FRESH AIR
In March, Twitter will turn five years old. The microblogging service — which now has an estimated 200 million users worldwide — has been used by heads of state, astronauts in outer space and protesters in Iran, Egypt and Tunisia trying to disseminate information after news media crackdowns in their respective countries. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins Fresh Air’s Terry Gross on Wednesday for a wide-ranging discussion about the service, including how it was used recently in Egypt to help organize the revolution and how it has been used to spread democracy movements in other countries. “How a revolution comes to be is a mystery to me,” he says. “It’s important to credit the brave people that take chances to stand up to regimes. They’re the star. What I like to think of services like Twitter and other services is that it’s kind of a supporting role. We’re there to facilitate and to foster and to accelerate those folks’ missions.” MORE
RADIO TIMES
Why do people get pleasure from a panoramic view, a great symphony, our pets, or pornography? Yale psychologist PAUL BLOOM studies why we enjoy and desire certain things. In his recent book, How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, Bloom uses neuroscience, philosophy, behavioral economics, and child development to understand why were drawn to art, music, religion, food, and sex. He tells Marty it’s partly a byproduct of our evolution.