car...
Kashmir Hill: Reporting from the Future
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Putting herself as she says, “inside the tech worlds to come,” reporter Kashmir Hill explores how the technology that’s making our lives easier ...
David Linden: How Come You’re So Special?
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
While filling out an on-line dating app – listing his traits and those of an ideal partner – neuroscientist David Linden began to wonder what make...
Bette Midler: How She Became Divine
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The multitalented singer, actor, songwriter, author tells Alan how her childhood in Hawaii shaped not only her career but also now moves her to bring...
Saul Perlmutter: The Man Who Upended the Universe
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After making the astonishing discovery that what he and his fellow cosmologists thought they knew about the universe was wrong, Saul Perlmutter began ...
Hope Jahren: What You Can Do to Save the Planet
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The author of the wonderful memoir Lab Girl turns her turns her ability to be both clear and vivid to providing a path forward for a new generation ta...
Billy Collins: When Words Have a Mind of Their Own
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
His poems are loved by millions. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, Billy Collins achieves both depth and accessibility in the same moment. His words o...
Chris Hadfield: Song of an Astronaut
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
His descriptions of living in space make you feel you’re on the ship with him. His performance of the David Bowie song Space Oddity in a video he be...
Sarah Ruhl: What if you couldn’t smile?
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A successful playwright with plenty to smile about – a new play opening on Broadway and the birth of twins – suddenly lost her ability to smile. H...
Gal Beckerman: How Quiet Whispers Lead to Radical Roars
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In a widely praised new book, The Quiet Before, Gal Beckerman paints vivid pictures of how throughout history, radical change has only come about thro...
Natalie and Natasha Batalha: Looking for Life on Alien Worlds
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the James Webb Space Telescope starts peering out into space this summer, mother and daughter astronomers Natalie and Natasha Batalha will each hav...
Michael Keaton: From Standup to Drama
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
His outstanding career acting in both movies and television – most recently his highly praised performance in the Hulu series Dopesick – had its b...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 16 trailer
22 Feb 2022
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...
Kate Crawford: Artificial Intelligence – neither artificial nor intelligent
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years of exploring the technical, social and environmental impact of AI has convinced Kate Crawford that we should be much more skeptical about...
Stephon Alexander: Einstein, Coltrane… and the Universe
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
His jazz informs his physics and his physics informs his jazz, as cosmologist Stephon Alexander seeks a new understanding of the Universe.Support the ...
Mary Roach: When Animals Break the Law
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An author with a thing for one syllable titles – Stiff, Gulp, Bonk – Mary Roach’s latest book, Fuzz, is a quirky exploration of how animals are ...
Thor Hanson: How Nature Struggles with a Warming Planet
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From lizards that cling on for dear life during hurricanes to bees that can’t find flowers, plants and animals are trying to cope with climate chang...
Nancy Padilla-Coreano: Knowing Your Place
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do we instantly sense whether someone has more or less power than we have – and change our behavior as a result?Support the show: https://www.pa...
Robin Dunbar: Circles of Friendship
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dunbar’s Number is the most people you can have meaningful relationships with. But that number – 150 – is only one of the many circles of friend...
Bianca Jones Marlin: Preparing Kids for Survival
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How is it that the experience of stress or trauma can be passed on from one generation to the next, even without contact between them?Support the show...
Kate Bowler: Living With The Certainty of Uncertainty
28 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Surviving some of the hardest of times has given Kate Bowler insights that are valuable to the rest of us who can't know what tomorrow will bring. And...
Diego Bohórquez: Gut to Brain – Listen Up!
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The discovery of a direct and instant connection between your stomach and your brain has brought a whole new dimension to the notion of a “gut feeli...
Mel Brooks: On Love, Life and Punchlines
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At 95, Mel tells it like it was in his new book, All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show BusinessSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvi...
Max Brooks: How Zombies May Save Us
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Best-selling books like The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z made Max Brooks famous. They also led to his becoming an advisor to the Modern War I...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 15 Trailer
30 Nov 2021
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...
