Latest from Michelle Parise
Wild and innovative materials are revolutionizing design
From constructing whole buildings out of fungal threads, to growing furniture in orchards, to storing our data in living cells, we take a special look at 'living' design.
Tell us: What does predictive text reveal about you?
What embarrassing or enlightening things does the predictive text on your phone reveal about you?
Tell us your camping stories! Send us your pics!
What are your memories of camping tech?
Back-to-Spark!
Lovers in a Digital Time
What's it like to find love, be in love, and lose love in 2014? That's what we're thinking about here at Spark HQ, and we need your help! Leave us a comment below about any of the questions you see here. Or give us a call: 1-877-347-7275 (toll free in Canada) so we can include your voice in the show....
How much of your holiday shopping are you doing online and why?
Michelle here. I don't know about you, but even thinking about shopping for gifts for my family and friends gets me feeling edgy. The crowds, the line-ups, the way I end up wandering aimlessly looking at things and not deciding...and yet, I still do most of my shopping this way, physically, in stores, because I am a tactile person. I...
Beauty and the Brain
A little zap to the brain may improve the way you feel about a picture. Neurologist Zaira Cattaneo is the co-author of a new study called The world can look better: enhancing beauty experience with brain stimulation. For the experiment, Zaira and her fellow researchers stimulated the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to see if that would enhance the experience of...
Would your workplace be better or worse without bosses?
Hey, Michelle here. On this week's show we're going to be talking to Ryan Carson, Founder and CEO of Treehouse, about why they decided to switch to a "no manager" company structure. Yup, that's right, no managers. As a team leader myself, I obviously believe in leadership as a practice, and I do know that leaders come in many forms,...
Autonomous Cars
Today Nora spoke with Ryan Chin, the managing director of the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Lab. Spark is looking at autonomous cars on this week's show, and we wanted to hear Ryan's thoughts on the way autonomous cars may change the way we design and use cities....
Inequality and Digital Engagement
To go along with our upcoming Re-learning Learning episode, Nora interviewed Laura Robinson, who we heard about when we spoke to Anabel Quan-Haase. Laura is an assistant professor of sociology at Santa Clara University. Her recent research suggests "peer learning" can help bridge some gaps in digital facility between those with internet access at home, and those who don't have...