This neurogeneticist esteems Rita Levi-Montalcini, who won a Nobel Prize for her work on human growth factor. She experimented with eggs, and then she ate the eggs. Science during wartime. In hiding. In a basement lab. Great stories at KGB’s Red Room, produced with Lori Schwarz. Music from Leslie Goshko.

The designer of widely-used typefaces, including Surveyor, Tungsten, and Retina, he draws on the history of his native Brooklyn: old subway signs, old newspapers. More surprising, his fonts are also inspired by Walt Whitman. A conversation at the New York Transit Museum. Music from Rahiem and Amiri Taylor.

This Canadian producer, celebrated for Little Mosque on the Prairie, wanted to do a show about death, too often “depicted as this morbid sad thing. We wanted to do a comedy about death.” The Hollywood (Toronto?) suits rejected her. A merry chat about mortality at the New York Baha’i Center.  Music from Gloria Thomas Gassaway and the Ebony Hillbillies.

The author of How to be a Stoic describes that philosophy’s central precept: “We should live according to nature.” Happily, this demands less involvement with squirrels than you might think. A conversation at the Society for Ethical Culture, with music from David Gracia, Margaret Determann, and Barbara Carlsen.

Sustainable business practices can make a company more profitable, so why resist them? Ignorance? Madness? Alien mind-control? A deft explanation from the former president of the Rainforest Alliance and current director of the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business. Music from Sid Whelan and Trevor Bridgewater.

The shift in usage from “garbageman” to “sanittion worker” was not cosmetic but an acknowledgement of what – and who -- helps a city survive, says the artist-in-residence of the New York Department of Sanitation. Music from Hubby Jenkins.

This landscape architect embraces the principles that underpin Olmsted’s Central Park. “He wanted the wealthy to mix with the poor; this was supposed to be a place where everybody came together.” Public parks as an institution of democracy, a conversation at the Center for Architecture. Music from Hubby Jenkins.

He is celebrated for his writing about the American diet, crystalized into his mantra: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I assumed he’d revere Thoreau, but he declared, “Much of my work and my life has been an argument with Thoreau.” You think you know a guy (who you’ve never met). A re-edited version of our 2011 converation.

Our conversation with this terrific designer was part of the Museum of Arts and Design’s exhibition Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics 1976-1986. The musician was Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group, a luminary of that era, who made a shocking revelation: he played in a fraternity band.

He created book jackets for Michael Crichton to John Updike, without bloody conflicts: “It’s the author’s book, and if I’m not taking them where they want with the cover, they have every right to say so, and then we figure it out.” Talent and humility. Imagine my disappointment. A conversation at the Museum of Arts and Design. Music (and more) from Lenny Kaye.