Holland Taylor: The Role of a Lifetime She Wrote Herself
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Emmy and Tony nominee Holland Taylor wrote and performed a one-woman show called Ann, bringing to life on the stage the woman she most admired, former...
Marcia Rieke: Peering Back to the Cosmic Dawn
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Next month her camera will be hurled a million miles into space, from where it will be seeking the first stars in the universe. On board the James Web...
The LaPook Effect: Empathy for doctors
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jon LaPook, Chief Medical Correspondent for CBS News, is on a mission to help doctors be more empathetic with patients. And his communication skills a...
Karl Deisseroth: Lighting up The Brain
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With the invention of new ways to explore the brain, Karl Deisseroth has revolutionized neuroscience – work that has just now been recognized with t...
Lee McIntyre: Talking to Science Deniers
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Taking a deep dive into the alternative reality of people convinced that the earth is flat, Lee McIntyre learned valuable lessons about how – and ho...
Marin Alsop: A Woman Who Leads
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The first female conductor of a major American symphony orchestra, Marin Alsop explains to Alan just what a conductor contributes to a performance; ho...
Scott Small: The Point of Forgetting
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An eminent physician caring for patients with memory loss, Scott Small was a surprised as you will be to discover that not all forgetting is bad – i...
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer: When Politics are a Peril
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The authority of the court to be a check on the other two branches of our government, Justice Breyer says, rests on its ability to be regarded by the ...
Roger Rosenblatt: A Writer on Writing
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and his friend, best-selling author Roger Rosenblatt, explore what makes a good piece of writing. Turns out to be very similar to what makes a go...
Mayim Bialik: How Acting Led to Science and Science to Acting
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With a schedule impossible for anyone not named Mayim Bialik, she shares with Alan how acting and science have intertwined throughout her extraordinar...
Kevin Bacon’s Six Degrees
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After finding himself the subject of a trivia parlor game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, the actor turned the concept of how we’re all connected...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 14 Trailer
07 Sep 2021
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...
Dennis Overbye: Reporting the Universe
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Few people have the same knack for explaining the unexplainable as Dennis Overbye, who for over 20 years has been illuminating the mysteries of the un...
Robert Lefkowitz: A Soldier of Science
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nobel prizewinner Bob Lefkowitz tells the story of an extraordinary group of young physicians chosen to work at the National Institutes of Health duri...
Hank Greely: The Experiment that Shocked Science
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When a Chinese doctor changed the genes of two baby girls he thought he’d be acclaimed. Instead, his experimental treatment alarmed scientists and e...
Jacqueline Novogratz: More Than Money Alone
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacqueline Novogratz has recognized the need among the poor for something more than just money: dignity. Employing a new kind of capitalism, her compa...
Michio Kaku: Seeking the Mind of God
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The physicist and best-selling author argues that “the mind of God” can be found in “a symphony of strings – cosmic music resonating through h...
Cynthia Kenyon: Living Longer?
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Her breakthrough discovery of a gene that doubles the lifespan of a tiny worm offers the possibility of extending the lifespan of people.Support the s...
Paul Rudd: In the Moment with Ant-Man
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Rudd and Alan Alda talk acting, from being spontaneous and "in the moment," to odd ways to learn lines.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/...
Sue Black: Forensic Supersleuth
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
She finds justice among the bones. Like helping to convict the genocidal murderers of Kosovo. And, she's just been made a Baroness!Support the show: h...
Dan Lieberman: Why You Hate Exercise
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t feel bad about taking the elevator instead of the stairs. Blame evolution for not preparing you for voluntary physical activity. But, says ant...
Herman Pontzer: Burn Those Calories Better
29 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Studying the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers has led to the surprising discovery that dieting simply to lose weight misses the real benefits of cutting ...
Helen Mirren: Queen of Stage and Screen
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The wonderful Helen Mirren is as honest and searching in conversation as she is in the rich characters she’s brought to us in performance after perf...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 13 Trailer
15 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alan and Clear+Vivid’s executive producer Graham Chedd preview the new season.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid Hosted by Simp...
