Lifeslices with Steve Fisher

Any subject can be dry and boring. But add a little humor to the topic and you’re likely to wake up and listen.  That’s Dr. Stephen E. Nash, an anthropologist and archaeologist by training and president and CEO of Archaeology Southwest knows how to add humor to make his talks connect with his audience. He joins host Steve Fisher to talk about Funny Science and more serious topics.

Money! It makes the world go round, it can’t buy happiness, and it’s the root of all evil. Without it, you can’t keep a roof over your head or put food on the table or get decent healthcare. Yet the thought of money, whether you have it or not, can be daunting. Scott Yamamura had a Financial Epiphany that led him to write a book and give a TED Talk and he shares it with host Steve Fisher. And it m...

Look back through historic quotes from comedians and pundits and you’ll find lots of jokes about congress. Which tells us one thing. The workings of our government have always been a source of frustration. SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor, an assistant professor of Public Policy and Politics at the University of Virginia and the author of Echo Chambers: How Partisan Communication Took Over Congress, joins h...

One of the first rules of journalism is to not become part of the story. But nothing’s been said about letting the story become part of the journalist. That’s Kara Kavensky, host of the podcast Record Scratch with Kara and author of the new book, Tell Me About Joy, about the time an interview of a World War II vet turned into a mission for Kara. One that would have a profound effect on both of the...

Friends. No, not the TV show. Our actual friends. Do you ever wonder what made you friends in the first place. Or what they bring to your life? Jessica Ayers, an Assistant Professor of Psychological Science at Boise State University, has been looking into those question and says there’s more to friendship than meets the eye. She joins host Steve Fisher for Lifeslices: The One About Friends.

We cherish our democracy. We the people. But for it all to function properly, we need information and for that, we have the media. Penn State University media studies professor Matthew Jordan joins host Steve Fisher to answer the question, Is our media serving our democracy?

Elton John said, “Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.” He should have added, Or in the case of dementia, put themselves back in. Music stimulates our senses, our imagination, our emotions. And perhaps our health. Karen Chan Barrett, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, joins host Steve Fisher to explain The Power...

Pianist, violinist, composer, performing artist, recording artist, filmmaker. Jennifer Thomas has been playing piano and violin since the age of 5. The other talents she discovered in the years since. Now, Thomas has won multiple awards and nominations, not to mention fans all over the world. Once inspired by the works of others, she’s the one now doing the inspiring. She joins host Steve Fisher t...

For the first time since the Great Depression of the 1930s, more Americans are leaving the country than are looking to settle here. Reasons vary, including the divisive politics, deteriorating healthcare and cost of living, among others. If you’re one of those people looking for the greener grass of other geographical locales, there are many things to know. Doug Oas has lived overseas and helped o...

Many, including journalists, pundits, scholars and everyday citizens have noticed similarities in rhetoric and policy between Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler. Is it an accident? A coincidence? Hyperbole? Rabbi Henry Jay Karp doesn’t think so and wrote a book about it, titled, “The Cost of Doing Nothing: Is a Price We Cannot Pay.” Rabbi Karp joins host Steve Fisher to explain why we can't afford to...

In the last episode, we learned how our human attention was being monopolized, if not downright stolen, by the business models behind big tech. Here you’ll learn more about the damage it’s doing. D. Graham Burnett, a Princeton University professor and co-founder and director of the Strother School of Radical Attention, is back to tell us more about the harm of human fracking and what we all can do...

Through our connections to various screens—smartphones, computers, TVs—our consciousness is being mined for profit. D. Graham Burnett, a professor at Princeton University and one of the founders of the Attention Liberation Movement joins host Steve Fisher to urge us to Take Back Your Attention.

A song from the 60’s, began with the lyric, Everybody's talkin' at me I don't hear a word they're sayin' Never have those words meant as much as they do now. We all hear but how many of us are actually listening. Consciously listening. International speaker and trainer on the critical communication skills of listening and speaking Julian Treasure joins host Steve Fisher to explain what we’re lacki...

Acclaimed wildlife filmmaker and naturalist Colin Stafford Johnson returns for more of Life in the Wild. Wildlife filmmakers may not be experiencing high demand right now but that doesn’t stop Colin from extolling the wonders and joys of nature and the need to preserve our ecosystems. A master story teller with some great stories to tell.

Colin Stafford Johnson, one of the world's best nature filmmakers, whose work has been seen on the BBC and PBS among others, joins host Steve Fisher to talk about his Life in the Wild, amongst tigers, otters, foxes and more. 

Thanks to streamers, there’s more foreign language programming available every day. Which begs the question, subtitles or dubbed? Some find subtitles distracting so dubbing is the choice for many. But the quality of the dubbing varies as much as the quality of the programs. So we turned to an expert for an insight on the process.  Jessica Blue, a director, voice actress and adapter joins host Stev...

There may be someone in your house listening to your every word, without you realizing it. Your dog. An average dog vocabulary includes about 150 to 200 words, but with training, dogs have been documented to understand more than 1,000 words! Some dogs are even learning when you’re not actively training them. Shany Dror, a cognitive researcher and animal trainer at the University of Veterinary Medi...

When people are incarcerated, it’s presumably to pay a debt to society for a crime. But when that debt is paid, and it’s time for them to reenter society, what’s being done to prepare them for a successful reentry? Sabra Williams is changing that with CREATIVE ACTS. She and Executive Director Isaac Gonzalez join host Steve Fisher to explain how. 

Every January, the Technos and the Tech Wanna-Knows gather in Las Vegas for CES. The Consumer Electronics Show. They’re there to discover exciting developments in the world of Electronics. And where there’s CES, there’s technology evangelist Marc Saltzman. Marc joins host Steve Fisher to share what he saw, and didn’t see, at CES this year. 

There was a time when towns and villages thrived on the talents of local craftspeople who could produce the necessities of everyday needs. Much of those skills have been lost in the era of mass production and are being undermined further with the advent of robotics. But there’s a small group of humans who are keeping those analog skills alive. One of them is Leanne Corcoran, a master shoemaker in...

81-year old Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787 when he was approached by people asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you can keep it." We’ve been fighting to keep it for almost 250 years but, perhaps, it has never been challenged before like it’s being challenged today. Bill Ayres has been fighting for democracy...

Estimates of when dogs became domesticated range from 20,000 to 130,000 years ago. Cats 9,000-10,000 years ago. What’s next? According to Raffaella Lesch, an assistant professor of Biology at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, it just might be raccoons. Dr. Lesch joins host Steve Fisher to talk about why we might just be seeing new Raccoon Friends Among Us.

Whether we’re musical or not, we’ve all got rhythms. Circadian rhythms. Those are our internal biological software that keeps all the magical devices in our bodies functioning in a 24-hour day. All creatures have them, yet humans tend to abuse theirs. Emily Manoogian is a Chronobiologist and Clinical Researcher at The Salk Institute. She’s a Circadian evangelist and joins host Steve Fisher to expl...

The robotic era is here. All over the world, companies and individual engineers are working to improve the scope of what they can do and their efficiency. One of those is Rich Walker and his company Shadow Robot, which makes dexterous hands. Rich joins host Steve Fisher to talk about his Helping Hands, where we are and where  we’re not.

Steve Jobs said, “I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.” A quarter of the way through the 21st century, it’s happening. [Fred Jordan quote] That’s Dr. Fred Jordan, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Final Spark with Dr. Martin Kutter. They’re delivering on the promise of Living Computers. Jordan joins host Steve Fis...