KERA's Think

The U.N. says people in Gaza are under “famine-like conditions.” Ciarán Donnelly, SVP for International Programs with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), joins host Krys Boyd to discuss starvation in the Gaza strip, how it’s especially impacting children and what’s keeping food aid groups from helping. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The English language is full of words that both communicate and confound. Martha Barnette, co-host of the popular radio show and podcast “A Way with Words,” joins host Krys Boyd to discuss her love of language and all the myriad ways words bring us joy, how words can surprise and delight us, and why the meaning of some words can often be tricky to determine. Her book is “Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Organ transplants save lives, but rushing into them could harm donors nearing the end of their own lives. Brian M. Rosenthal, investigative reporter at The New York Times, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how some donors, thought to be deceased, have shown signs of life just before vital organ harvesting, why one particular harvesting method could be part of the problem, and how government regulation might up the risks. His article is “A Push for More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors at Risk.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Dogs suffer from cancer similarly to how humans do – and they may hold the keys to curing us. Bob Holmes, contributor for Knowable Magazine, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the biomedical bond between dogs and people, why dogs develop cancer more quickly and how that can help researchers test treatments without lengthy clinical trials. His article is “How Cancer Research for Dogs Is Helping Improve Treatment for Pets and Humans Alike.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

There’s a podcast for everything these days — and maybe that’s the problem. Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how the very saturated podcast market is making us silo ourselves even further from one another, how the onset of the Covid pandemic made us lean into podcasts as a means of connection, and why comparing podcasting to more traditional legacy media is a problem. His article is “Are Podcasts Ruining Our Lives?” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Labeling a child a psychopath can be incredibly harmful, but there might be ways to treat these unsettling personality traits early. Maia Szalavitz, author and contributing opinion writer for the The New York Times, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss children who are behaving in “callous, unemotional” ways and how early interventions are proving helpful, how genetics and trauma factor into a diagnosis, and why traditional methods of punishment don’t work. Her article “What If We Could Treat Psychopathy in Childhood?” was published in Scientific American. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Forty percent of the global population suffers from headache disorders, and scientists don’t really know why. Tom Zeller Jr. is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Undark, a nonprofit digital magazine exploring the intersection of science and society. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why, with so many billions of people suffering, headache research is not a top priority in medicine, why it is so difficult to study and his own experience with debilitating cluster headaches. His book is “The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Ancient cities designed shade into their built environments — a lesson present-day builders could learn from. Environmental journalist Sam Bloch joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how, in a world that faces searing temperatures, shade is a natural resource we should all be striving for, why it’s not just trees that can provide it, and why air conditioning has made us lose connection with the outside world. His book is “Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Ads for testosterone-replacement therapy are everywhere, but what percentage of men should be paying attention? Stephanie Pappas is a freelance science journalist, and she joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the many issues testosterone therapy claims to fix, why it might not be for everyone, and the risks that no one wants to talk about. Her article “What Most Men Don’t Know about the Risks of Testosterone Therapy” was published in Scientific American. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If you’re someone who reflexively thanks Siri or Alexa for the answer to a question, you may be anticipating our future relationship with artificial intelligence. Sigal Samuel is a senior reporter for Vox’s Future Perfect and co-host of the Future Perfect podcast. She joins host Krys Boyd to discuss what would happen if A.I. woke up to its own existence, if we would know if that happened, and how it might change our moral and ethical compass as humans. Her article is “A.I. systems could become conscious. What if they hate their lives?” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If Congress doesn’t act, social security will be drained in 8 years. Teresa Ghilarducci is professor of economics and policy analysis at the New School for Social Research, and she serves as the director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis and the New School’s Retirement Equity Lab (ReLab). She joins host Krys Boyd to discuss what’s happening with the social security funds so many Americans rely on, why that monthly money is still not enough to lift people out of poverty, and simple solutions Congress could take to protect the popular social safety net program. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A language that was spoken thousands of years ago eventually morphed into nearly all of the languages spoken today in the West. Science writer Laura Spinney joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the proto-Indo-European language, how it connects languages as varied as English and Russian, and how researchers study ancient language with no written texts to guide them. Her book is “Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Adolescence looks a lot different from today’s parents or grandparents’ generations — and it’s beginning even earlier. Matt Richtel, health and science reporter at The New York Times, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why kids today are more careful physically but need more help mentally, why they might be safer today but much less independent, and how parents can better relate during these developmental years. His book is “How We Grow Up: Understanding Adolescence.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When we treat ourselves to “self-care,” maybe what we’re really trying to achieve is Nirvana? Amy Larocca is a journalist who spent 20 years at New York magazine as both fashion director and editor at large. She joins guest host Paige Phelps to discuss how the moneyed and elite have moved from fashion to the “wellness” space, how Gwyneth Paltrow and other celebrities peddle products with dubious claims, and why, in an increasingly secular world, wellness makes us feel closer to the divine. Her book is “How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Falling global birth rates could be setting us up for disastrous consequences down the line. Dean Spears is founding executive director of r.i.c.e., a nonprofit that works to promote children’s health, growth, and survival in rural India. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss a future with far fewer humans in just the next few decades and why stabilizing the diminishing population is such a monumentally difficult task. His book, written with co-author Michael Geruso, is “After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Wildfires are more dangerous than they’ve ever been — take if from a former firefighter. Jordan Thomas is a former Los Padres hotshot wildland firefighter and currently an anthropologist and chancellor’s fellow at the University of California. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why climate change doesn’t tell the whole story of why today’s fires rage out of control, our complicated relationship to fire, and what it’s like to run directly into the flames. His book is “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last summer, former military officials testified to Congress about UFOs, and once again the nation’s imagination was ignited. Greg Eghigian, professor of history and bioethics at Pennsylvania State University, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the history of America’s fascination with UFOs — an obsession that spread globally — and what it all means for our civilization back here on Earth. His book is “After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon.” This episode originally aired June 20th, 2025. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If opioids treat pain like a hammer, what medical researchers are looking for is something more like a delicate scalpel. Rivka Galchen holds a medical degree in addition to being a staff writer for The New Yorker, and she joins guest host Courtney Collins to discuss progress on developing alternative painkillers and why pain is so hard to manage in the first place. Her article is “The Radical Development of an Entirely New Painkiller.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

To conquer the deserts of Africa or ice of Greenland, the U.S. military needed to get pretty crafty. Northeastern University history professor Gretchen Heefner joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how modern warfare has shaped the way the Army Corps of Engineers approaches the challenges of extreme environments, the havoc those efforts have brought to those communities, and the outlandish ideas that failed along the way. Her book is “Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

What is DOGE now without Elon Musk? New Yorker Benjamin Wallace-Wells joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the agencies gutted by Musk’s attempts at cost cutting and how they’re managing to stay afloat, the people in charge now that he exited in dramatic fashion, and what government employees want the public to know about how they really detect fraud and abuse. His article is “Move Fast and Break Things.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices