Terry Gross

It is possible that there are many other universes that exist parallel to our universe. Theoretical physicist Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe, explains how that's possible in the new book, The Hidden Reality.

Chris Nowinski has made a crusade of fighting head injuries in football. The Harvard-educated former pro wrestler had to leave the ring after suffering multiple concussions. He now educates others — including the NFL — on what head injuries can do to players' brains years later.

In this week's New Yorker, Atul Gawande asks whether it's possible to lower medical costs by giving the neediest patients better care. Gawande says that primary care physicians who target the chronically ill are the new leaders in health care reform.

In the film Animal Kingdom, Australian actress Jacki Weaver plays the matriarch of a criminal family who has a twisted relationship with her sons. Weaver and Animal Kingdom's director David Michod discuss their unglamorous portrayal of a crime syndicate.

Debut author Siobhan Fallon writes about the lives of soldiers and their families in her new short story collection, You Know When the Men Are Gone. Families, she says, take the strangeness of deployment and learn how to create a new normal.

Clarence Jones helped draft Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech and was a close personal adviser and lawyer to the civil rights leader. But he almost turned down the chance to work with King. He explains what changed his mind in his memoir, Behind the Dream.

The frontman for the pop-punk band Green Day details the group's early days in Berkeley and describes what it's been like to see American Idiot, the Broadway musical based on one of his albums.

Computerized algorithms now do much of the work on Wall Street. Financial journalist Felix Salmon says they've become ingrained in the financial system -- but are also increasingly complex and difficult to regulate.

Joel and Ethan Coen's latest film is an adaptation of the Charles Portis western novel True Grit. The filmmakers and writers discuss the making of the film and the difficulties of working with both child actors and horses.

Writer Mira Bartok's memoir, The Memory Palace, is in part about the car accident that left her with traumatic brain injury and about her relationship with her schizophrenic mother. She explains how her brain injury helped her understand — and reconnect with — her mother.