Adventurous Minds

Have you ever thought about what viewing a beautiful piece of art, natural landscape or face does to your brain? It turns out, aesthetic experiences actually impact the chemistry in your brain, and can be used to help ease anxiety and stress. What are the evolutionary reasons behind this appeal for beauty? How does "beauty" vs imperfection embed itself into our biases? And how can beauty be used in the practical world to influence our brains?

Dr. Anjan Chatterjee Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Architecture at UPenn and the Director at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics joins the podcast to discuss.

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Did you think Latin is an ancient language? Well what about the languages that came before that? Tocharian is a language pre-dating Latin and a branch to the ancestor of the Latin language. Michael Weiss, professor of historical linguistics at Cornell University, joins the podcast to discuss how languages have evolved through history, decoding ancient extinct languages and more.

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The Amazon rainforest is one of the most magical places on Earth. Once thought to be too wild for human civilization to flourish, advancements in technology have revealed signs of ancient cities once thriving in the rainforest. Our guest, Dr. Glenn Shepard, has spent over 20 years in the Amazon as an ethnobotanist, studying the intersection of Amazonian cultures and the plants they use.

Listen as he recounts embedding with Amazonian tribes, encountering uncontacted tribes, ayahuasca, shamanism, plant intelligence and the connection these cultures have to the Amazon and its plants.

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Effective altruism is the philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. Luke Freeman is Executive Director of Giving What We Can, a global community dedicated to giving effectively.

We discuss how to stay connected to charitable giving when the world seems full of despair, human psychology, optimism and what he's learned about humanity in his position at Giving What We Can.

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Food plays a big role in your every day life. It turns out, food has played an even big role in shaping the world as we know it. From the American Revolution, to the conditions that have led us to a 40-hour work week, food (and drink) has played a pivotal role in the evolution of humanity for thousands of years. Hear legends of man-eating birds protecting rare spices, the truth about classic regional dishes and why beer might be the reason we progressed from hunter gatherers in the first place.

Today's guest is Tom Standage - Deputy Editor of The Economist, and author of numerous books including New York Times Bestsellers “An Edible History of Humanity” & “A History of the World in 6 Glasses”.

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Are we designed to die? Is there a evolutionary need to die? And more importantly, what does our body do to survive? In our latest episode, we explore the impact of genetics vs lifestyle, our key biological functions and other key factors in the science of longevity.

Today's guest is Professor Coleen Murphy, Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, Director of Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for Aging Research, and author of the book “How We Age: The Science of Longevity”.

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Can a computer ever really achieve consciousness? What role should AI play in human lives? And what comes next? In the latest episode of Adventurous Minds, we're joined by Terry Winograd, professor emeritus of Stanford University and Founder of the Stanford Human–Computer Interaction Group.

Professor Winograd has spent his career working, researching and teaching about AI and HCI, including advising some of the highest profile tech companies like Google and LinkedIn.

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A star map created as a gift for astronomers in the year 3,000, a Renaissance-era group chat between the most famous scientists of the age and centuries of scientific rivalries. The history of scientific cooperation is a complicated and fascinating story worth understanding as world powers struggles to cooperate today on some of our most crucial goals.

On our latest episode, I'm joined by Professor Lorraine Daston, Director emerita of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and the author of “Rivals: How Scientists Learned to Cooperate.”

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Who am I? If you've ever thought about this fundamental question, you're in the right spot. It turns out, understanding your personal identity is crucial to your overall health and wellbeing. It also may be the hardest time in human history to figure it out.

To help us understand, I'm joined by Dr. Jeffrey Arnett, Professor and Senior Research Scholar at Clark University, Founder of The Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood and the author of “Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties”.

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What happens to a monk's brain when meditating? How did religion help early humans survive? Is there a scientific connection between the religious experiences people self-report and something beyond the brain?

In our inaugural episode of Adventurous Minds, we are joined by Dr. Patrick McNamara, Department of Psychology at National University, Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine Research, Associate Professor of Neuropsychology and Theology in the Boston University School of Theology and the author of “The Neuroscience of Religious Experience”.

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