It's easy to look around and see signs of social fragmentation, so today's show takes a different approach and examines a few instances of people coming together: community. We explore an off-campus house that aimed to be an intentional community devoted to sustainability and find out where they failed and succeeded. We meet a community of Burning Man devotees who came together for a floating party on the Sacramento River Delta. Also we hear music made by a community of people who'd never met each other. Plus, the solution to the dirty dish dilemma.

Host: Charlie Mintz

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Rachel Hamburg, Matt Harnack

Featuring: Daniel Steinbock, Philip Narodick, Zuzanna Drozdz

Music: Noah Burbank

Links: Compostmodernist; inbflat

Release Date: 17 November 2009

Genetics promised us the book of life laid open. But even after the sequencing of the human genome, there's still a lot we don't know. How do people make choices based on the imperfect knowledge that genetic science provides? Today we look at a few examples of that. We hear a story about sperm donation and the perils of choosing your child's father out of a book. We hear a story about using genetics to make a decision about surgery. We walk into an MRI to investigate the genetic basis of personality. And a short story about cannibalistic vultures. Prepare for a show that will leave you doubled up in a helix of joy.

Host: Charlie Mintz

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Matt Larson, Laura Chao, Angela Castellanos, Leah Bakst

Featuring: Max McClure

Music: Cults, Boomsnake, Mothlight

Release Date: 23 November 2009

We throw all kinds of things away without really thinking about it. These five stories take a look at where our trash goes, the creative things that people do with it, and even question what it means to throw something away. First, a story about small-scale composting and the worms who do it. Next, a story about what to do with all your old scraps of fabric lying around. Third, how what's left in a city dump can provide inspiration for an art movement. Fourth, behind the scenes at an estate sale. And last, a short story about bringing a box of forgotten photographs back to life.

Host: Hannah Krakauer

Producers: Hannah Krakauer, Lydia Santos, Killeen Hanson, Laura Chao, Rebecca Pfiffner, Matt Larson, Kasiana Mclenaghan

Music: Noah Burbank, Japandi, Nimbleweed, Kissing Johnny

Links: FabMo, Recology

Release Date: 1 December 2009

Although superheroes may seem like two dimensional relics of our childhoods, they can have a significant impact on our lives. Stories of superheroes battling in academia, superheroes living among us, and fictional superheroes fighting real-world battles.

Host: Micah Cratty

Producers: Micah Cratty, Lee Konstantinou and Matt Larson

Featuring: Professor Scott Bukatman and Robert Walker

Music: Kissing Johnny and Noah Burbank

Release Date: 21 May 2009

We attempt to come to better terms with our impending doom. This is such a mind-blowing episode that it is in a record eight parts: one short story, one excerpt from a novel, two poems, one interview, one story-booth vignette, one ballad, and a correspondence with our friend Pete, on the other side.

Host: Bonnie Swift

Producers: Jonah Willihnganz, Bonnie Swift, Dan Hirsch, Micah Cratty, Lee Konstantinou, Killeen Hanson, Elizabeth Bradfield, Hannah Krakauer, Jack Wang

Featuring: Daniel Steinbock, Adrienne Chung

Music: Nataly Dawn

URLs: People Say I've Changed, Pop Apocalypse: A possible Satire, Long Now Foundation

Release Date: 28 May 2009

What is it to be a toy or a tool? What is the difference between work and play, or is there a difference at all? Seriously playful stories from an archaeologist, a designer of toys for disabled children, and circuit-bending musicians. Who is influencing who in the process of design, creation, and the use of toys and tools?

Host: Hannah Krakauer

Producers: Hannah Krakauer, Liz Bradfield, Daniel Hirsch

Featuring: Michael Shanks, Jessica Zarin Kessin, Reed Ghazala, Sridharan Devarajan, Mike Rosenthall, Mike Mellenthin, Heather Roberts

Music: Kissing Johnny, Dubious Ranger, Nimbleweed

Release Date: 14 May 2009

Sometimes our rites of passage are marked by large ceremonies, like graduations or weddings. But often the transformative moments of our lives come not on stage, but when we quietly face the challenges we are presented with. The strange importance of the unicycle in a young man’s life, Texas debutantes, and a 22-year-old trying to make it as a reporter in the real world.

Host: Micah Cratty

Producers: Micah Cratty, Matt Larson, Will Rogers

Featuring: Jon Ho

Music: Volunteer Pioneer, Kissing Johnny, Noah Burbank

URLs: Welch Widers unicycle performance, Texas Rose Documentary Blog

Release Date: 30 April 2009

There all sorts of ways to send a messages: composing an email, writing a text message, pasting up fliers, or literally writing on the wall. In this show, we explore the various ways people communicate: digital and analog, private and public, even legal and illegal. The surprising origins of online social networks, the world of graffiti art, and bathroom stall vandalism.

