This hour of Modern Notion Daily, our guest Karen Abbott talks about her book, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War (Harper Perennial, paperback September 2015). Abbott explored the lives of four women who contributed to the war effort in unusual ways, from the Confederate spy who bedded countless Union soldiers to obtain secrets, to the woman who dressed as a man and enlisted in the Union Army. Later in the hour, Mark Hay explains the Kuiper Belt and why its so gosh darn cool.

Music this hour:

“Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Semper Fidelis” by Heftone Banjo Orchestra, from the album Music Box Rag

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Our guest on todays episode of Modern Notion Daily is Casey Schwartz, author of In the Mind Fields: Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis (Pantheon, August 2015). Schwartz completed a graduate program that allowed her to study psychoanalysis at the Anna Freud Centre in London and neuroscience at Yale. She constantly felt like the two disciplines were talking past each other, until she met Dr. Mark Solms and stepped into the new world of neuropsychoanalysis. Later in the hour, contributing editor Mark Hay discusses a new study of bullying.

Music this hour:

“Private Hurricane (Instrumental Version)” by Josh Woodward, from the album Breadcrumbs

“Forgiven Not Forgotten” by Jahzzar, from the album Kuddelmuddel

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

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On todays Modern Notion Daily podcast, our guest is Roger Giner-Sorolla, a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent and a member of the team working on the Reproducibility Project for Psychology. The Reproducibility Project tasked psychologists with choosing 100 studies that they could replicate in their own labs as a way of examining the state of psychology research on the whole. Only 36 percent were successfully replicated—but what does that figure really mean?

Music this hour:

“get out” by Jahzzar, from the album Sketches

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Forgiven Not Forgotten” by Jahzzar, from the album Kuddelmuddel

Our guest on todays episode of Modern Notion Daily is Pedro Domingos, a professor of computer science and the author of The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World (Basic Books, September 2015). Domingos is an expert in machine learning, which is the engine behind much of what happens in our digital lives (suggested friends on Facebook, route times on GoogleMaps, and the like). The holy grail of machine learning is the master algorithm, and Domingos thinks well find it if we look hard enough.

Music this hour:

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Octopus” by Jahzzar, from the album Sunlight

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On todays episode of Modern Notion Daily, our guest is J. Kenji López-Alt, the managing culinary director of Serious Eats and author of the new book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking through Science (W. W. Norton, September 2015). López-Alt takes a scientific approach to cooking—which doesnt mean hes necessarily looking for the perfect way to make a dish, but he wants to understand what it would take to do so. The result is this 1,000-page cookbook, which shifts the focus from recipes and onto the science behind why they work. Later in the hour, contributing editor Mark Hay warns us against shooting armadillos.

Music this hour:

“Forgiven Not Forgotten” by Jahzzar, from the album Kuddelmuddel

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod, from the album Global Sampler

Our guest on todays Modern Notion Daily is Andrew Moore, author of Pawpaw: In Search of Americas Forgotten Fruit (Chelsea Green, August 2015). Moore discovered the pawpaw, which is native to the United States, five years ago in a grove in Ohio. Despite its addictive taste and aroma (its been called a cross between a banana and a mango), the pawpaw never achieved mass appeal. Moore explores the reasons and talks about his adventures going pawpaw pickin. Also, at the top of the show, Pam Wasserman from Population Connection tells us about the invention of microscopes and how thats affected world population. You can check out Population Connection’s interactive map/timeline at www.worldpopulationhistory.org. And later in the hour, contributing editor Mark Hay tells the story of a penguin named Lala who wore a backpack.

Music this hour:

J. S. Bach: Prelude in C - BWV 846 by Kevin MacLeod, from the album Classical Sampler

What True Self? Feels Bogus, Lets Watch Jason X by Chris Zabriskie, from the album Reappear

Semper Fidelis by Heftone Banjo Orchestra, from the album Music Box Rag

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

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Theater Chatter by Ed Hutschek

On todays episode of Modern Notion Daily, our guest is David Starkey, author of Magna Carta: The Medieval Roots of Modern Politics (Quercus, September 2015). Starkey was less interested in exploring the principles of the Magna Carta, and more interested in the process it took to get the document just right. In the year 1215, when the Magna Carta was first signed (or sealed, depending on who you ask), the document was quite extreme. But over the course of a decade, the parties involved negotiated the terms and arrived at what we think of as the bedrock for American and British politics today.

Music this hour:

“Forgiven Not Forgotten” by Jahzzar, from the album Kuddelmuddel

“The Presidents March” by The United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, from the album Celebrating 50 Years

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

On todays show, our guest is Robert M. Thorson, author of Waldens Shore: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Science (Harvard University Press, paperback August 2015). Thorson is a geologist who decided to read Thoreaus classic literary work for its observations about nature. He argues that Thoreau was as skilled a naturalist as he was a writer. Later in the hour, contributing editor Erin Blakemore talks about whats happened to the remains of the Romanovs.

Music this hour:

“Forgiven Not Forgotten” by Jahzzar, from the album Kuddelmuddel

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

Travel Light by Jason Shaw, from the album Audionatix: Acoustic

Prelude No. 14 by Chris Zabriskie, from the album Preludes

Out of the Skies, Under the Earth by Chris Zabriskie, from the album Reappear

On todays episode of Modern Notion Daily, our guest is Nicholas Carr, a science and technology writer whose most recent book is The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us (W. W. Norton, paperback September 2015). Carr thinks that automation has advanced society and the greater good in innumerable ways, but we may have passed the sweet spot—the point where automation helps us but doesnt displace people from their jobs or, essentially, make us dumber. Using case studies including plane crashes, driverless cars, and the like, Carr explains what using automation does to us on a psychological and intellectual level. Later in the hour, contributing editor Erin Blakemore explains how the U.S. governments brutality against the Navajo Nation in the 1860s has worsened the effects of a rare genetic disease today.

Music this hour:

“Forgiven Not Forgotten” by Jahzzar, from the album Kuddelmuddel

“wherever” by Jahzzar, from the album Sketches

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

On todays show, were talking with Linda Hirshman, a former attorney and author of the new dual biography, Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day OConnor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World (Harper, September 2015). Hirshman argues that these first two women to sit on the Supreme Court could not have been more different, apart from their commitment to womens rights in cases of sexual harassment, abortion, and much more. Hirshman recounts their uncommon drive to succeed in a world that was barely ready for women to have as much power as OConnor and Ginsburg decided they deserved.

Music this hour:

“Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within

“Take Me Higher” by Jahzzar, from the album Tumbling Dishes Like Old-Man’s Wishes