KUOW Presents

Lots of us had imaginary friends when we were kids. And now a psychologist at the University of Oregon is looking into how having imaginary friends, and creating an imaginary world for them, affects how you relate to real people. We’ll learn about her research. And we’ll meet Maxine, an 8-year old with a whole host of imaginary friends.

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Everywhere you look in American culture it seems there are images of fame and celebrity. When Jake Halpern set out to write his book "Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction," he wanted to answer a few questions. Why do countless Americans yearn so desperately to have entertainment-celebrity type fame? Why do others, like celebrity personal assistants, devote their entire lives to servicing these people? And why do millions of others fall into the mindless habit of watching them from afar?

In order to get the answers he sought, Halpern talked with academics, psychologists, magazine editors and teenagers about why more Americans would rather be famous, than not. The CBC's Sook Yin Lee talked with Halpern about what he discovered.

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The 1960s was a time of economic boom and social strife. Young women poured into the workplace, but the help wanted ads were segregated by gender and the office culture was rife with sexual stereotyping and discrimination.

Author Lynn Povich was one of the lucky ones; she landed a job at Newsweek. It was a top-notch job for a woman at the time, and it was an exciting place. Newsweek was renowned for its cutting-edge coverage of civil rights and the Swinging Sixties. Yet the organization unknowingly sat on a discriminatory powder keg of its very own making.

For women, the job was a dead end. Women researchers sometimes became reporters, but rarely writers, and never editors. Any aspiring female journalist was told, “If you want to be a writer, go somewhere else.” So the women of Newsweek decided to sue their employer.

Lynn Povich talked with the CBC's Jim Brown about what it was like for her and the women of Newsweek to fight for the right to equal treatment in their workplace.

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The writer Allan Gurganus admired Tennessee Williams. One day, Gurganus heard the famous playwright had read one of his stories and enjoyed it. Full of confidence, Gurganus traveled to New Orleans where some friends had arranged for him to meet Williams. But the drunken, Tabasco-stained man he met taught him a lesson he didn’t expect.

WUNC's Dick Gordon brings us Gurganus' captivating story of a literary giant in decline.

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Even pop culture needs to be scientifically accurate. At least, that’s what Donna Nelson believes.

She’s a chemistry professor at the University of Oklahoma, and she acts as "meth consultant" for the Emmy Award-winning show "Breaking Bad."

The show is about a high school chemistry teacher who starts cooking up crystal meth in order to pay for his cancer related medical bills. Donna Nelson says it's important to have scientific details represented as accurately as possible, especially on a fictional TV show. Not only because people are becoming more science literate, but because a failure to get details right can be distracting and misleading.

Nelson talked with the CBC's Jian Ghomeshi about how she got the job, and what she does as a science advisor for "Breaking Bad."

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Chito is not your typical animal lover, he really loves a challenge. Something he always longed for was to be friends with a crocodile. So when he discovered one of the reptiles injured in a lake near his house Chito decided it was his best opportunity to get to know one. NPR's Stephanie Foo brings us the story of Chito, and probably the world’s most beloved crocodile named Pocho.

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In "Fooling Around," poet and translator Alice Derry considers the implications of the artistic life — whether it is chosen, or thrust upon us.

Sometimes a terminal illness can take such a toll that the person suffering from it decides to end their sickness by ending their life. Fran Schindler knows how awful and lonely that choice can be. So she sits with sick people who take their own lives so they don’t have to die alone. She calls herself a Final Exit Guide. Fran talks with WUNC’s Dick Gordon about her work.

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Canadian lawyer Kathryn Smithen is seen as a pillar of her community. In addition to practicing family law, she is a single mother. But she hasn’t always been an upstanding citizen. She has a checkered past that took her 25 years to shed. She tells the CBC’s Sook Yin Lee about her journey from convict to lawyer.

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Mina Miller is a Seattle pianist who founded the organization Music of Remembrance 15 years ago. Her passion for the organization springs in part from her family history. Mina comes from a Holocaust family.