Minds Over Matters

The numbers surrounding climate change are very real and frightening, leaving us with very few options. We can either warm (no pun intended) to the idea of extreme weather events that increase in both frequency and intensity, rising sea levels, severe droughts and wildfires, ocean acidification, and general disruption of the ecosystems that supported our evolution. Or we can take action to slow, a...

Our emotional state at any given moment is how we assess the quality of our lives. Whether we’re happy, sad, angry, depressed … that’s who we are. But where do emotions come from? Do we own them or do they own us? Today’s guest, Eliza Bliss-Moreau , is one of the country’s leading experts on the biological underpinnings of the human experience and joins us today to help us understand some of the c...

If you’re a sucker for politics, societal division, and the phrase “I didn’t see THAT coming!”, boy, oh boy, did you pick a good time to be alive. Nowhere is all this weirdness on display more clearly than in our country’s increasingly surreal election process. Today we’re joined by Amber Boydstun, an expert in U.S. elections, who will do her level best to help us make sense of it all.  Bio and Pu...

With satellites now enveloping our world, empowering a seemingly infinite suite of options for connecting, we have officially entered a new frontier of communications. In this unexplored wilderness, the rules have yet to be written. Is this new landscape helping or hurting us in the long run? Today’s guest is Carl Whithaus , noted author and one of the country’s foremost authorities on writing tec...

What are the implications of an intoxicated army? Today’s guest, Adam Zientek, is a historian whose book on the French army’s use of wine during World War I begs answers to new questions about what it means for a government to chemically modify the behavior of its fighting force. Bio: Adam Zientek is a historian of modern Europe with a focus on France. He is interested in the social history of war...

The world has certainly seen its share of economic crises before. But have we ever seen anything like this? How did we get here? How long might this last? What might it look like on the other side? And what’s with all the tariffs? Today’s guest, noted economist Chris Meissner, shares his insights and expertise on these and other pressing questions. Bio : Christopher M. Meissner , professor of econ...

The word “wellness” has been appropriated by a handful of for-profit industries, each with an interest in branding the concept as something achievable through their products or services. The upside of this branding is that wellness is much closer to the top of our minds. The downside is that many have become trained to believe that wellness can only be achieved through a purchase. So, what’s the t...

So, you want to build a better baby. While many who have tried in the past have done so for not-so-good reasons, today’s emerging technology — while not capable of producing fully customized super-offspring — does allow us to maximize certain traits while minimizing certain risks. Today’s guest, Emily Merchant, walks us through the history, potential, and current state of genetic sciences.    Bio:...

How dark were the Dark Ages? Were they dark for everyone, or was the darkness local to an unfortunate few? How did they break out of the darkness? And what of us? Today’s guest, Mikhaila Redovian, an expert on the period from the late Dark Ages through the Renaissance, shares her insights into the trials, tribulations, victories, and patterns of that era, and asks us to picture ourselves in those...

During a recent trip to Syria to study the post-civil war healing process, Keith Watenpaugh found himself in the midst of a fresh conflict — a war declared by the United States and Israel on Iran. In this special episode of Minds Over Matters , Keith discusses the region’s history of conflict, its possible paths toward peace, and the balance between perseverance and exhaustion among its people. Bi...

For centuries, the physical sciences have offered us ways to make sense of the physical world — the world we perceive with our senses. But what about the world beyond our perceptions? The one we can only infer — the quantum world? Today’s guest, renowned theoretical cosmologist and physicist Andreas Albrecht , sheds some light on the mysteries of the quantum world and clears up a few of the blurry...

To say that Islam is misunderstood would be misleading. It would be much more accurate to say that Islam is not understood at all — at least by most people in the United States. What many of us think we know is actually manufactured disinformation, deliberately spread to demonize and divide for political reasons. In truth, Islam and Christianity have far more in common than we might realize. Today...

Imagine a place that checks nearly every box in the search for Utopia — sustainable, energy efficient, communal, safe. For the past half-century, Village Homes , a visionary housing development in Davis, California, has checked those boxes and so much more. Since its groundbreaking, Village Homes has attracted such curious visitors as French President Francois Mitterrand, First Lady Rosalynn Carte...

To suggest that tea is merely something to drink seems somewhat superficial. After all, tea has been found at the center of diplomatic negotiations, rebellions, and national economies. It contains high antioxidant content, cholesterol-lowering flavonoids, and anti-anxiety properties, among other benefits. On this episode of Minds Over Matters, we are joined by Katharine Burnett, director of the Gl...

This January, as the country observes National Poverty Month, we ask how it is that the wealthiest nation in the world manages to rank 79th out of 91 countries in terms of poverty, according to the World Population Review. Economist Marianne Page , one of the country’s leading experts on the subject, sits down with Ed for an eye-opening chat about its causes, effects, and possible remedies. Prepar...

While the act of genocide dates back to the 13th century, the word itself is fairly young — coined in 1944. Keith David Watenpaugh, one of the country’s leading experts on human rights and the history of genocide, sits down with Ed for a conversation on the implications of that coining, the legalities that inform its interpretations, what it might require to ultimately render the word meaningless,...

In this episode of Minds Over Matters, lighting designer and director of the California Lighting Technology Center Jae Yong Suk joins host Ed Kiggins to discuss lighting, smart homes, and energy resiliency in the 21st century. How does lighting affect our health? And how are our energy technologies evolving to meet the growing needs of decarbonization, grid resiliency, and community well-being? In...

In this episode of Minds Over Matters, oceanographer and climate scientist Dr. Tessa Hill joins host Ed Kiggins to discuss the concerning shifts in the Earth’s climates due to human activities and pollution. How are our oceans faring in the face of these challenges? Are we too far gone or is there still time to reverse course and save the planet? In this conversation that highlights humanity’s cri...

Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor is a historian whose new book Under the Hammer is the first to document how auctions in early America, for everything from sacks of sugar to enslaved people and Indigenous land, shaped the way we buy and sell everything today. On this week's episode of Minds Over Matters, Hartigan-O’Connor talks about how auctions came to define how we buy and sell goods. She explains how a...

Giovanni Peri is an award-winning global economist and one of the world’s leading experts on migration. He is the Founding Director of the Global Migration Center , an interdisciplinary research center focusing on migrations and migration policies, and has shared his findings on such notable outlets as CNN , the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal , the Washington Post , National Public Radio...

In the debut episode of Minds Over Matters, evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Manvir Singh joins host Ed Kiggins for a wide-ranging conversation about a phenomenon that continuously pops up across human cultures: shamanism. Why is this the case? Why does shamanism repeatedly develop across societies? Singh views shamanism as a potent mind technology, one that helps us deal with the uncertainty of ev...