The Natural Curiosity Project

Older media just never seem to go away...as you're about to find out.

Like every part of our planetary geography, oceans have identifiable regions. Beginning at the beach and gradually dropping to about 650 feet is the continental shelf. This shallow region of the ocean is called the sunlit or Epiplagic zone. From sunlight we move into the beginnings of oceanic darkness: we leave the continental shelf and step onto the much steeper continental slope where we enter t...

Because I do so much work in the world of sound, I’m always looking for resources that will inspire and challenge me. One of them is earth.fm, an online resource for people who appreciate the sounds of the natural world. Sound recordists from all over the world—and I mean ALL over the world—contribute tracks to earth.fm to be shared with anyone who wants to listen. They have a great Web site, whic...

Weird, isn't it, that wind is completely silent--silent, that is, until it hits something. Then, it bursts out in myriad voices.

In this episode we travel from central Turkey, the region known as Anatolia, to northern Norway, on the island of Svalbard, to visit two extraordinary subterranean places.

IT's hard to believe that I have created 300 episodes of the Natural Curiosity Project. Thank you so much--SO much--for staying with me on the adventure. In this episode, Pete Mulvihill recalls some of his favorite episodes--and asks me for mine. The episodes mentioned in the program are 84 (Bud and the tumbleweeds); 77 (How to Read Movie Credits with Bob Verlaque); 181 (Rob Prince and Dark Winter...

Acronyms are "words" that are abbreviations. But they differ from abbreviations because they can be pronounced like a word. Many of these acronyms, like the 'ZIP' in 'Zip Code,' aren't even known as acronyms anymore. In this episode, my friend Pete Mulvihill helps me decode some of the most common acronyms in modern lexicon.

Author John Stilgoe exhorts us to go outside, take a walk or a bike ride, and tune in to the world before us that we miss when we whiz by in a car. I implore you to do the same thing--but instead of paying attention to what you see, pay attention to what you hear.

I was listening to music the other day while driving to and from the dump, and one of my favorites came on: Mr. Bojangles, by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Like most of the songs that rise to the top of my favorites list, Mr. Bojangles has the best qualities of storytelling. But as I listened, I started thinking, something that always gets me in trouble. And, it did. I wanted to know: Who was Mr. Bo...

Some additional thoughts on the craft of writing.

Episode 295-The Most Complicated Machine Ever Built by Dr. Steven Shepard

I spent a great deal of my life in Monterey, California, most of it under the water while teaching SCUBA diving. I recently discovered a Monterey story that held me spellbound. It begins like this: A marine biologist, a mythologist, and a novelist walk into a bar...

An homage to Jane Goodall and others like her. This is a repost from 2021.

This essay contains an important story for the ages. Given current events, and the absolute truth that history does repeat, the lesson is plain, and chilling. 1492 and the years leading up to it in Medieval Spain, were times that should not be repeated. And yet…

Sometimes, curiosity, awe and wonder are the only tools we have. But when it comes to the majesty and magnitude of the night sky, of all the things about it we can’t possibly comprehend, they’re actually the best tools we can have. In this episode we talk about the magic and wonder that happens late at night, when it’d just you, the sky, and pure awe.

I recently had a conversation about technology’s impact on research today. It’s an argument I could make myself—that technology has resulted in access to more data and information. For example, before the invention of moveable type and the printing press, the only books that were available were chained to reading tables in Europe’s great cathedrals—they were that rare and that valuable. BUT: Does...

It’s human nature for each generation to criticize the generation that preceded it, often using them as a convenient scapegoat for all that’s wrong in the world. The current large target is my own generation, the Baby Boomers. I recently overheard a group of young people—mid-20s—complaining at length about their belief that the Boomers constitute a waste of flesh who never contributed much to soci...

Musings on science, philosophy, and the limits of human knowledge.

Short and Sweet: A challenge to our government and our politicians--all of them--to do their jobs. In good conscience, I can't NOT post this audio essay.

I read something the other day that had a reference in it to a new book that had just come out. The book’s called, “Sing Like Fish,” and it’s written by author and science writer Amorina Kingdon. Needless to say, I immediately ordered the book, and I have to tell you, I burned through it in three days. The subtitle is, “How Sound Rules Life Underwater,” which you can imagine, as a wildlife sound r...

On a warm fall day in eastern Nebraska, I met up with wildlife biologist Bethany Ostrom of the Crane Trust. As we talked, we took a long walk along the banks of the Platte River, watching as small grasshoppers by the hundreds boiled out from under our feet like popcorn, listening to meadowlarks and bobolinks calling from the scrubby brush along the river. The Crane Trust monitors the health and we...

Imagine a place right here on Earth—not on Mercury or Venus—where it’s not particularly unusual for the summer temperature to soar to 180 degrees Fahrenheit (82 degrees C). Now imagine a 20-meter or 60-foot-tall building in that hellish place where ice can be safely stored, completely frozen, for the entire summer. Oh—I should also add that the building has no electricity and is made out of mud, g...

Every once in a while, an idea hits me that causes one of those stop-the-presses moments, usually caused by some triggering event—in this case, the senseless, ongoing attacks on and defunding of scientific research by a group of decision-makers who aren’t sure if there’s an ‘I’ in the word ‘science.’ They make me think of a line from the movie Armageddon, in which the Air Force general says to Bil...

I just got a package in the mail, which contains a signed copy of a brand-new book that just came out from science fiction author Rob Dircks, called “Sunnyside,” along with a cloth patch that I can sew onto a shirt or a baseball cap. The patch says, “HISTORY REPAIR TECHNICIAN: CORRECT THE PAST, PROTECT THE FUTURE.” I won’t give it away, but it’s related to Sunnyside. As you’ve probably already fig...

Curiosity can lead to some weird and wacky places—how about Sopchoppy, Florida, home of the American Worm Gruntin’ Festival? But there’s more to this story than that. Have a listen.