Wonder Cabinet

Forget baseball. Boxing just might be our national sport. After all, the highest paid athlete in the country is a fighter. And a long awauted superfight between this generation's best boxers has earned millions in ticket sales. This hour, we explore the popularity and enduring appeal of combat sports.  The Ecstasy of the Fight; Inside the Mind of a Fighter; The Professor Who Became a Cage Fighter; The Toughest Teen in the World; Dangerous Idea: Can Real Life Superheroes Fight Crime?; 'The Hunger Games' Meets Ancient Rome in 'An Ember in the Ashes'.

Forty years ago, the U.S. ended its war in Vietnam, but we're still fighting over its legacy - in foreign policy and military strategy, and also in books and movies. But there's one question Americans rarely ask: what does the war mean to the Vietnamese themselves?  Taking Revenge Against Coppola's "Apocalypse Now"; A Vietnamese Doctor's Unforgettable Diary; How Soldiers Cope with Killing; War Criminal?; Paul Beatty on "The Nazi and the Barber"; The Man Who Invented Chemical Weapons.

Can the self actually be quantified? This hour, we examine the growth of personal data collection. From Bites to Bytes - Quantifying the Everyday; Does Data Give Life Meaning?; The Sonified Self - Transforming Data Into Music; Our Automated Future; Chronicling, then Letting Go.

Building Stories Stories from Cabrini Green; Ever Wonder About the Sounds a Building Makes?; Chris Ware on his graphic novel "Building Stories"; Meat Houses. Yes, Houses Made Out of Meat; Ken "The Voice" Nordine reads his jazz poem "Yellow"; Here, Bullet - War Poetry by Flashlight ; Poet Rae Armantrout on Reading Poetry Out Loud.

Magic Books The Codex Seraphinianus; The Talking Book; The Aleppo Codex; Novelist Remembers Armenian Massacre, 100 Years Later; Singer Diamanda Galas: The 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Arms, armor, bodices and battle axes! Celebrate a new season of Game of Thrones with some real medieval history. Just How Heavy Was That Armor?; Get Your Medieval On!; Geoffrey Chaucer, Detective; Meet a Medieval Warrior-Girl: Nicola Griffith's "Hild"; George R. R. Martin Tells Us Why We're Addicted to Historical Fantasy; BookMark: Nick Bantock; Was Abe Lincoln Racist?.

Is it ever possible to be too racially sensitive or tolerant? This hour, a look at how we talk about touchy subjects -- whether political correctness promotes safety or censorship. Is Political Correctness a Form of Censorship?; Political Correctness Is About Safety; The Limits of Tolerance; Racial Paranoia; Dangerous Idea: Trauma; T.C. Boyle Talks "The Harder They Come".

Ever get the feeling that nothing’s original these days, that every new song that comes out is just a rehash of another? This hour, we’re looking at the fine line between inspiration and imitation, and finding out what separates an original work from a bland copy. The Thin Line Between Inspiration and Imitation; Why Is Pop Culture So Obsessed With the Past?; The Evolution of Copyright; A Cassette From My Ex; Dangerous Idea: Latin Can Save Your Life; What Early Christian Texts Suggest About the Life of Jesus; Inspiration or Imitation? [Playlist].

Science is moving out of the lab and into the pages of literary fiction.  This week, we introduce the “Lab Lit” movement and talk about why fiction needs more realistic portrayals of scientists and science culture Science in Fiction - Jennifer Rohn; Archangel - Andrea Barrett; Sonic Sidebar: Antarctica in Fiction and Art; Women and Plants - Elizabeth Gilbert; BookMark - Karl Ove Knausgaard on "The Flame Alphabet"; On Our Minds: Science and the Avant Garde.

Is there any evidence that vaccines cause autism? If the answer is no, then why is anti-vaccination on the rise? Autism. Jenny McCarthy. Measles at Disneyland. How did we get here? The Least-Vaccinated School in Town; The Complicated History of Vaccination; The Ethics of Vaccines; Kazuo Ishiguro on 'The Buried Giant'.