Neil Shubin: Why Would a Fish Have Fingers?
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
And if it comes to that, wrist, elbows, and lungs? Neil Shubin found that fish in 375 million-year-old rocks in the Canadian Arctic. It was the earlie...
Anna Deavere Smith: She’s Been Hundreds of People
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Using her voice, her body, and a close observation of speech patterns, Anna Deveare Smith has chronicled our times with staged portraits of the people...
John Colapinto: Speaking of the Voice…
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist John Colapinto blew out his voice singing too loud and too long in a rock band. The good news is that it inspired him to find out what happ...
Does your doctor care about you?
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A searing experience with an apparently uncaring doctor when she was young helped make Dr. Jillian Horton a passionate advocate for a radical rethinki...
How to Explain Almost Everything
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Bryson loves finding out about stuff – like how much the earth weighs and why you have a spleen – then letting the rest of us know what he’...
The Empathy Diaries
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir, Sherry Turkle movingly—and candidly—weaves together events in her own life with her dawning unders...
Space Rocks
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Brian May, famed guitarist and founder of the rock group Queen, is also Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist. His research on the dust that swirls around the...
He Put the Dark in Energy
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Something is pushing the Universe apart. We don’t know what it is, but Michael Turner named it: Dark Energy. This cosmologist’s way with words hel...
Getting to Here and Now
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The wonderful Laura Linney really knows how to relate, on stage and off. The way actors have to be present for one another can be a good model for how...
Making the End a Beginning
06 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a moving and frank conversation – punctuated by laughter – Alan talks with Rabbi Steve Leder about the unavoidable subject, which people usuall...
From DaVinci to CRISPR
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Walter Isaacson’s latest exploration of the lives of creative geniuses focuses on Jennifer Doudna, the co-inventor of the revolutionary gene editing...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 12 / Science Clear+Vivid - Season 2 Trailer
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A look ahead at the people we have in the new seasons of both C+V and SC+V, starting next week.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid...
Deborah Tannen – The Stories We Tell
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Deborah Tannen, author of the hugely influential best seller, You Just Don’t Understand, swaps stories with Alan about conversations that went wrong...
Ash Sanders and Sarah Ventre – Life in a Cult
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Embedding themselves in a fundamentalist Mormon community, journalists Sarah Ventre and Ash Sanders wove together the stories of both those in thrall ...
Reisa Sperling – Making Alzheimer’s a Memory
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Propelled by events in her own life, Reisa Sperling is working hard to defeat this disease that cruelly destroys brains and crushes families. As we li...
Sanjeev Bhaskar – The Joy of Blooming Later
23 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The British actor, Sanjeev Bhaskar, started his career later in life and is glad he did. He didn’t try to portray human experience until he actually...
Rebecca Wragg Sykes – Our Neanderthal Kin
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
They walk among us. Some percentage of the genes of many modern humans have been handed down to us from Neanderthals. Alan, who has about 2% of those ...
Malcolm Gladwell – Those Dangerous First Impressions
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
First impressions are supposed to tell us a lot, and they often do. Problem is, as Malcolm Gladwell explains in his latest book Talking to Strangers, ...
Emily Levesque – The Romance of the Night Sky
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A passionate astronomer and a vivid writer, Emily Levesque describes a life of watching what’s out there in the universe so vividly, you may want to...
Eric Lander – Decoding Life
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Recently nominated as the first presidential science advisor with a seat in the cabinet, Eric Lander talks with Alan about his leading role of the Hum...
Penn Jillette – Magic, Tricks, and Us
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When we see a magic trick, is the magician fooling us, or are we fooling ourselves? Penn Jillette, the talking half of the magic team Penn and Teller,...
Robert Stickgold – Why do we dream?
12 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We not only need to sleep, we need to dream, too. Robert Stickgold explains why we must go to the movies every night when we sleep – it’s to make ...
Anthony Fauci - The Soldiers of Science who saved our lives
05 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
They did their military service, not in Vietnam, but in the world's largest research hospital – and over the years their work has saved millions of ...
Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 11 Trailer
29 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An in-depth preview of the upcoming eleventh season of Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid Hosted by Si...
Two Actors Talk Acting
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two old friends who have played together on stage and on camera have a chat. And not only discover new things about each other’s approach to acting,...
How oskar the gene invented sex
15 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A leading scientist who studies how genes make bodies, Cassandra Extavour almost became a musician and still sings professionally. She works with an e...
Testaments to Writing
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The author of The Handmaid's Tale and its sequel, The Testaments, lets us in on her process of storytelling, involving both a “panoramic view ” an...
The Ever Fonky Lowdown
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his new album, The Ever Fonky Lowdown, Wynton Marsalis offers a passionate musical take on what ails our democracy. His conversation with Alan also...
What poker can teach us about life
24 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In exploring the role that chance plays in our lives – and how to understand and control it – psychologist and author Maria Konnikova set out to l...
How to Make Funny People Funnier
17 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As a 12-year-old, multiple Emmy winner Alan Zweibel decided that Rob in TV’s The Dick van Dyke show led the life he wanted to live. Since then he’...
Life on Venus?
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
She studies what may be the most disgusting molecule known to humankind. And that’s made Clara Sousa-Silva a key member of the team that may have de...
Can we save the planet?
03 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Having experienced 30 years of frustration since writing the first popular book setting out the facts of climate change, Bill McKibben is now hopeful ...
What makes you happy?
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It may not be what you think. With insights from studying unhappy students at Yale University, where she is a professor of psychology, Laurie Santos t...
Trumpty Dumpty Wanted a Crown
20 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
John Lithgow talks with Alan about his new book of satirical verse and drawings – and the joys and challenges of writing satire at a time when event...
Dr. Fauci looks forward
13 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Six months after he first briefed Alan on the then novel coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci explains both why it turned out to be so unpredictable and dan...
Leslie Vosshall – Why Mosquitoes Choose You
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Female mosquitoes need your blood to live and breed. So figuring out who among us attracts them and why can not only help in avoiding annoying bites b...
Goldie Hawn – She’s Got Your Brain on Her Mind.
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The celebrated and beloved actress on her successful mission to help schoolkids use their brains better. And how they become better students and more ...
James Rothman – on Discovering the ‘FedEx trucks’ in our Cells
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Kavli and Nobel Prize Laureate on his groundbreaking work finding out how our bodies ship vital molecules to where they are needed — enabling pr...
Brian Hare & Vanessa Woods – on Humanity’s Essential Ingredient
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What dogs and bonobos tell us about what has made humans survive and why we’d better not lose it. It’s not how fierce we are. On the contrary.Supp...
Carla Shatz – Making an Old Brain Young
08 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Kavli Prize Laureate on her research suggesting it may be possible to return aging and damaged brains to a state where they could learn as they di...
Sharon Begley – on Keeping up with Covid
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Reporting from the front lines of medical research with the with the skill of a storyteller while struggling to keep up with the outpouring of researc...
Max Tegmark – When Our Machines Are Smarter Than Us
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Up until now, we’ve been smarter than our tools. But that might change drastically sooner than we know. Isn’t it time to think about that?Support ...
Lynn Sherr & Ellen Goodman – She Votes!
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The two celebrated journalists explore the turbulent story, often forgotten, of women’s struggle to have the right to vote and what it means to us t...
Pardis Sabeti – Racing Against Covid, Racing Against Time
11 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We invite Pardis back to hear her account from the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus. She’s a leader in scientific breakthroughs aime...
Rafael Reif – on the Greatest Threat to Our National Security
04 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The President of MIT on how we can lead the world in technology again—and how he’s helping change the educational model so it can survive in the n...
Brené Brown – on Empathy, Courage and Where They Come From
28 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The renowned researcher and author on emotional literacy and the strengths that lead to better relationships.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com...
Jared Diamond – How it Can All Fall Apart
21 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
His recent book Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, could hardly be more timely. And it has a fascinating twist, seeking links between how...