Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights)

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander is this country's pre-eminent landscape architect. She is often referred to as a national treasure and her love of nature and respect for the environment has guided and inspired her work.

Michael Enright speaks with Jason Turbow, the co-author of "The Baseball Codes", and long-time Toronto Blue Jays radio announcer Jerry Howarth for their insights into the hidden world on and off the field.

The foundational stories of the Gwich'in are a window into the lives of a people who tamed the harsh Arctic climate and landscape from Alaska to the Mackenzie delta. They are tales of medicine power and heroic characters.

On the simplest level, we take risks to derive benefits. If the benefit outweighs the risk, we've made a good decision. But decisions are subject to bias, even those of experts. How do we live with uncertainty and make good decisions?

Nelson Mandela as you've never heard him before. The program draws on 50 hours of recorded conversations with Mandela. IDEAS is the first program to be given full access to these remarkable recordings.

Bees are remarkable among insects. They can count and remember human faces. But are they intelligent? Even creative? Bee aficionado Stephen Humphrey investigates the mental lives of bees.

In 1994, Dutch novelist Arnon Grunberg won the prize for best first novel in Holland. Six years later, using a different name, he won the same prize once again. He talks about various literary shenanigans with IDEAS host Paul Kennedy.

Eleanor Wachtel talks to Canadian opera director Robert Carsen. He talks about his early life and about his philosophy of directing, bringing fresh and surprising interpretations to classic operas.

For centuries human beings have been modifying their bodies - tribal scarification, tattoos and cosmetic surgery are just a few. But when we change our bodies, do we change who we are?

Libyan novelist Hisham Matar was still a boy when his family fled to Cairo in order to escape the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi. He talks to IDEAS host Paul Kennedy about his recent return to a country that his imagination never left.

Our ideas about witches may come from an extraordinary manuscript found in the University of Alberta Library. It's one of only 4 known copies. Written in the 1400s and now being re-translated from medieval French, it created the framework for witch hunts.

From the shores of Lac St. Jean in Northern Quebec come these ancient stories of the Mashteuiatsh Ilnu.

At a time of widespread obsession with everything from money to celebrity to the latest in techno gadgetry, does the idea of idolatry have more than religious significance? Frank Faulk explores the meaning of idolatry in a secular age.

Anything you can do to make someone's life better, you must do. Right? But how much do you owe to other people, and who should you help? In this series, we consider the limits and the extent of our obligations to others, as individuals and as a society.

In the mid-1500s, Giorgio Vasari's short biographies created art history, the artist as genius and even the "Renaissance". Tony Luppino leafs through Vasari's Lives to see how it still shapes our ideas of art.