Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda
Alan Alda
Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country. You'll know many of the people in these conversations – they are luminaries in our culture. Some you may not know. But what links them all is their powerful ability to relate and communicate. It's something we need now more than ever.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Feb 7, 2023 • 40min
Cassandra Quave: Hunting Plants That Heal
A childhood illness robbed her of a leg, but that hasn’t stopped her from trekking through jungles, swamps and mountains in search of medicinal plants. Her hope: that her discoveries may lead to new medications to counter the rising threat of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
Jan 31, 2023 • 41min
Sara Seager: Is There Life Out There?
Pioneering a new way to search for signs of life on planets circling other suns, Sara Seager battled through a devastating personal loss to see her method vindicated by NASA’s powerful new space telescope.
Jan 24, 2023 • 40min
Pamela Adlon: Getting Better All the Time
She wrote, produced, directed and starred in the hit series “Better Things” for five years. Nominated multiple times for multiple awards, she recently directed her first movie. She trades reminiscences with Alan, who’s known her since she was a kid.
Jan 17, 2023 • 40min
Karen Bakker: The Sounds of Life
Her new book lets us eavesdrop on the chatter between creatures – even plants – that our ears can’t detect. And reveals how new technologies, including AI, are opening the possibility of our being able to converse with other animals.
Jan 10, 2023 • 41min
Daniel Lubetzky: On a Mission to Spread Kindness
The founder of the multi-billion-dollar nutrition bar company KIND has rolled out "Starts With Us," a non-partisan movement working to overcome cultural extremism by fostering curiosity, compassion and courage as daily habits.
Jan 3, 2023 • 37min
Kathy Kleiman: The six women who programmed the first modern computer
Built during WWII, the world’s first electronic computer, the ENIAC, was an engineering marvel. But at 80 ft long and 6 ft tall it was mute until it was brought to life by six young women mathematicians who figured out how to program it.
Dec 27, 2022 • 38min
Thomas Boothby: On a Tough Little Guy With Secrets
You need a microscope to see them, but tardigrades aren’t only nature’s ultimate survivors – they hold secrets that may make vaccines more available and help astronauts live in space.
Dec 20, 2022 • 41min
Alison Gopnik: Making AI more childlike
The renowned expert on how babies learn about the world through curiosity and exploration is now collaborating with artificial intelligence researchers to make AI systems smarter by being more like children.
Dec 13, 2022 • 41min
Les Johnson: Sailing to the Stars
The NASA engineer piggybacked a tiny spacecraft on the giant new moon rocket launched just last month. His spacecraft was to spread gossamer wings and sail to an asteroid. But Les Johnson’s dreams are of sailing people to the stars.
Dec 6, 2022 • 41min
Kate Klonick: Can Social Media Not Be So Anti-Social?
Kate watched up close as Facebook struggled to moderate its content. And that makes her the perfect guest to unravel the chaos surrounding Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
