Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

All matter—everything around us and within us—has an ultimate birthday: the day the universe was born. This informative, eye-opening, and eminently enjoyable book is the story of our atoms’ long strange journey from the Big Bang to the creation of stars, through the assembly of Planet Earth, and the formation of life as we know it. It’s also the story of the scientists who made groundbreaking discoveries and unearthed extraordinary insights into the composition of life. Behind their unexpected findings were investigations marked by fierce rivalries, obsession, heartbreak, flashes of insight, and flukes of blind luck. Join us when Dan Levitt helps us understand the mystery of our existence: how a quadrillion atoms made of particles from the Big Bang now animate each of our cells.

In We Are Not One, historian Eric Alterman traces this debate from Isreal's nineteenth-century origins. Following it's 1948–1949 War of Independence (called the “nakba” or “catastrophe” by Palestinians), few Americans, including few Jews, paid much attention to Israel or the challenges it faced at this time.

According to Alterman, following the 1967 Six-Day War, almost overnight support for Israel became the primary component of American Jews’ collective identity. Over time, Jewish organizations joined forces with conservative Christians and neoconservative pundits and politicos to wage a tenacious fight to define Israel’s image in the US media, popular culture, Congress, and college campuses.

Join us when Alterman expounds on his researched, and reveals how consensus on Israel and Palestine emerged and why, it is fracturing.

Chemist, artist and industrial hygienist Monona Rossol is the founder of Arts, Crafts and Theater Safety, Inc. A not-for-profit corporation dedicated to providing health and safety services to the arts. She is also the Health and Safety Director for the Local 829 union of the United Scenic Artists International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Join us when, Monona addresses concerns of the flu and other infectious health statistics on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI 99.5FM.

Food has power to nourish your mind, supporting emotional wellness through both nutrients and pleasure. In her latest book, journalist Mary Beth Albright draws on cutting-edge research to explain the food/mood connection. She redefines “emotional eating” based on the science, revealing how eating triggers biological responses that affect humans’ emotional states both immediately and long-term.

Join us as Albright shares research from the new field of nutritional psychology, combined with straightforward suggestions for what to eat and how to eat it - certain foods help reduce the inflammation that can harm mental health, the critical relationship between the microbiome and the brain, which vitamins help restore the body during intensely emotional times, and how to develop a healthful eating pattern for life - on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

Adapted from Sandra Schulberg’s monograph, Filmmakers for the Prosecution retraces the hunt for film evidence that could convict the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trial. The searchers were two sons of Hollywood – brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg – serving under the command of OSS film chief John Ford.

The motion pictures they presented in the courtroom became part of the official record and shape our understanding of the Holocaust to this day. Seventy-five years after the trial, French journalist and filmmaker Jean Christophe Klotz returns to the German saltmines where films lay burning, uncovers never-before-seen footage, and interviews key figures to unravel why the resulting film about the trial – Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today by Stuart Schulberg –was intentionally buried by the U.S. Department of War. Klotz’s riveting film also fills in the gaps of how these groundbreaking materials were sourced, and poses still-pertinent questions about documentarians’ obligations to posterity.

Join us when Sandra Schulberg examines Film makers for the Prosecution which opens Friday, January 27 at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema in NYC on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

An Australian biologist delves into the extraordinary world of koalas, from their ancient ancestors to the current threats to their survival.

Koalas regularly appeared in Australian biologist Danielle Clode’s backyard, but it was only when a bushfire threatened that she truly paid them attention. She soon realized how much she had to learn about these complex and mysterious animals.

Join us as Clode embarks on a journey through evolutionary biology, natural history, and ecology to understand where these enigmatic animals came from and what their future may hold. She begins her search with the fossils of ancient giant koalas, delving into why the modern koala has become the lone survivor of a once-diverse family of uniquely Australian marsupials, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

As we honor the life and significant achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on this day, we can only wonder what he would have made of the incredible political turmoil our country is currently experiencing.

Join us when award winning journalist - specialized on the economy and politics, Bob Hennelly examines the current state of our government, labor strikes, and more on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

(1/10/23) In American Midnight, award-winning historian Adam Hochschild brings alive the horrifying yet inspiring four years following the U.S. entry into the First World War, spotlighting forgotten repression while celebrating an unforgettable set of Americans who strove to fix their fractured country—and showing how their struggles still guide us today -- on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

In South to Freedom, prize-winning historian Alice L. Baumgartner tells the story of why Mexico abolished slavery and how its increasingly radical antislavery policies fueled the sectional crisis in the United States. Southerners hoped that annexing Texas and invading Mexico in the 1840s would stop runaways and secure slavery’s future. Instead, the seizure of Alta California and Nuevo México upset the delicate political balance between free and slave states. Join us when Alice L. Baumgartner shares an essential new perspective on antebellum America and the causes of the Civil War, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

(1-6-2022) Professor of Zoology at the University of Manchester and author of a number of history and history of science books examines As Gods, which traces the history of genetic engineering, showing that technology is far too important to be left to the scientists.

They have the power to change life itself, but should they be trusted?

Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. Now we have powers that can target the extinction of pests, change our own genes, or create dangerous new versions of diseases in an attempt to prevent future pandemics.

Join us when biologist and historian Matthew Cobb examines As Gods and genetic engineering on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.