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What do radio personality Ira Glass, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, and your host Chris Duffy have in common? They all have practiced an unexpected skill that makes them more human—improv comedy. And they learned it from master improv teacher Rick Andrews. Rick joins Chris to discuss the life…

Over the course of hundreds of scuba dives, marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson fell in love -- with a fish. In this ode to parrotfish, she shares five reasons why these creatures are simply amazing (from their ability to poop white sand to make colorful "wardrobe changes") and shows what's at…

Among the dinosaurs, giant sea dragons roamed the ancient ocean. Millions of years later, paleontologist Dean R. Lomax and his team freed the remains of one of these colossal creatures from the Earth. Settle in to learn about the once-in-a-lifetime discovery of the 10-meter-long Rutland…

What if we could hear nature's ultrasonic communication -- and talk back? From a bat's shrill speech to a peacock's infrasound mating call, conservation technology researcher Karen Bakker takes us through a sound bath of animal noises that are far outside humanity's range of hearing, demonstrating…

The ocean plays host to a peculiar party of wild, marine sex life that's perhaps quirkier (and kinkier) than you can fathom. But is human behavior interrupting these raunchy reproductive acts? Take a deep dive with marine biologist Marah J. Hardt to discover what exactly goes down under the sea --…

Meet the fantastically colorful and astonishingly adaptable sea slugs that found a way to photosynthesize (or create energy from sunlight) like plants. Diving deep into these often overlooked creatures, invertebrate zoologist Michael Middlebrooks introduces the solar-powered slugs that lost their…

When professional child actor Suki Hillier landed the title role in "Matilda The Musical," she thought she would have to learn how to become someone else. Instead, she realized she had known the role since she was three, when she playfully tried to move objects with her mind the way Matilda does.…

Garrett Langley founded Flock because he believed it was too easy to get away with crime in the US. His solution? A network of license plate readers, cameras, drones and audio sensors that has changed how police departments investigate crime — and raised urgent questions about safety, surveillance…

What's the most powerful tool in any classroom? In the age of AI, education advocate Matt Wu still believes it's the people. In this hopeful talk, he discusses the nonprofit he leads, Schoolhouse, which pairs students with peer tutors from across the globe, building the crucial human connection…

What if the next Lionel Messi or Simone Biles is out there right now ... but no one knows? Sports scientist Richard Felton-Thomas shows how new AI tools are expanding the reach of talent discovery in sports, helping scouts find the next great superstar — and letting athletes showcase their skills…

You've probably heard the warnings about digital privacy: read the terms of service, think before you share, be careful what you click. But AI ethicist Jen Golbeck says the problem runs a lot deeper than that. In this eye-opening talk, she reveals how corporations and governments built a system of…

Does your “dream job” really exist? You may know Emily Durham as Emily the Recruiter on social media, where she shares practical, refreshingly honest career advice and coaches people through the biggest professional decisions of their lives. Emily doesn’t believe in the idea of a dream job. In this…