Think from KERA

If you’ve ever watched “The Simpsons,” “Late Night with David Letterman” or even “The Muppets,” you’re familiar with Nell Scovell’s sense of humor. The writer and director behind these and many, many other television shows joins us to talk about how she made America laugh – and about being a woman in famously male-dominated writers’ rooms. Her new memoir is called “Just the Funny Parts: … And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys’ Club” (Dey Street Books).

Researchers around the world are racing to create the ultimate algorithm – one capable of teaching itself all there is to know. University of Washington computer scientist Pedro Domingos joins us to talk about how this eventual discovery would change the way we live. His new book is called “The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World” (Basic Books).

A trait humans share with other creatures is a natural inclination to divide. What separates us from them, though, is our ability to see past that trait to bridge our differences. David Berreby joins us to talk about how scientists are studying the way tribalism works in the brain. His story “Why Do We See So Many Things as ‘Us vs. Them’?” appears in National Geographic magazine.

When Timothy Leary escaped from prison, it set off a manhunt fueled by President Nixon’s obsession with catching the leading voice of America’s counterculture. Bill Minutaglio joins us to talk about what the rivalry between the two men says about the division in the country at that time. His new book with Steven L. Davis is called “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD” (Twelve).

As the founder of the nonprofit health care organization Partners in Health, Paul Farmer has helped to bring medical care to some of the most impoverished places on Earth. He joins us to talk about the places that need our attention most – and about what the global health community learned from Africa’s Ebola outbreak.

Climate change, famine and war threaten humanity each day. And yet we’ve never been better equipped to take on these issues than we are right now. Gregg Easterbrook joins us to make the case that things aren’t as bad as they seem, which he writes about in “It’s Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear” (PublicAffairs).

Europe is still trying to figure out how to accommodate the wave of migrants seeking another life there. Among the issues is: How can a nation separate the true refugees from the economic opportunists? Graeme Wood joins us to talk about a sophisticated program in Germany seeking to solve that problem. He writes about it for The Atlantic.

At the office, it’s often easiest to just go with the flow. Psychologist Charlan Nemeth joins us to talk about why consensus is the killer of innovation. She writes about the idea in “In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business” (Basic Books).

When you look around the room and no one else looks like you, talks like you or even thinks like you, it can be isolating. We devote this hour to those people who feel like they’re the only one – from a blackwoman hiker sharingthe trails with predominately white men, to anoverweight yogi, to a lefthander in aright-handed world.

The medical community is constantly refining its approach to how we care for people suffering from dementia. Heather Snyder, senior director for medical and scientific relations with the Alzheimer’s Association, joins us to talk about the latest trends in patient care. She’s in town for theAlzheimer’s Association’s spring symposiumon Thursday in Arlington.