We all want to make good health decisions, but every day a new study comes out that seems to change the game. Fat’s bad for you; then it’s good. Count calories. Don’t. Add in all the marketing and news media, and it’s hard to tell the good stuff from the snake oil. James Hamblin is a doctor-turned-journalist, and in his writing for The Atlantic magazine he wades through the noise to find the signal. He joins us Tuesday to help us better understand how to listen to and take care of our bodies.

The swastika. Few symbols, few words even, evoke such visceral reactions in the Western world. It stands for genocide and hatred. But it wasn’t always that way. For centuries it symbolized good fortune, success, and well-being. It held deep religious and spiritual meaning for people around the world. Graphic designer Steven Heller has long been fascinated by the swastika, and he joins us Monday to discuss its power and history. Can it ever be seen in its original context again?

A.O. Scott is a long-time film critic for the New York Times , so it may seem strange that he’s now questioning the value of his work ... what the point of criticism actually is. Scott has written a book arguing that critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action, and of our interactions with each other. In that way, he says, we’re all critics. Scott joins us for a discussion about art, pleasure, beauty, truth, and of course criticism. (Rebroadcast)

Thursday, we’re talking about the relationship between the police and the public. Last week, Alex Wubbel’s arrest video went viral. She’s, of course, the nurse that wouldn’t allow Salt Lake Police Detective Jeff Payne to draw blood from an unconscious patient without a warrant. The video showed what many saw as unreasonable escalation on Payne’s part. We’re using this as a jumping off point to explore how power and authority are wielded by American police, and what that means for those they are

Five years ago, psychologist Jean Twenge noticed that teenagers were acting differently than the Millenial generation that preceded them. They were more depressed, and more suicidal. They sought less independence from their parents, hung out less with friends, and were less interested in sex. All these behaviors coincide with a pivotal cultural moment: 2012 was the first year a majority of Americans owned smartphones. Twenge joins us Wednesday to explain what she’s learned about today’s super

In 2010, Gerda Saunders learned that she has dementia. She was 61 years old at the time, and soon had to leave her post teaching at the University of Utah. So, Gerda started writing what she calls her field notes on dementia. She said she wanted to be like an anthropologist documenting a tribe. The result is a memoir. It’s called Memory’s Last Breath , and in it Saunders examines what losing her memory is doing her identity. Tuesday, we're rebroadcasting an interview with Saunders about her book

NPR’s Shankar Vedantam says that in some ways, human behavior is the ultimate frontier of science. After all, there’s a lot we don’t know about why behave the way we do. But if we can get a glimpse at the unconscious patterns that influence us, Vedantam argues we have the potential to make big changes in our lives and our world. Shankar Vedantam is host of the popular podcast Hidden Brain, and he joins us to explain how science and storytelling can improve the human experience. (Rebroadcast)

Today, Don Quixote is regarded as one of the most important novels ever written. But when it debuted 400 years ago, Miguel Cervantes’ book was deemed unworthy of serious artistic consideration. Ilan Stavans, a professor of Latin American and Latino Culture, has a profound affection for the tale of don Quixote de la Mancha, and he says the wandering knight’s adventure through life mirrors our own. Stavans joins us Friday to explore how Don Quixote rose to global success and gave rise to modernity

In January 1939, Unitarian minister Waitstill Sharp and his wife Martha received a call: would they travel to Europe to help Jewish dissidents and refugees under threat of Nazi persecution? While few Americans were paying attention to Hitler’s growing power, the Sharps agreed to the dangerous mission. Their grandson, the filmmaker Artemis Joukowsky, created a documentary that explores their incredible work. He joined us to talk about how the Sharp’s actions saved hundreds and altered the course

It’s a timeless question, asked by every kid that’s ever lived: where do babies come from? It turns out even the great scientific minds of the Enlightenment didn’t really have an answer. While navigators and cartographers seemed to have mastered the heavens and the Earth, other scientists were conducting bizarre experiments to put their finger on how exactly humans create life. Science writer Edward Dolnick joins us to tell the story of 250 years of searching and the meandering ways of