It’s summer, and you might be pulling out your binoculars, filling your bird feeders, and looking up as you hear a melodious song. But for many birdwatchers, it's not just a simple pastime. Identifying bird calls, tracking rare breeds through marshes and waters, and watching our feathered friends as they watch you has turned into true love of birds — an avian obsession.Original Air Date: June 17, 2023Interviews In This Hour: 'Utterly unlike other birds': The inscrutable brilliance of owls — Mark Obmascik on Competitive Bird Watching — The Indelible Myth and Meaning of Ravens — Christopher Benfey on 'A Summer of Hummingbirds'Guests: Jennifer Ackerman, Mark Obmascik, Charles Monroe-Kane, Christopher BenfeyNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What’s the last dream you remember having? Some of us dream every night. But we’re in too much of a hurry to remember our dreams or think about them the next day. Others of us are dream-deprived. What if we embrace our dreams — and our night selves — as a way to understand ourselves better, to connect to each other, even to lead a better life?Original Air Date: February 24, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The perils of a 'wake-centric' world — The lives we live inside our dreams — A dreaming mind, illustrated — Embracing your night selfGuests: Rubin Naiman, Kelly Bulkeley, Roz Chast, Annabel Abbs-StreetsNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Most of us have no idea what will happen when we die. But some do — people who actually started the process of dying and then came back with remarkable stories — like meeting dead relatives. Science is not only extending the lives of patients who’ve been declared clinically dead; it’s also beginning to tell us what happens in near-death experiences.Original Air Date: September 21, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Sebastian Junger reckons with the possibility of an afterlife — How science is revolutionizing our ideas about life and deathGuests: Sebastian Junger, Sam ParniaNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

We celebrate Mother's Day with a collection of stories from our archives, by and about moms. Stories about care and about courage — about the work of mothering.Original Air Date: May 13, 2023Interviews In This Hour: The all-encompassing worlds of motherhood and poverty — Eula Biss on 'The Argonauts' — Jacqueline Plumez on Mother Power — Amanda Henry on the Road to Motherhood — Ayelet Waldman on Trying to Be a Decent MotherGuests: Stephanie Land, Eula Biss, Jacqueline Horner Plumez, Amanda Henry, Ayelet WaldmanNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Sharing an episode of “What It’s Like to Be…” from author Dan Heath. On the podcast, Dan explores the world of work, one profession at a time, and interviews people who love what they do. He finds out: What does a couples therapist think when a friend asks for relationship advice? Is a Secret Service Agent supposed to pretend like they’re not there when they’re around the president? What are the 3 clocks that govern the life of a long-haul truck driver? If you’ve ever met someone whose work you were curious about, and you had 100 nosy questions but were too polite to ask… this is the show for you. In this preview, Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa [kee-NYO-nes EE no ho sah] (“Dr. Q”), a brain surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, describes his work: zapping parts of the brain to know where to cut, operating a mouth-controlled microscope, and carrying the weight of life-or-death decisions. How do you preserve a mathematician's expertise when removing tumors? And how did Dr. Q go from picking tomatoes to performing brain surgery?You can listen to more episodes of What It’s Like to Be at https://link.mgln.ai/ttbookdanheath

It can be hard to enjoy the natural world these days without anxiety. You notice a butterfly on a flower and wonder why you don’t see more. How’s the monarch population doing this year? And shouldn’t there be more bees? The challenge is to live in this time of climate change – but still find joy and refuge in it. Original Air Date: July 27, 2024Interviews In This Hour: Ecologies of love: Heather Swan’s stories of insects and the web of life — Becoming edible: Philosopher Andreas Weber’s mystical biologyGuests: Heather Swan, Andreas WeberNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Rooted in reality, written with a keen observer’s eye, and shaped with a sense of song, documentary poetry tells the truth in an artist’s voice. For generations, through wars, crisis, and political upheaval, documentary poets have helped make sense of some of our most difficult moments – by expressing what might otherwise be impossible to say. So what are they writing about today?This episode was produced in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.Original Air Date: January 13, 2024Interviews In This Hour: The gospel of Suncere Ali Shakur — This is how I drew you — The poetry that bears witness to the everydayGuests: Philip Metres, Suncere Ali Shakur, Kaia Sand, Camille DungyNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

How does someone become an official saint? Meet Dorothy Day — journalist, radical activist, mother and lay minister to the poor who died in 1980 — who is being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church. Shannon Henry Kleiber walks in her footsteps through New York City, where she lived and worked, looking for miracles, talking with people whose lives were changed by her, and wondering how and why saints matter today.We are grateful for additional music for this show from Tom Chapin, Si Kahn and the Chapin Sisters. Thanks also to the Dorothy Day Guild, and The Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Archives, which houses Dorothy Day’s papers and photos.Original Air Date: April 19, 2025Interviews In This Hour: In search of miracles, favors and graces — Inside the ‘agony and ecstasy’ of Maryhouse — We are all ‘called to be saints’Guests: Robert Ellsberg, Martha Hennessy, Fr. James MartinNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Maps, whether drawn by hand or by satellite, reflect the time they were drawn for. How will the next generation of cartographers deal with challenges like a world being reshaped by climate change? Original Air Date: December 09, 2023Interviews In This Hour: Why are islands in the South Pacific disappearing? — Cartography in the age of Google Maps — This is your brain on maps — The mysterious music of the 'phantom islands'Guests: Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, Mamata Akella, Bill Limpisathian, Andrew PeklerNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Some 500 years ago, the Scientific Revolution transformed civilization. It paved the way for new technology and commerce, but it also created a worldview that set humans above and apart from the rest of nature, leading to the abuse of the planet’s resources. Today, a new scientific paradigm is taking shape; an understanding that all life on Earth — from the tiniest bacteria to the largest ecosystem — is interconnected. Call it biocentrism or “Gaia 2.0.” Anne and Steve travel to the Island of Knowledge in Italy to meet a new generation of scientists and philosophers.Original Air Date: April 05, 2025Interviews In This Hour: Why the human imagination is both our greatest gift and weapon — Just how smart is a robot dog? — How Galileo helped create the modern world — The new science of 'planetary intelligence'Guests: Peter Tse, Marcelo Gleiser, Adam FrankNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.