wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

In 1928 the Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming discovered the fungus from which penicillin is derived. Fleming made the discovery while trying an unusual experiment: painting with strains of bacteria. Lindsay Patterson talked with a team that’s taking bacterial painting to a new level.

For our American Icons series this fall, we've looked at nine different great works, but we've also been asking listeners to suggest what our tenth should be. Laura Detre, a listener in Pittsburgh, suggested the television show "Dallas.”

Susan Cheever discusses the life of writer Louisa May Alcott. Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography is an account of Alcott’s life, based on extensive research, journals, and correspondence, that portrays her as an idealists who led the charge in support of antislavery, temperance, and women’s rights.

A century after his death, Mark Twain has finally published his autobiography. It's not a cradle-to-grave memoir, but a kind of window into Twain's mind, full of memories and thoughts randomly strung together. Kurt talks with Robert Hirst, an editor of the volume, who explains why ...

The band They Might Be Giants kicks off our live show at the 2009 Aspen Ideas Festival with this song that recalls the pre-crash mentality.

"Set the sails; I feel the winds a'stirring." So begins the song, "Charlie Darwin," by the rock band The Low Anthem. Frontman Ben Knox Miller describes how the band came up with the tune and its darker message, "Who could heed the ...

Working artists in New York are twice as likely to be living without adequate health insurance as those who make their living by other means. And after health care funding was slashed by $775 million dollars in the most recent state budget, it may be more urgent than ever for ...

In a modified cargo box in Times Square, a production is going on -- with enough room for one performer and a single audience member. WNYC’s Janaya Williams took in a show at the intimate performance space.

Jessica Oreck, animal keeper at the American Museum of Natural History, discusses her lifelong love of insects and her new documentary "Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo," which explores the world of Japanese insect-lovers, looking at the religious, literary, and philosophical underpinnings of a nation’s entomological obsession. "Beetle Queen Conquers ...

Bestselling author Bruce Feiler talks about what happened when he was diagnosed with cancer and began worrying about what his young daughters' lives would be like without him. In The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me, he tells the story of ...

Filmmaker Ric Burns tells the story of three centuries of American whaling. His documentary "Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World" reveals how whaling helped fuel the expansion of the American economy, pushed tiny backwater ports like Nantucket and New Bedford to the center of the whaling ...

Wynton Marsalis, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and director of the JLC Orchestra, talks about Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival. He’s joined by Carlos Henriquez, who performed in the competition as a student at LaGuardia High School and is ...

After the discovery of a failed car bomb in Times Square last Saturday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly says he'd like to see even more cameras in Times Square and throughout Midtown. In Madison Square Park, a film project called "Surveillance" is calling attention to the saturation of cameras in public ...

Paula Felix-Didier, director of the Museo del Cine Pablo Ducros Hicken in Buenos Aires, Argentina, discusses a new reconstruction of Fritz Lang’s legendary 1927 film “Metropolis.” It includes nearly thirty minutes of long-lost footage discovered recently in Argentina. The new version of “Metropolis” will be playing at Film ...

Filmmaker Laura Poitras discusses her documentary “The Oath,” about the divergent paths of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard, Abu Jandal, and driver, Salim Hamdan. Their intertwined personal stories shed light on a world that has confounded the West, and the film offers an unsettling glimpses of the international impact ...

Country music legend Willie Nelson talks about his long career in music, what keeps him inspired, and what it was like to work with producer T Bone Burnett and an all-star posse of pickers, including Buddy Miller, Ronnie McCoury, and Riley Baugus on his latest album, "Country Music."

Award-winning actor, stand-up comedian, writer, and producer Damon Wayans, talks about becoming famous on his brother Keenen Ivory Wayans's hit show, "In Living Color," his career in television and movies since then, and writing his first novel, Red Hats.