PRI: Science and Creativity from Studio 360

Tesla's biggest innovation was introducing alternating current as the standard for modern electric power, breaking Thomas Edison's monopoly on DC power. Author and monologist Mike Daisey performs a one-man show about Tesla. In this segment he describes the inventor's obsession with electricity. "He literally had visions," Daisey says. "He could create

Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez are not your average fragrance writers; in Perfumes: The Guide, they called Paris Hilton's scent "barfbag floral." Turin is a biophysicist; Sanchez is a perfume critic. Kurt brought them to a nearby drugstore to unlock the mysteries of body spray, handiwipes, and crayons.

Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister's favorite album cover of all time is one of Warhol's notorious designs: The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers, with the fully operational zipper. Produced by Derek John. And Cale reveals Warhol's inspiration for the Velvet Underground's signature banana cover.

We are always listening to our own silent thoughts, but we never think of those thoughts having a sound we could actually hear. Apostolos Georgopoulos is a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota who has come up with a way to translate the electrical activity of the brain into music.

Did you know there are audio recordings that predate Thomas Edison's phonograph by almost 20 years? The phonautogram was invented by a Frenchman named Éduoard Léon-Scott and patented in 1857, translating sound waves (shakily) onto sheets of paper. But for the last century, no one had been able to decode the information on Léon-Scott's sheets and listen,

Science and Creativity from PRI's Studio 360: stories about the art of discovery and innovation. A sculpture unlocks a secret of cell structure, a tornado forms in a can, and a child's toy gets sent into orbit. Exploring science as a creative act since 2006. Produced by PRI and WNYC, and supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

AARON is the world's first cybernetic artist: an artificially intelligent system that composes its own paintings. Incredibly, the system is the work of one man, Harold Cohen, who had no background in computing when he began the effort. Cohen was a prominent painter; he represented Great Britain in the Venice Biennale of 1966. After settling in San Die

Don't stand too close, hands away from the art, don't talk too loud — you know the etiquette. But right now at the New Museum in New York there's a huge exhibition that breaks all those rules. There are pieces you can climb on, ride on, stick your head into, smell. Even swallow. Carsten Höller took an unorthodox path to the art world. A Belgian now liv

Everything we're able to do today to enhance humans — from genetic engineering to artificial limbs — simply improves on the base model we were born with. But for some people, that doesn't go far enough. They think we shouldn't be stuck with the factory-installed settings in our DNA. And they're not satisfied with a lifespan that tops out at 100 years.

Nearly a decade after the human genome was decoded, scientists are only now beginning to understand its implications. One of the leading thinkers in this field is the biotech entrepreneur Gregory Stock. A biophysicist by training, his 2002 book Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future makes the case that full-scale genetic engineering is on the

Larry Rosenblum is a professor of psychology with a focus on perception — he's written a book about the senses called See What I'm Saying. Rosenblum credits a musical revelation with leading him down that path. Growing up with 1970s prog-rock, he thought that virtuosity and spectacular showmanship were the hallmarks of great music — cascades of notes,

Ted Berger is trying to build a microchip that can remember things for us. He teaches biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California, and his goal is to create a device that can take over for the hippocampus of the brain, translating thoughts into long-term memories. But that's a complicated task. "If they're not transformed the way the

Becoming the Bionic Man

What separates humans from animals? It used to be tools - and then we found out some animals are pretty handy. But what about art? There may be nothing prettier than birdsong, but each species sings pretty much the same tune. Are animals ever really creative? WBUR's Sean Cole went looking for animal artists and found a dog painter and an orchestra of el

Tattoos are the defining fashion statement of the present generation. A few years ago, the writer Carl Zimmer was at a pool party and found that a young scientist friend of his, a neurobiologist, had a double helix printed on his back — a little strand of DNA. Zimmer blogged about it, and before he knew it, dozens of scientists, mathematicians, and o