Think from KERA

Deep inside Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is X, the “moonshot” laboratory in which inventors dream up unorthodox solutions to the world’s biggest problems. Derek Thompson paid a visit to the normally secret facility and joins Think to talk about the potentially life-altering work happening there. His story “Google X and the Science of Radical Creativity” appears in The Atlantic.

As the 1980s faded into the ‘90s, President George H.W. Bush guided the nation – and the world – through the final days of the Cold War. Presidential historian Jeffrey Engel joins us to talk about how Bush’s years of experience in international affairs prepared him for the moment. His new book is called “When the World Seemed New: George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). He’ll talk more about the book tonight at SMU.

Cheating is omnipresent in our culture – from our marriages to the sports we watch to filing our taxes. Stanford Law professor Deborah L. Rhode joins us to talk about our predilection to cheat – and about how it takes buy-in from everyone to stop it. Her new book is called “Cheating: Ethics in Everyday Life” (Oxford).

Annie Leibovitz is arguably America’s most famous portrait photographer. Her shots of actors and musicians have made the covers of Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and many other magazines. She joins us to talk about the work that goes into her extraordinary pictures, many of which are captured in her new book, “Annie Leibovitz: Portraits 2005-2016” (Phaidon Press). She speaks tomorrow night at McFarlin Auditorium as part of DMA Arts & Letters Live.

America has a habit of following trends that occur in one of its states: Texas. TCU professor Max Krochmal and Rice professor Steve Klineberg talk about how the state’s demographic shifts might preview larger changes nationwide. They’ll participate in the Southern Historical Association annual meeting taking place this weekend in Dallas.

Whether he’s playing a nerdy P.C. in a series of Apple commercials or an eccentric billionaire on “The Daily Show,” John Hodgman has a gift for creating humorous personas. We’ll meet the real John Hodgman – and talk with him about facing down his 40s and his new book “Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches” (Viking).

As a doctor and humanitarian, Samantha Nutt has seen human suffering firsthand in some of the world’s most dire conditions. She talks about the threats that face these populations and whether they can be overcome. She’ll talk about the topic further tonight at the Communities Foundation of Texas as part of the Dallas Holocaust Museum’s Upstander Speaker Series.

The world’s largest tech companies have infiltrated our lives to such a degree that if they went away, it’s hard to imagine life without them. NYU professor Scott Galloway talks about how these companies came to dominate our existence – and the traits they have in common. His book is called “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google” (Penguin).

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner was stopped by New York City police officers for selling cigarettes. One of the officers placed Garner in a choke hold that killed him. The entire encounter was captured on cell phone video that went viral. Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, discusses Eric Garner’s life and death and talks about the factors that led to the tragedy. His deeply-reported new book about the incident is “I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street” (Spiegel & Grau).

As an expectant mother, Rana Awdish was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening internal bleeding. And as a newly-minted doctor, she was keenly aware of her circumstances. She talks about how the experience forced her to reconsider how she relates to patients, which she writes about in “In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope” (St. Martin’s Press).