The 7th Avenue Project

If you've bought into the simplified notion that genes are top-down bosses, issuing marching orders that your cells, body and brain merely obey, it's time to rethink. Biobehavioral scientist Steve Cole and colleagues are assembling a new picture of genes that don't just talk, but also listen. Though scientists have long known that external inputs affect gene regulation (which genes are switched on or off), the degree to which large numbers of genes are influenced moment-to-moment by our experiences – including our social life, our feelings and perceptions – is an important developing story. Steve and I talked about this new understanding of the mind-body connection, how feelings and perceptions may impact the immune system via changes in gene regulation and the emerging field he calls “social genomics.” After hearing this interview, you may never feel the same about your genome again.

With apologies to Bob Newhart and others, my favorite TV shrink will always be Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. A lot of the best comics of our era tried out their routines—and worked out their issues—on Dr. Katz's couch, and the effect was certainly therapeutic for viewers like me. The animated series ran from 1995-1999 and marks its 20th birthday this year with a live performance at SF Sketchfest. I spoke with co-creator and star Jonathan Katz about the show, his life and career. Including: improv with H. Jon Benjamin and Laura Silverman; hustling ping-pong with David Mamet; how not to pitch a project; ripping it up on a mobility scooter.

Growing up, Nore Davis used laughter to ease family friction and foster mutual understanding. As a professional comedian, that's still his M.O., applying some healing humor to divisive subjects like race, homophobia, and police-civilian tensions. We talked about his youth in Yonkers, being a cop's kid, becoming a comic, using his baby face to good advantage, his transgender "sisbro," his bit part on "Boardwalk Empire," the unequal power of black and white racial slurs, and more.

It took Meklit Hadero a while to realize she could be a singer, and a while longer to start recording, but man, has she made up the distance. Over the last few years she's released a series of impeccably produced albums showcasing her own craftily written songs as well as some pretty beguiling cover versions, moving seamlessly from jazz to soul to hip-hop, indie rock, folk and even a little country. Her supple, spirited vocals invite comparisons to Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Nora Jones and Joan Armatrading. But she has a sound all her own, drawing on musical influences in all the aforementioned genres as well as the Ethiopian pop she heard growing up and the North/East African music she's been exposed to in her work on The Nile Project, which she co-founded.

Meklit and I surveyed her discography, including her new album We Are Alive, while talking about her life and career, her exuberant approach to performance and the way creativity takes its own good time.

Ever wondered what life is like for medical workers treating Ebola patients? Or what sort of people volunteer for such hazardous duty? Davis Perkins is a paramedic, a former paratrooper and retired firefighter with a passion for landscape painting and overseas medical missions. He's just returned from Liberia, where he worked in an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU). As Davis waited out his mandatory 21-day homecoming quarantine, we talked about his decision to go to the hot zone and what he experienced there.

Before reading Eula Biss's new book "On Immunity," I thought the anti-vaccination movement was a recent phenomenon. But as she makes clear, the roots go much deeper: not only historically, but psychologically, sociologically, maybe even theologically. We talked about vaccines and their safety, the history of inoculation and its discontents, public vs. personal health, choosing what to fear, purity and pollution, illness as metaphor, and vampires.

The criminalization of psychedelic drugs did little to stop casual use, but did make it nearly impossible to do legitimate research on their effects and medicinal potential. Rick Doblin has spent most of his life trying to change that. Now, he and the organization he founded, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), may be on the verge of a breakthrough: the first FDA approval for therapeutic use of psychedelics. On today's show, I spoke to Rick about the long road from proscription to prescription; where the previous generation of psychedelic advocates went wrong and what's going right this time; how psychedelics might work to assist psychotherapy for conditions such as PTSD, severe anxiety and drug and alcohol addiction; and how that model differs from conventional psychopharmaceutical approaches. Also Rick talks about his own psychedelic experiences and why mind-altering drugs can be so life-altering.

Cultural commentator Laura Kipnis is one of our sharpest surveyors of sexual politics and gender relations. She's written bracingly about porn, femininity and feminism, self-deception and scandal, love and marriage… So why'd it take her so long to get around to the subject of men and masculinity? Actually, Laura's been writing about and puzzling over guys—and her relationship to them—for years, and now she's collected some of her best essays on the topic in her book "Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation." We talked about male anxiety, male power, male excess, her own envy of men and her sometimes confused expectations of them. Also the challenges of self-exploration and self-revelation in writing, and what to wear when you meet Larry Flynt.

Michael Robbins says he wanted to be a rock star even more than a poet. His devotion to music, from rap to rock to pop and country, is plain in almost every line of his verse — not just in the lyrics he samples and remixes, but in the sounds and the syllables themselves. Michael's just released his second poetry collection, "The Second Sex," following up on 2012's critical smash, "Alien Vs. Predator." We talked about his sources and inspirations, both literary and musical, and listened to some tunes of his choosing.

Richard Ford and I don't always see eye to eye on his long-running protagonist Frank Bascombe, and he thinks that's OK, even a good thing. Amidst differing readings and some good-natured contrariety, I learned a lot about Richard the writer, his craft and the man himself. With Frank Bascombe's return in Richard's new collection of stories, this interview feels as timely as it did when first broadcast eight years ago to the day.