Arts & Life

"There's a saying in Suriname that I dearly love: 'The rainforests hold answers to questions we have yet to ask.' But as you all know, it's rapidly disappearing."--Mark Plotkin

What's Disappearing From the Amazon — Even Faster Than Wildlife?

9:30am July 17, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

The isolated tribes of the Amazon are getting dispersed or dying out. Ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin describes what we'll lose if their culture and collective wisdom vanish with them.

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"What has happened in the last ten years, has been a remarkable increase in actual number of people who are dying or are not able to get better because they carry a resistant infection."--Ramanan Laxminarayan

How Did A Medical Miracle Turn Into A Global Threat?

9:30am July 17, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Antibiotics save lives, but we rely on them too much. Eventually, the drugs may stop working. Economist Ramanan Laxminarayan asks us to think twice before reaching for this double-edged resource.

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"We've under-priced water, we've over-exploited it, we don't regulate how people pump groundwater out of the ground.... we just use too much."--Jonathan Foley

Will Our Demand For Food Threaten Our Supply of Water?

9:30am July 17, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Ecologist Jon Foley says agriculture is the "most powerful force unleashed on this planet since the end of the ice age." He says we're using too much to irrigate and we have to rethink how we farm.

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A scene from Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary The Look of Silence.

Arts

A Widely Praised Documentary Gets An Even Better Second Chapter

5:23pm July 16, 2015

by Mark Jenkins

The documentary The Act Of Killing looked at a brutal slaughter through the lens of action films. Joshua Oppenheimer's follow-up, The Look Of Silence, is just as powerful and more subtle.

Arts

'Ant-Man': Not Just Small, But Downright Trifling

5:22pm July 16, 2015

by Andrew Lapin

Hard as Paul Rudd may try, he can't put a spark in Ant-Man, an underpowered Marvel movie that badly needed the visionary director it unfortunately lost along the way.

A depiction of meal with cheese from Tacuinum Sanitatis, a medieval handbook on health and well-being based on the Taqwim alâsihha, an 11th-century Arab medical treatise.

We Didn't Build This City On Rock 'N' Roll. It Was Yogurt

5:17pm July 16, 2015

by Adam Maskevich

We got milk when we domesticated goats and sheep around 9,000 BC. At first, that milk was easier to digest when fermented. So yogurt, along with other Neolithic foods, helped fuel civilization.

Trainwreck, written by Amy Schumer and directed by Judd Apatow, stars Schumer as a woman who lives her life without apologies.

Arts

Amy Schumer And Judd Apatow Talk Storytelling, Commitment And Spooning

5:00pm July 16, 2015

In 2011, Apatow heard Schumer on the radio and was struck by her candor. The two went on to collaborate on the film Trainwreck, about a woman who doesn't want a relationship.

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Smuggled Photos Document Thousands Of Detainee Deaths In Syria

3:04pm July 16, 2015

by Deborah Amos

About a year ago, a Syrian police photographer smuggled out photos of thousands killed by the regime. Now activists are showing the photos in rebel areas in Syria and this week in the U.S. Capitol.

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'Go Set A Watchman' Is A Revelation On Race, Not A Disappointment

11:02am July 16, 2015

by Errin Whack

If Mockingbird gave us a South that could be read in terms of black and white, Watchman reveals the gray complexity that is the real Dixie.

Arts

We'll Get Together Then

10:21am July 16, 2015

Do you reach for a tissue every time the oldies station plays Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle"? Try to hold it together when Jonathan Coulton sings rewritten lyrics about classic children's games.

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