Mixed Mental Arts

Dave Goldberg works on issues in theoretical cosmology. He also writes books that make physics accessible to the general public including the subject of today’s interview: The Universe in the Rearview Mirror: How Hidden Symmetries Shape Reality. In this interview, Professor Goldberg (or Dave) explains some of the ideas covered inside the book and discusses why the sort of physics he’s talking about matters so much. His first book (co-written with Jeff Blomquist) is A User's Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty. You can follow him on twitter at @askaphysicist. Be sure to rate and comment in iTunes. Also, you can find the show on Stitcher.

In a recent survey of internatinal relations scholars, Professor Nye was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers. If you’ve ever heard the term “soft power” then you’re familiar with Professor Nye’s work. A University Distinguished Service Professor, and former Dean of the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Professor Nye joins us today to discuss how foreign policy is formed, how it should be formed and why voters must involve themselves in understanding foreign policy if they are going to get better foreign policy from their officials. You can follow him on twitter @Joe_Nye. He is the author of the following books:Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era (Princeton University Press, 2013)The Future of Power (PublicAffairs, 2011)The Powers to Lead (Oxford University Press, 2008)The Power Game: A Washington Novel (Public Affairs, 2004)Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (P

Dr. Wendy Chen is an assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an oncologist affiliated with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Initially, we contacted Dr. Chen because we’d read an article she’d co-written in The New York Times about the beneficial effects of aspirin on cancer. Then, we looked at the rest of her publication record and realized she was perfectly positioned to tell us about the effects of everything from red meat to alcohol in preventing and treating cancer. In this episode, we cover all of that but more fundamentally Dr. Chen helps us figure out how to tell credible scientific claims from claims that don’t have solid science to back them up. It turns out we couldn’t have asked for a better tour guide through the issues. It’s a real pleasure to have Dr. Chen on the show. You can read that New York Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/opinion/a-cancer-treatment-in-your-medicine-cabinet.html?_r=0.

Aubrey De Grey is fighting the deadliest cause of death in the world. It kills two thirds of all people, far more than all other forms of death combined, and yet very little attention is given to curing it or solving it. That’s because unlike malaria or cancer or car accidents, people believe that aging is natural. This belief, which Dr. De Grey refers to as the pro-aging trance is the real barrier to combatting aging. In this episode, we focus on Dr. De Grey’s book, Ending Aging. Previously a researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, Dr. De Grey brings a unique perspective to the problem of aging. He approaches it as an engineering problem and in his book lays out the seven basic engineering problems that need to be solved in order to bring about the slowing and reversal of aging. In particular, we take a close look at the problem of mutations in mitochondrial DNA and how engineering can overcome this challenge. If you want to end aging, you can donate money to Dr. De Grey’s foundation http://sens.

The last time we had Spiros Michalakis on. We knew we needed to get him back on asap. Partly, because we got such amazing feedback from the community of listeners and partly because we were so busy having our minds blown by the idea that time may not really be a thing that we barely got to scratch the surface. In fact, we were so impatient to get Spiros back on the show that we couldn’t even wait for a time when Bryan, Hunter and Spiros could all be together. In this episode, Spiros and Hunter go deeper into the ideas behind quantum mechanics and Spiros’ work. There’ll definitely be another interview because it turns out that quantum mechanics takes more than two one-hour interviews to crack. You can follow Spiros at @quantum_spiros. The Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at Caltech has a blog with more on their work: quantumfrontiers.com. The institute’s website is iqim.caltech.edu. Spiros hasn’t written a book yet. We think he should. Tweet him to that effect.

While Ben Dyson has argued that we need to take the power to create money out of the hands of bankers and put it entirely in the hands of government (you can here that episode here) Detlev Schlichter goes further arguing that the power to create money should not be given to any group. As he lays out in his book Paper Money Collapse, since time immemorial governments in times of war or other trouble have always created more money. In the Ancient world that meant shaving down coins and diluting the amount of gold or silver in them. In the Civil War that meant printing more and more paper currency. The result was simple: a loss of faith in the currency. In Ancient Rome as the silver denarius dropped in silver content, trade began to dry up and this destruction of the money supply by emperors may well be one of the reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire. Today, governments are not only printing more money to solve short-term crisis; they’re doing it as a long-term strategy. Whereas historically, countries a

Daron Acemoglu is the co-author of one of Hunter’s five favorite books of all time, the incomparably brilliant Why Nations Fail in 2012. In a previous podcast, it was our pleasure to host Jared Diamond, whose masterpiece Guns, Germs and Steel looks at how access to different species is at the root of the world’s modern prosperity and poverty. Why Nations Fail attacks the same issue but from a different perspective, the perspective of institutions. In their book, Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the true roots of prosperity are politically and economically inclusive institutions like democracy and free markets which allow the ideas of many minds to compete. As the United States flounders under a massive debt and Europe faces its own woes, it’s easy to think that the politically uninclusive countries of Asia like China and Singapore offer significant benefits. However, in this interview, Acemoglu warns that the type of growth they produce is not sustainable and cannot generate innovation. It is an utter treat t

