Health & Medicine

We listen to a 1983 interview with psychologist Timothy Leary, a 1990 interview with spiritual leader Ram Dass and a 2018 interview with How to Change Your Mind author Michael Pollan.

Married Broadway stars Danny Burstein and Rebecca Luker both contracted COVID in the spring. Burstein was hospitalized. Luker's case was less severe, but it came soon after she was diagnosed with ALS.

In his new book, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World, Zakaria looks ahead to the ways that COVID-19 might fundamentally change our relationships to work, technology and government. He says Americans in particular have some important decisions to make about the role of government in our lives.

"Republicans have been trying to drive a stake into the heart of Obamacare pretty much since it was passed — both through legislation and litigation," New York Times reporter Sarah Kliff says.

Scott Carlson, Senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education talks about the tough decisions colleges and universities are facing dealing with the pandemic.

Race and belonging are the central themes of Yaa Gyasi's work. Her 2016 debut novel, Homegoing, about slavery, won a National Book critic's circle award, and the National Book Foundation's 5 under 35 honor.
Gyasi's new novel, Transcendent Kingdom, draws on Gyasi's life as the daughter of immigrants from Ghana.

Rollins recorded his first sessions in 1949, and played his last live shows in 2012. Kevin Whitehead offers an appreciation, then we listen back to a 1994 interview with the tenor saxophonist.

The Emmy and Tony award-winning actor talks about growing up gay in Tennessee, losing theater friends during the AIDS epidemic and playing the head of a family-owned media group on Succession.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered schools and businesses and altered life across the globe, but journalist Alexis Madrigal says comprehensive, rapid testing might be the key to a safe reopening. For his latest article for the Atlantic, Madrigal talked with public health experts, including Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina, who cite the potential benefits of widespread testing for the virus with a simple, at-home saliva test that uses a paper strip similar to a home pregnancy test.

About half of the Miami Marlins' roster has tested positive for COVID. ESPN baseball analyst Tim Kurkjian explains the challenges Major League Baseball faces as play resumes amid the pandemic.

Natasha Trethewey has written before about the murder of her mother decades ago by her step father. She got a new window on her mother's life after getting access to the police files about her mother's case. Her new memoir is 'Memorial Drive.'

In a career spanning four decades, Dickey authored seven books and reported from more than 40 countries, often covering war, conflict and espionage. He died July 16. Originally broadcast in 1998.

"This climate that we're in right now with our polarizing political views in this country, it was very similar in South Africa," the star of The Old Guard says. Originally broadcast Dec. 16, 2019.

In her new book, Waiting for an Echo: The Madness of American Incarceration, Christine Montross writes that in the U.S., people with serious mental illnesses are far more likely to be incarcerated than they are to be treated in a psychiatric hospital — despite the fact that incarceration often makes mentally ill people worse.

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer reports on conditions at a Delaware poultry processing plant owned by a major Trump donor: "No matter what's going on, they've got to keep those chicken lines running."

Actor Patrick Stewart talks about returning to the role of Captain Picard, coming from a working-class background and learning to do Shakespeare, and how getting older has changed his approach to acting.

In psychiatrist Julie Holland's new book, Good Chemistry, she explores how psychedelic drugs, including LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and marijuana, might be used more widely in psychiatry to make treatment more efficient and effective.

"Since the very first day of this pandemic, I don't think [we've been] in a more confused position about what's happening," epidemiologist Michael Osterholm says. "We just aren't quite sure what [the coronavirus is] going to do next."
Osterholm is the founder and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

In The Turnaway Study, Diana Greene Foster shares research conducted over 10 years with about 1,000 women who had or were denied abortions, tracking impacts on mental, physical and economic health.

As millions of people remain socially isolated and anxious about COVID-19, several U.S. governors are at least making plans to relax controls in their states and revive economic activity — against the advice of many public health professionals.

New York Times science and health reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. warns that the push to reopen is premature. "We're nowhere near getting on top of this virus," he says.