>> My next guest is making

science more accessible by

giving readers a closer look

into the lives of scientists.

Claudia Dreifus has interviewed

great minds

in the field of astronomy,

biology,

computer science, and more.

Her interviews with scientists

make upThe New York Times'

column "A Conversation With."

Claudia Dreifus joins me now.

So, you're getting into people

who are incredibly bright

in one thing,

but you're able to figure out,

in your columns,

some way to humanize them,

that they're not just

this little person in a lab coat

that sits somewhere

in this corner building.

>> Well, thank you. Yes.

What I try to do

is use biography as a vehicle

for talking about science

and to show the real people

behind these

incredible discoveries

that have changed our lives,

and often, they're fantastic

and dramatic stories.

>> And you've talked

to Nobel Prize winners.

You've talked to giants

like Stephen Hawking.

What is it that you look for

to start bringing

that story out of them?

>> Well, I think the thing

that moves any of us.

What moves you?

Why do you do what you do?

And sometimes, people aren't

really

all that in touch with it,

but sometimes,

there's a really clear line.

One of my favorite interviews

is with James Allison,

a biochemist,

a researcher who really changed

all of the way

we're treating cancer now.

He's got a lot of cancer

in his family.

And so, it struck him

that a very, very old,

forgotten way

of treating cancer,

mobilizing the immune system,

might work,

and he really worked at it,

and he did it.

I mean, how many people can go

around and say,

"I cured cancer"?

He did.

He also played

with Willie Nelson,

and I asked him,

"Which was more

meaningful to you?"

>> What was his answer?

>> He said very graciously,

"Solving many of the cancers

is very rewarding,

and so was playing

with Willie Nelson."

>> There is a trend now,

in science,

to become better communicators

of the work that they're doing.

That, really, sometimes,

the scientists are --

I don't know if they're going to

a course about it,

perhaps most of them are not,

but that it's become

important to say,

"Here's the work

that I'm doing."

>> I think the younger

scientists

really want to do that,

and the Internet

has facilitated it

because they no longer

have to have mediators

between them and the public.

And they have no problem

blogging or writing op-eds,

and my course at Columbia

is just for scientists,

not for journalists.

I teach them the techniques

of science

so that they can learn

how to communicate clearly

because they have to unlearn

a lot of the stuff

they were trained to do.

>> Has the audience increased

its appetite for science?

I mean, have you found that

more readers are not just

reading but responding

and engaging with your work?

>> Well, I don't know.

I think there's always been

an audience there,

and, you know, there was a time

when popular culture

in America included science.

The 1930s, if you look at

all these popular

Warner Bros. movies,

mostly starring Paul Muni,

"The Story of Louis Pasteur,"

the story of Marie Curie,

those popular entertainments

were about science,

and Albert Einstein

was as famous as Elvis.

That kind of receded,

and I think, in some ways,

we're going to back to that.

In a way, I'm trying to model

those Warner Bros. movies.

Tell the story

and you'll get the science.

These are people.

These are people with the same

motives everybody else has,

but they're

doing incredible things.

I'll tell you another thing.

They're a lot like artists,

the really great ones.

I mean, they have to step out

onto a limb

where nothing is known,

and they have to find,

from nature, a secret.

That's interesting.

>> Mm.

What are the scientific

discoveries,

you think, that people

are most excited by today?

>> Well, it depends on who.

Economists are most excited

by -- or people in business --

by algorithms

and the Internet and automation,

but I think we all ought

to be excited by Jim Allison's

discovery of immunotherapy,

which is the first change

in the way we treated cancer

in 100 years.

I think we all should

be excited by everyday things

that we've taken for granted.

When I was a kid, polio was

the absolute worst scourge

of the world, and then one day,

a scientist ended it.

And the same thing in the '80s.

I had so many friends

dying of AIDS, and now,

we can make that

a chronic disease.

So science is every day

in our life,

but we don't recognize it,

and we don't even understand

that it's there,

but we use it every time

we pick up a cellphone.

>> I know it's like

picking among your children,

but are there interviews

that stand out

for you to say...

>> Oh, sure.

>> ..."Wow. This conversation

changed how I thought"?

>> Well, like a good mother,

I love all my children,

and people sometimes say,

"What's your

favorite interview?"

And I don't have one,

but I'll never forget

interviewing Stephen Hawking,

simply because the courage

with which he insists

on living his life is moving.

I never give my sources

my questions beforehand,

and I'm sure

you don't either, Hari.

But in this case, I did because

it takes him such a long time

to process a question,

and he has to figure out

each letter

in the alphabet in his brain

and then program the computer

to spell it, and it's not easy.

And so I did that,

and then he requested,

even though he could've

e-mailed me the answer,

he requested that he read

and play the interview in person

because he wanted to make it

still a communication,

even though it had

that artificial aspect.

It was very frustrating to me

because there was so much

I wanted to ask him,

and I couldn't,

and it gave me, actually,

a lot of sympathy

for people who are disabled

because there are

all these pediments in the way

that you don't recognize

and that are there.

The one question that I asked

spontaneously took

a long time to get an answer to.

And it was something

to the effect of,

"Why do you do this?

Why do you keep

doing interviews like this?"

And he said because he hoped

it would give others courage,

and I think it does.

>> Claudia Dreifus,

"A Conversation With."

Thanks so much for joining us.

>> Thank you!