Freeway Rick Ross came from nothing and started a business that grossed nearly a billion dollars and spanned forty-two cities. The problem is that the business was illegal. After his inability to read cost him any possibility of going to college on a tennis scholarship, Rick Ross began selling drugs. In his first book and autobiography, he details how from a small initial stake he built a massive drug empire that Esquire magazine recently estimated had revenues of $2.5 billion in today’s dollars. His empire was founded on a single drug, one which he is often credited with popularizing: crack.In this interview, Rick discusses the African-American experience and where he is taking his life from both as an author and a music producer. Joining us in the studio is one of his artists, Tp9. The show opens with one of her latest songs.

While serving as the Director of Mental Training for the St Louis Cardinals, Dr. Jason Selk helped the team win their first World Series in over 20 years, and in 2011 he assisted the Cardinals in the historic feat of winning their second World Championship in a six year period. Dr. Selk is a regular contributor to Forbes, ABC, CBS, ESPN, and NBC radio and television and has been featured in USA Today, CNBC, Men’s Health, Muscle and Fitness, Shape and Self Magazine. Dr Selk’s second book, Executive Toughness, is a best-selling business book and his first book, 10-Minute Toughness, is on pace to be one of the best-selling sport psychology books of all time.Dr. Selk is considered to be one of the premier performance coaches in the United States. He helps numerous well- known professional and Olympic athletes as well as Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 executives and organizations develop the mental toughness necessary for high-level success.Dr. Selk utilizes his in-depth knowledge and experience of working with the w

Carol Dweck had a simple question she wanted answered: why did some people take failure so personally while others seemed to thrive on it? Beginning her work with students, she realized that the key difference was in how students thought about their intelligence. Some students thought their intelligence was an in-born quality. They believed that no matter how much they practiced they could only take their intelligence so far. For these students, failures were devastating because they said something about the student’s basic ability. Since failure was such an unpleasant experience they avoided challenges that might lead to failure. Their mindset (which Professor Dweck refers to as “fixed) affected every one of their choices in school. On the other hand, students with what Professor Dweck calls a growth mindset did not view mistakes as a set to their basic value. They could fail, learn and get better. The result was that they sought out challenges and continued to grow.In the last few decades, Professor Dweck’s

AJ Jacobs likes to experiment on himself and once he sets himself a challenge will do whatever it takes to meet it. He spent eight hours a day reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. He spent a year trying to be the healthiest man alive. And, most amazingly, he spent an entire year trying to fulfill every commandment of the bible. That’s not just the basic ten…he followed the rules about not sitting on a chair used by a menstruating woman, he stoned adulterers (in a way that he couldn’t get arrested for) and he found out the real secret behind Ezekiel bread. In this interview, we talk about the many books that have come out of his self-experiments and what they have taught him. We also talk about his latest project to construct a family tree for the entire human family. So far, the largest family tree is 77 million people. AJ’s on it and you can be too by visiting globalfamilyreunion.com. He’s even hosting a reunion for the entire human family. You’re invited. So is his 17th cousin Gwyneth Paltrow and his

Bryan sits down with his dad, Michael Callen for another installment of the Callen Report. Be sure to rate and comment in iTunes. Also, you can find the show on Stitcher.

As a professor of psychology at UC Berkley and the founding faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center, Dacher Keltner studies how we negotiate our relationships with others. After having Robert Greene, the author of The 48 Laws of Power on the show, we came across an article on The Greater Good’s website by Keltner refuting the model of power advocated in The 48 Laws of Power. Although the popular culture believes that power is obtained through lying, cheating and manipulation research shows that that Machiavellian approach tends to fail in mainstream American society. In this episode, Professor Keltner tells us exactly what the research shows us about power. How power is acquired? Do manipulators succeed over the long run? How does acquiring power affect people’s brains? Interestingly, the sort of power strategies that Machiavelli described do work in societies where trust has been destroyed like the incredibly violent world of 15th Century Italy where Machiavelli wrote. Is it any wonder that some

