Brooke Gladstone

The results of the two-week sleep team challenge are in, and a winner will be crowned. Tune in to hear which team won - was it team Digital Detox, led by New Tech City's Manoush Zomorodi? The Vice Squad, captained by On the Media's PJ Vogt and Brooke Gladstone? Or was it Rock Your Routine, led by The Takeaway host John Hockenberry? 

The opening of the 9/11 Memorial Museum on the footprint of the twin towers marks a new phase of remembering the events of that day and their ongoing impact. Brooke and producer Meara...

Resveratrol is a chemical in red wine that, over the years, has been both heralded as heart healing and dismissed as bogus by the media. While this head-spinning trajectory is the nor...

As part of WNYC's Clock Your Sleep project, WNYC hosts have been leading teams competing to get more sleep by trying different strategies. Hear how it's going and who's winning in the...

The two-week sleep team challenge has begun. Follow along and Clock Your Sleep. The WNYC hosts leading the sleep teams are: Manoush Zomorodi, host of New Tech City and captain of sleep team Digital Detox, Brooke Gladstone, host of On the Media, PJ Vogt, associate producer of On the Media, co-creator of TLDR, and co-captain of Vice Squad and John Hockenberry, host of The Takeaway and captain of team Rock Your Routine. They report on their team's progress.

Ivan Oransky is a doctor and journalist and founder, along with Adam Marcus, of a blog called Retraction Watch. The site monitors scientific journals and investigates why articles were retracted. Brooke talks with Oransky, who says that since he and Marcus started the site in 2010 retractions have become more and more frequent.

A hundred years ago, a human-like skull and ape-like jaw were presented at a special meeting of the Geological Society in London. The so-called "Piltdown Man" became widely accepted as a crucial link in the human evolutionary chain; crucial, that is, until 1953, when the bones were exposed as a total hoax. In an interview from December of last year, Nova Senior Science Editor Evan Hadingham talks to Brooke about this tantalizing example of "scientific skullduggery."

Google has recently scooped up more than a half dozen robot companies. Their specialties range from artificial limbs to 3D machine vision to scurrying insect-bots and humanoid soldiers. But Google has kept mum about why they're acquiring these technologies. Brooke talks with Henrik Christensen, a professor of robotics at Georgia Tech, about what Google might do with its new toys. 

We often think of robots as tools to make our lives easier. But what if they could also make our lives funnier?

The word 'robot' first appeared in 1920 in Karel Čapek's play, Rossum's Universal Robots. Since then, intelligent machines have starred countless times in novels and films. Brooke talks with professor Jay P. Telotte about the ways our fears and fascinations with robots are reflected in culture. 

Music: Calexico - Attack El Robot! Attack! Special thanks to @bartona104 (Julia Barton) for the suggestion on Twitter!

Myq Kaplan is a comedian known for his "robotic" delivery of jokes. That made him the perfect candidate to compete with Manatee, a joke-telling robot. Brooke talks with Kaplan about how robots might someday co-opt his comedic style.

Music: Dan Magnan - Robots. Special thanks to @jonaswoost (Jonas Woost) for the suggestion on Twitter!

Despite the technological leaps made in the realm of artificial intelligence, people often object to the idea that the minds of machines can ever replicate the minds of humans. But for engineers, the proof is in the processing. Brooke talks with Stanford lecturer and entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan about how the people who make robots view the field of AI. 

Democrats have made the Koch Brothers and the millions they've spent on political ads a central issue in midterm elections. Fiery language has been thrown around on both sides, with H...

David Letterman, who boasts the longest tenure of a late night host on broadcast TV, announced his retirement. The news was quickly followed by the announcement of his replacement – Stephen Colbert. Brooke and Bob discuss the problems of bringing a comedian so associated with the political left onto network television, and the loss of a national satire icon.

As a kid, writer and photographer Syreeta McFadden was never satisfied with the way she looked in pictures. But it wasn't physical appearance that bothered her; it was the way the camera captured—or, failed to capture—her dark skin. Brooke talks to Syreeta about how racial bias lies within the chemistry of photography.

Monday marked the 20th anniversary of the start of Rwandan Genocide. In the massacre, which took place over one hundred days, more than 800,000 minority Tutsis were slaughtered by members of the Hutu majority. In 2002, Brooke spoke with director and producer Nick Hughes about his film 100 Days in Rwanda, and about creating an historical fiction which used a love story to humanize the slaughter.

The Supreme Court ruled this week to raise the limit for individual campaign contributions from $123,000 to $3.6 million dollars. Limits are in place to prevent deep-pocketed donors from corrupting the democratic process, which includes political advertising. Brooke speaks to former FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps about Section 317 of the Communications Act, the FCC's as-yet-enforced dictum that we are entitled to know by whom we are being persuaded. 

Television Without Pity began as a Dawson’s Creek fan site in the late 90s, and was bought by NBC Universal in 2007. Now NBC Universal is shutting down the site, and the forums it spawned. Brooke speaks with Emily Nussbaum, the New Yorker’s television critic, who came to TWOP early and then stayed and stayed. 

A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) not only presents dire evidence of global warming's impact, it also offers a different narrative about who is at risk, putting humans at the center of the story. Brooke talks with science journalist Cristine Russell about the IPCC's media-ready case.

On the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Southwest Alaska, the media reported, as they have since the disaster happened, that the amount of oil spilled was 11 million gallons. In 2010, Brooke spoke with Riki Ott - a marine toxicologist and author - who explained that the 11 million number is in fact a disputed figure the media have incorrectly adopted.