Margot Kahn and Kelly McMasters know that wanting is a very particular feeling. What women desire is constantly changing, of course: time, money, sex, new shoes. But as the editors of a new collection of essays, aptly titled Wanting, tell NPR's Ailsa Chang, they were more interested in exploring the process of yearning for something – and the rules we construct around that longing – than the objects that we ultimately do or do not get.
One of the most fascinating areas of mathematics and economics is game theory.
Game theory involves analyzing competitive situations where multiple participants make interdependent decisions. In other words, the result will depend not just on what you decide but on what someone else decides as well.
Game theory has applications not just in games but in business, personal relationships, international diplomacy, and war.
Learn more about game theory and how it applies to different areas of life on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Up With The Sun is the newest historical novel from acclaimed author Thomas Mallon – with a real-life actor at its center. Dick Kallman's career rose and then fizzled out throughout the 1950s and '60s. By the time he and his life partner were murdered in 1980, he was no longer performing. But as the author tells NPR's Scott Simon, Up With The Sun – and Kallman's life, which intersected with stars like Lucille Ball and Dyan Cannon – serves as a window into the world of Broadway, primetime TV, and gay romance across decades.
Gothataone Moeng says she knows the characters in her collection of short stories, Call and Response. They bear similarities to her sisters, cousins, and aunties – but they're their own reflections of life, love, shame, expectations and joy in Gaborone and Serowe, Botswana. In today's episode, Moeng talks to NPR's Scott Simon about some of the different lessons her protagonists are learning, and how spending time back home in her village after a long time away reopened doors to a rhythm of life she'd almost forgotten about.
Greta Thunberg has become a household name – but she doesn't want the attention on her to become a distraction from the severity of the climate crisis. In today's episode, Thunberg speaks with NPR's Ailsa Chang about how she hopes a new collection of essays written by her and more than 100 scientists and journalists – The Climate Book, can become a jumping off point to better understand environmental challenges. She explains why it's crucial for countries like the U.S. to step up and take accountability for their reliance on the fossil fuel industry, and why politicians have a responsibility to underline the relationship between climate and social justice.
If you think of the first world war, your mind probably turns to images of trench warfare and thousands of men losing their lives to try and gain just a few meters of land.
However, in the first few weeks of the war, this was not at all the case. In fact, it initially looked like the war might not even last two months.
What stopped the collapse of France and began widespread trench warfare was a desperate battle that took place in the first week of September 1914.
Learn more about the First Battle of the Marne on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In 1879, Constantin Fahlberg, a chemist at Johns Hopkins University, made an astonishing discovery. He was conducting experiments with coal tar when he forgot to wash his hands.
When he started eating lunch, he noticed something odd. His fingers tasted sweet.
Fahlberg’s discovery was the start of a century-long pursuit to create alternatives to sugar.
Learn more about artificial sweeteners, how they were developed, and how they work on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
