Brooke Gladstone

"The political media did not create Donald Trump," says David Leonhardt of The New York Times. But still: how to explain media fervor over unserious candidates? 

A bogus study about chocolate and weight loss fooled several news outlets. Here, we present a thorough debunking of health news misreporting and bogus, celebrity-endorsed diet fads. 

Marvel's latest string of films feature a pervasive anti-capitalist message, even as the company rakes in millions at the box office. 

In the digital era, we live in a world where everything is known and it cannot be unknown. Author Jon Ronson talks about how our keyboards have become a powerful weapon. 

As the U.S. and Cuba normalize relations, we look back at a reporter's early coverage of Cuba's former leader, Fidel Castro.

With embassies re-opening in Washington DC and Havana this week, we consider how coverage of the Elián González custody battle 15 years ago influenced US-Cuba relations today.

Writer and programmer Paul Ford ponders the Ashley Madison hack, and wonders if we'll ever actually learn how to keep our information safe online.

One year after the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, there's been a big push for a national conversation on race and policing. WNYC's Brian Lehrer actually hosted one. 

The resignation of Reddit CEO Ellen Pao has prompted extensive discussion about the future of speech on the web.

It's been two years since the origin of the movement and slogan, born the night George Zimmerman was acquitted in the death of Trayvon Martin. We hear how it happened and what's changed.

The LA Times just hired a reporter to cover Black Twitter. Dexter Thomas discusses his new assignment and what the media usually get wrong about this nebulous space in the Twitterverse. 

In the wake of the death of Eric Garner, bystander videos continue to spur national conversation and change. 

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

Comedian Myq Kaplan faces off against a robot in a duel for comedic superiority.

The real story behind Linda Taylor, the woman who became immortalized as the infamous welfare queen. 

Could a solar flare cause a digital meltdown? Brooke speaks with Lucianne Walkowicz, astronomer at Chicago's Adler Planetarium, about the sun's power to affect our electrical grid.

Paper burns. Bits rot. CDs decay. But DNA can last tens of thousands of years. That's why researchers in England have developed a way to code digital data into the code of life. 

Novelist Margaret Atwood recently handed in a new manuscript, Scribbler Moon, to the Future Library -- which means we'll have to wait until 2114 to read it.

Middle Eastern cartoonist Khalid Albaih believes that cartoons can deliver vital political truths in a way that bypass restrictions on expression.

Humza Arshad, a British-Pakistani comedian and YouTube star, makes teens laugh -- and steers them away from religious extremism and ISIS recruitment.