Matthew Laplante

Deep in the ocean, jellyfish, shrimp, fireworms and other creatures use multi–colored lights for defense, luring food, attracting mates, and communication. In their new book, Steven Haddock and Sönke Johnsen explore the nature of underwater light—investigating the varieties of transparency, pigmentation, iridescence, bioluminescence, and fluorescence found in the watery beyond.

Again and again, similar patterns show up in nature in different creatures at different times in their evolutionary histories—even when those life forms have evolved on much different paths for hundreds of millions of years. And when they show up, as it turns out, we often perceive them as beautiful. So, the question is: Why?

For most of the history of the Disney brand of amusement parks, an “Everyone is a V.I.P.” philosophy made good business sense. With limited exceptions, Walt Disney and his successors resisted tiered services that gave extra privileges to those who could afford them. But if you’ve been to a Disney park lately, you know that’s no longer the case. In his recent op-ed for The News York Times, Daniel Currell examines why that is, and what’s to come.

A few years back, we had David Sinclair on the program. David is one of the world’s top researchers working on the question of whether we can extend human lifespans.A couple years after that, Nate Price was with us. Nate is also looking at this question, though from a different angle: he wants to know how we can pack more healthy years into the lifespans we already have.But here on the program, we find ourselves returning to another version of that same question: what does it actually mean to lengthen a life?Brett Popplewell has been thinking about that too — about whether a life can feel longer not only through years added, but through attention, novelty, memory, movement, and the refusal to let the days become interchangeable.

For years, comedy thrived on cynicism. The world was a mess, people were selfish, and anyone who believed otherwise was the punchline.But from Ted Lasso, to Paddington, to Come From Away, some of our most beloved stories are finding humor, heart, and even heroism in empathy, earnestness, and human decency.This summer, Lyric Repertory Company is producing Gutenberg! The Musical! It’s a delightfully ridiculous show about two aspiring theater makers who are convinced they have created a masterpiece. They haven't, but their unwavering enthusiasm is part of what makes the show so charming.And it's not the only production in Lyric's season that seems interested in the power of human decency.

It’s a question psychologists have been wrestling with for decades: What exactly is time?Not the time kept by clocks or calendars, but the time we actually experience. Why do some moments stretch and others collapse?Martin Wiener has spent much of his career trying to understand those questions. His work suggests that our experience of time is not fixed at all. Instead, it may be something the brain continuously constructs and reshapes according to the information it decides is worth remembering.