When he was 19, Ryan Holiday dropped out of college, apprenticed under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power and Mastery, and asked Dr. Drew for a book recommendation. Dr. Drew’s recommendation would be Stoic philosophy, particularly Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Marcus Aurelius (best known as the good emperor from the movie Gladiator) is commonly referred to as Rome’s last good emperor. He was also one of the Ancient World’s most enduring philosophers. While waging war to hold the Empire together, Aurelius crafted a little book of philosophy specifically for his own use. That book inspired Ryan Holiday’s latest book: The Obstacle is The Way. In this episode, Ryan guides us through stoic philosophy and uses modern examples to reconnect with wisdom that is perhaps even more important today than it was in the age of Ancient Rome. You can follow Ryan Holiday on twitter @ryanholiday and read his blog at http://www.ryanholiday.net/. His latest book The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trial

Craig Nelson is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Rocket Men, as well as Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations (winner of the Henry Adams Prize), The First Heroes, and Let’s Get Lost (shortlisted for W.H. Smith’s Book of the Year). In this episode, he joins us to discuss his latest book The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Fall of the Atomic Age. Beginning with the first scientific experiments to discover radiation and ending with the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, The Age of Radiance traces the a journey filled with the hope of world of limitless, cheap energy and the terror of imminent armageddon. In today’s episode we talk about Chernobyl, Fukushima, the people behind the scientific legends and the origins of the bikini. Craig clearly loves entertaining anecdotes and makes for a fantastic guest. It’s a delight to have him on. The Age of Radiance as well as his other books are available everywhere. You can follow him on twitter @Craig_

Nearly 25 years ago, before the world wide web even existed, two technologists and one lyricist for the Grateful Dead banded together to form an organization that would defend freedom of speech on the internet. Thus was the EFF born. They brought the case that established that e-mail deserves as much protection as a telephone call and requires government agencies to have a warrant to seize e-mail. It was the EFF that brought the case that established that a piece of software is a form of free speech. Today, the EFF is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. In today’s episode Rebecca Jeschke, the EFF's Media Relations Director and a Digital Rights Analyst, joins us on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Edward Snowden leaks to discuss his case, Bradley/Chelsea Manning, Aaron Swartz, and the podcast patent trolls currently harassing Marc Maron, Adam Corolla and others. You can follow the EFF on twitter at @eff and Rebecca Jeschke at @effraj. For more informatio

In 2011, Coach Bill Courtney was catapulted to national fame when Undefeated, a documentary about his volunteer coaching of the Manassas High Football team, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Manassas, in a poor, African-American part of Memphis, had one of the worst records in the state and yet within a few short years, Courtney was able to turn the team around. Rather than coaching X’s and O’s, Courtney focused on teaching his players the character and attitude that were the foundation of success in any area of life: the same attitude he brings to his family and his business. Now, Coach shares these timeless principles in his first book Against The Grain: A Coach’s Wisdom on Character, Faith, Family and Love. In this interview, the Coach shares with us why he called the book Against The Grain and why he believes these timeless values are so important to rediscover in how we raise our kids, how we conduct our businesses and how we run our government. Be sure to rate and comment in iTunes. Also, you

Spiros Michalakis is a quantum physicist at the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at Caltech. Drop the mic... I mean…really…Spiros is a quantum physicist at the number 1 program for quantum physics in the US…and probably the world. But Spiros is not your typical quantum physicist. He’s the most approachable, down-to-earth and fundamentally accessible quantum physicist you are ever likely to hear speak. In the opinion of this episode write-up writer, Spiros is a superstar waiting for a place to happen. We can’t comment on his research though it sounds pretty amazing. (In this episode, he explains to us that there may be no such thing as time. Whaaaat?!?) We can say without doubt that he has an amazing willingness to communicate quantum physics to people who don’t know much about it (us) with patience. Seriously, Spiros is the Carl Sagan of Quantum Physics. In this episode, Spiros talks to us about how work on the Theory of Everything is going, what it means and what the consequences of such a theory

Patricia Johnson and Mark Michaels know a lot about sex. In fact, they may know more about it than anybody else on the planet. They write about it; they interview people about it; they’ve even done it together inside an MRI machine. The result of this research is their fourth book on sex called Partners in Passion: A Guide to Great Sex, Emotional Intimacy and Long-term Love. In this episode, they dispel many of the myths around love, love making and what it takes to have a successful long-term relationship. All four of their books Partners in Passion, Great Sex Made Simple, Tantra for Erotic Empowerment, and The Essence of Tantric Sexuality are available on Amazon. You can find them on the web at http://www.tantrapm.com/index.html. You can find them on twitter @tantrapm. Be sure to rate and comment in iTunes.

Tim Ferriss is the creator of the 4-Hour Series of books. The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef have all become bestsellers and been translated into dozens of languages. In this his third appearance on the show, Bryan and Hunter draw on Tim’s encyclopedic knowledge of how to get the most of life. Tim Ferris blogs at http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/. You can follow him on twitter at @tferriss. His books are all available on Amazon. You can listen to his first and second appearance by clicking on the links. Be sure to rate and comment in iTunes.