Host: Dan Hirsch

Producers: Dan Hirsch, Will Rogers,

Featuring: Fred Turner, Molly Butcher, Lyndsey Garlock, Lexi Tsien-Shiang, Mitchell Wilcox,

SK, Crayone, Demon 202, Niccolo De Luca

Music: Johnny Hwin, Lauchlan Casey, Ill-Conditioned

Release Date: 5 March 2009

Why are we drawn to stories of escape? How do we know when we've escaped or when we’ve been captured? Today’s show features stories of narrow escapes, written and read by the winners of our first story contest. The dangers of professional panty sniffing, a maybe catastrophic encounter with abandoned tires, and a short story recalling a scary chapter in Stanford's past.

Host: Lee Konstantinou

Producers: Lee Konstantinou and Charlie Mintz

Featuring: Amanda Glasser, Erika Harrell, Mandy MacCalla

Release Date: 19 March 2009

The human brain was built to predict the future. If you can't see what's coming, you can't survive. Tea leaves, entrails, and complicated algorithms are just a few of the ways humans have tried to divine the future for personal gain. Today on our show we have three stories about various attempts to look into the future. A Berkeley undergraduate tries to beat the racetrack, economists attempt to predict recessions, and a software that can listen to a song and predict whether it's going to be a hit. Guess which one is the most successful, and who forgot about a couple very important variables.

Host: Charlie Mintz

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Daniel MacDougall, Bonnie Swift Jonah Willihnganz

Featuring: Sarah Rizk, Sam Alemayehu, Paul David, Howard Schwartz, Mike McCready, Jadena, Koji Gardiner, Eleanor Safridge Fields, Kasiana McLenaghan, Robert Mintz

Music: Koji Gardiner, Ian Burrell, Andy Seymour, Jeff Striker, Pascel, Boomsnake

URLs: Gambler's Book Shop

Release Date: 26 February 2009

Normally Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate coming together, but today we're exploring the reasons people drift apart. In four stories, we explore all the reasons we fail to click. We have a story about a Stanford student who tried, and failed, to sell her eggs to an elite donation agency, an investigation into the paradoxical allure of French women, a radio play about the perils of matchmaking, and an essay on love that offers an unusual take on arranged marriages.

Host: Charlie Mintz

Producers: Charlie Mintz, Hannah Krakauer, Rachel Hamburg

Featuring: Eva Glasrud, Paula England, Harville Hendrix, Stuart Blaire and Art Tosborvorn

Music: George Pritzker, Jeff Striker, Snuffaluffagus

Video Podcast: ‘Song of a Sperm Donor’ by Emmaunel Dayan

Release Date: 12 Febrary 2009

What happens to us when we travel? How do we get beyond the brochure (and should we)? Poets, a professor of ecology, an observer of the Malaysian meat market, and a researcher who studies sense of place work toward answers and share stories of discovery on the road.

Host: Elizabeth Bradfield

Producers: Elizabeth Bradfield, Daniel Hirsch

Featuring: Joshua Rivkin, John Evans, Laura McKee, Peter Vitousek, Nicole Ardoin, Samantha Wai, Michelle Traub, Selena Simmons-Duffin, Daniel MacDougall

Music: Volunteer Pioneer, Johnny Hwin, Natalie Dawn, Eli Herwitz, The Reiterators, and Midawe

URLs: Peter M. Vitousek, Nicole Ardoin

Release Date: 5 February 2009

We all do the things we do for fun a little bit seriously. Basketball, belly dancing, or playing in a band -- these all take practice and hard work to be really fun. But some people take fun more seriously than the rest of us. Some of them are just more competitive. Some of them want to expand the arena of fine art. And some of them want to re-enchant the world. This episode has stories about a historical re-enactment society that has helped professors make new discoveries about medieval warfare, video games that are becoming professional sports, and the tragic tale of a fan club so obsessed with a character from a book that they got rid of the author. And finally, Ken Kesey reads the children's story that he took seriously enough to say, "This was my best piece of work ever."

Host/Producer: Rachel Hamburg
Featured: Tony Ricciardi, Patrick Thill, Joshua Landy, Michael Saler, Ken Kesey, Arthur Maddox, Michael Lawrence
Music: Kevin Macleod, The Yeltsin Collective, Arthur Maddox, William McGlaughlin, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Release Date: 29 January 2009