Full Spectrum

In this episode, Roman and historian Imani Perry follow the Webster Blue Back Speller from the early days of the United States, to the heart of Black intellectual life. Through the lives of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, Roman and Imani uncover how a single object bec ... Show More

Love it or hate it, one buzzing horn changed the sound of the World Cup forever. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by ... Show More

In 1861, one man and a “gas bag” filled with hydrogen sparked America's obsession with going higher, farther, into the unknown. In this episode, Roman and journalist Jack Hitt tell the story of Thaddeus Lowe — showman, scientist, and dreamer — whose balloon flight from Cincinnati ... Show More

From kelly green to millennial pink, our world is graced with a richness of colors. But our human-made colors haven’t always matched nature’s kaleidoscopic array. To reach those brightest heights required millennia of remarkable innovation and a fascinating exchange of ideas betw ... Show More

The world is full of colour! But, wonders listener Maya Crocombe, ‘how do we see colour and why are some people colour blind?’Dr Rutherford and Professor Fry set out to understand how special light-sensitive cells in our eyes start the process of colour perception, why people som ... Show More

The world is full of colour! But, listener Maya Crocombe wonders ‘how do we see colour and why are some people colour blind?’Dr Rutherford and professor Fry set out to understand how special light-sensitive cells in our eyes start the process of colour perception, why people some ... Show More

<p>The philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah argues for a world free of racial fixations. </p><p>He tells the story of Anton Wilhelm Amo Afer. He was five years old when he was brought from the Gold Coast to Germany in 1707, educated at a royal court and became a ... Show More

We meet artist Alexandria Tarver to discuss her current solo exhibition at Deli Gallery, New York. Tarver recontextualizes the traditional floral motif into a space between memory, idealization, and presence.Her process begins on a ritualistic evening walk around New York City. F ... Show More

The German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe considered his monumental book known in English as The Theory of Colours to be his greatest achievement. The book is a record of hundreds of Goethe's observations about the way colour affects our mood, as well as a long and heated po ... Show More

CrowdScience listener Gregory wants to know what affects the way we see the colours of the world. He was looking at a blue summer sky with a friend and they got to wondering whether they both see the same colour blue. So what does influence our vision of the colours that surround ... Show More

Maria is back and sitting down with Christina Lonsdale, a conceptual artist who has been dubbed “The Annie Leibovitz of aura photography” by The New York Times and is the author of new book, Radiant Human: Discover the Connection Between Color, Identity and Energy. Christina, Mar ... Show More

The power of red is the third episode of the Dior Untold saga, this time imbued with the revolutionary hues that have guided women towards their quest for empowerment. Christian Dior brings color back into everyone's life, the one of passion, the one he calls his "beneficial colo ... Show More

Pigments color the world all around us, but where do those colors come from? Historically, they’ve come from crushed sea snails, beetles, and even ground-up mummies. But new pigments are still being discovered in unexpected places, and for researcher Mas Subramanian, a new color ... Show More