Think of just about any product in your house-your TV, radio, microwave, telephone—if Bell Laboratory didn't invent it, they probably perfected it. As part of our on-going series on science and creativity, Michelle Mercer looks back at the little New Jersey lab that changed the world.

As part of our regular series on forwarded emails, Kurt Andersen muses on a web video that features a teenage girl, a prom song and her grandma.

In the latest installment of our series on forwarded emails, Kurt Andersen gushes over a nine second video in which 500 kilovolts of electricity light up the Nevada sky.

Big eyes are appealing on anything -- babies, puppies, cartoon characters, Jake Gyllenhaal. But our fondness for big eyes is the work of nature, not Disney. Studio 360's Eric Molinsky found out how evolutionary psychology butts into pop culture.

In our new regular segment, Kurt Andersen actually looks at some of the weird little videos that people forward to their friends. And he's surprised at what he finds: a foul-mouthed riff and bad Flash animation that together approach greatness.

Hospital architecture usually stirs up feelings of anxiety and dread—which may not encourage patients to recover quickly, according to several new studies. Jocelyn Gonzales reports on the architects and medical professionals who are designing a new wave of feel-good hospitals, as part of our on-going series on ...

Kurt Andersen asks meteorologist Adam Sobel and landscape painter April Gornik what makes spring so special. Webcast only at studio360.org.

Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer led a team of thousands to create the first nuclear weapon. He was immediately hailed as an American hero, but after speaking out against the use of the bomb he was condemned as a traitor and maligned as a Communist spy. WNYC's Sara ...

Remember the old Saturday Night Live skit that asked, "What if Eleanor Roosevelt Could Fly?" Sound artist Jane Philbrick asked a question just as unlikely: "What if retired Senator Jesse Helms could recite a lesbian love poem by Gertrude Stein?" Andrew Adam Newman found out how Philbrick's quixotic project ...

Every theory—from Chinese troops infiltrating the U.S. to exterrestrial healing—has an advocate at Conspiracy Con, which took place last year in Santa Clara, California. We visited with the people who devote their lives to notions the rest of us would rather ignore.

In a video game, the player ventures into the minds of dangerously insane patients at an asylum. The goal of Psychonauts is to resolve their conflicts and save the little kids whom they are threatening. Tim Schafer, the game's creator, told producer Jonathan Mitchell that his best ...

Kurt Andersen and Jonathan Lear look at how Sigmund Freud and his theories still pervade our culture.

We tend to trust people's voices, but sound recordings and radio are easy to fabricate. We asked WNYC archivist Andy Lanset to burrow into the early days of radio and unearth the fakers.

We consume paper by the ton, but most of us never think about where it really comes from. Just how do trees turn into paper towels and junk mail? We sent WBUR's Sean Cole on a messy mission.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts a company called E-ink is close to perfecting a great dream of the computer world -- electronic ink. The firm has developed an incredibly thin portable digital display that really looks like ink on paper. The letters on E-ink's displays change as easily as those on a ...

Are supermodels more symmetrical? Beauty expert Kelley Quan joins Kurt and Mario Livio to talk about how symmetry affects human attraction. Quan is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the online fashion magazine ZooZOOM.com, and she explains how symmetry -- or the lack of it ...

Trent Wolbe talks with contemporary composer Steve Reich about the various symmetrical techniques that animate the music that inspires him as well as his own works. Produced by Trent Wolbe.

The works of the late graphic artist M.C. Escher have been admired for decades by students and scholars alike. But Escher claimed to have failed his own high school exams. He considered becoming an architect before traveling to Spain, where he hit upon a better way to express himself. Produced ...