When we talk about bees, usually we mean honeybees. Or bumblebees. But that’s just two out of 20,000 different species of bees. Thor Hanson tells Anne about how different species of bees and humanity have developed dependence on one another.More
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Science and Technology
Magician Nate Staniforth has a dangerous idea for you. Tonight, after dark, go outside and look up to the sky.More
How do you know what’s real? Start with your senses — if you can see, touch, hear or taste something, it’s real — right? Not necessarily, according to cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman and neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan.More
Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard talks about her pioneering research into “forest intelligence,” She also reflects on her childhood growing up in Canadian forests, how the timber industry can become sustainable, and why she talks to trees.More
Once you acknowledge that plants are intelligent and sentient beings, moral questions quickly follow. Should they have rights? How can we think of plants as "persons"? Plant scientist Matt Hall sorts out these ideas with Steve.More
Plants are intelligent beings with profound wisdom to impart—if only we know how to listen. And Monica Gagliano knows how to listen.More
As a plant ecologist, Brooke Hecht knows plants. But then a few years ago, while at a professional conference, her young daughter who'd tagged along got sick. And that's when the healing powers of plants came to the rescue.More
Emerging science in everything from forest ecology to the microbiome is confirming that our relationship with plants and animals is deep. Ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer also draws on Native knowledge to explain our intimate relationships with plants.More
Lidia Yuknavitch’s apocalyptic novel “The Book of Joan” is one of the most stunning examples of climate fiction. It’s the story of a near-future where Earth is decimated and the last few survivors are stranded out in space.More
In "Our Biggest Experiment," climate advocate Alice Bell traces the history of the scientists who have been studying the impact of humanity on the climate since 1856. She tells Anne Strainchamps that science has been critical for spurring the world to act. More
Pamela Smith's science history students spend a semester taking medieval alchemical recipes and re-creating them in a lab.More
Alchemists believed that if they could transform matter, why not also the spirit, or the self? That last part is what’s attracting new followers today, like Sara Durn.More
Venice Williams, an ordained minister, runs Alice's Garden Urban Farm in Milwaukee. She finds connection and spirituality on this land, which was once a location of the Underground Railroad.More
Farmer Leah Penniman, co-director of Soul Fire Farm in New York state, and author of "Farming While Black," is digging deep into the soil and her African history to change the story for a new generation.More
The promise of 40 acres and a mule didn't materialize for most Black Americans. But attorney Savi Horne, executive director of the Land Loss Prevention Project, is fighting for Black farmers to get their land back, now.More
Jeff Schloss is an evolutionary biologist. He’s also Christian. As a scientist, he’s trying to develop an evolutionary theory for the origins of religion. But he says science can’t explain everything about religion.More
The Center for Humans and Nature provides a forum for wider discussion on the link between our evolution as a species and the emergence of religious thought and morality, including several essays by evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson and Jeff Schloss.More
Journalist and essayist Roy Scranton has been called "our Jeremiah of the Anthropocene." His book "We’re Doomed. Now What?" is a hard-headed — often terrifying — look at how climate change could transform our planet, and how that impact might shape our daily thoughts and experiences.More