The Natural Curiosity Project

Just to mess with your mojo from the earlier Parker River track, here's something on the opposite end of the sonic spectrum: A freight train barreling through Norway, Iowa, something that happens about every 20 minutes or so. Headphones again, please, to experience the spatial effect of the train's coming and going. Careful with the volume--it gets a bit loud.

Sabine and I have a discovered a new favorite place: Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, in Massachusetts, just over the border from New Hampshire. One of the first, if not THE first, refuges in the national system, it's been around so long that the original brochure (which you can download from the refuges Web site) was written by none other than Rachel Carson. Anyway, put on your headphones a...

After reading Paul Woodruff’s book, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, I found myself thinking about the concept of reverence and what it means in modern society. Woodruff defines it as equal parts awe, respect, and shame. What I walked away with after lots of time spent thinking about the concept is this: Reverence, which has nothing to do with religion, is perhaps the single most important...

Darrin Wassom made an envious (and courageous) career change: He went from a long, successful career as a cybersecurity specialist to being a newly-minted recordist, capturing and sharing the sounds of the natural world. His story is more than just the story of a shifted career: it's the story of someone for whom passion, and balance, and family, and life are more important than career. This is an...

A short morning chorus to brighten your day.

After four intensive years of medical school, a grueling residency, and surgical specialization in urology, Bevan Choate was on top of his game as a full-fledged urologist. Then, on December 3rd of 2020, the music stopped for Bevan. At 36, he suffered a life-threatening stroke. After nearly dying twice, undergoing three brain surgeries, and months in the hospital, followed by endless rehab, he fin...

Back around 2007 or thereabouts, one of my customers asked me to be one of several keynote speakers at a big annual sales event they were holding. Thankfully, it worked with my schedule, because Dewitt Jones was also keynoting the event—and I got to hear him speak. I didn't know Dewitt, but it turned out that I knew his work. Boy, did I know his work. Dewitt photographed for National Geographic fo...

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking through some photographs, and I came across some pictures I took of the Goodyear Blimp, anchored in Carson, California, right next to the freeway. Those pictures got me thinking. What must it have been like to fly in the big dirigibles of the 1930s, those gigantic, hydrogen-filled airships that were sometimes called flying ocean liners? People took long trips o...

Invention vs. innovation--what's the difference? In this episode we discuss these two forces of social change, and share a handful of amazing stories from each camp. We also hear from John Geoghegan, the author of several books on what he calls "White Elephant Technology," or "WETech." You can learn more about John at https://www.johnjgeoghegan.com. I also welcome my old friend Paul Whalen to the...

In 1989, author John McPhee published his seminal work, “The Control of Nature.” Written in three long but highly informative and entertaining chapters, McPhee tells tales of human hubris, demonstrating conclusively that when humans begin to see themselves as being greater, stronger than, or superior to nature, nature will put us in our place, every time. In this episode, Natural Curiosity Project...

John Geoghegan is an author, journalist, historian, storyteller, archivist, and exhaustive researcher. His books and articles cover broad territory, from Japanese underwater aircraft carriers (Operation Storm) to giant American dirigibles in WWII (When Giants Ruled the Sky) to innovations and inventions that, while often extraordinary, never made it to market. Another interesting fact about John i...

One of the best ways to track the long-term health of a species or group of species, and to understand how biologically diverse they actually are, is to map the organism’s genome—the roadmap of genetic diversity. About a year I introduced you to Jacob Job, a professor at Colorado State University who had recently completed his Voices of a Flyway Project. Over the course of several months, Jacob tr...

Today is a day of celebration! This is the 200th episode of the Natural Curiosity Project, which I started back in 2018. Thank you SO MUCH for continuing to listen--I hope you know how much it means to me. But we're not stopping here--I already have 15 new episodes queued up for release, and there are some great interviews in there. So thank you again--see you on the programs!

Jay Weiser, whom you met in the last episode a bout deafness and the miracle of cochlear implants, joins me to talk about his Five Leadership Superpowers. If you work for a business where leadership matters (and what business doesn't have that characteristic), you're going to want to hear this episode. You can learn more about Jay, the Five Leadership Superpowers, and his work at www. JayWeiser.co...

Jay Weiser is an Atlanta-based leadership consultant and the creator of the Five Leadership Superpowers, which we’ll talk about in the next episode. Jay is also profoundly deaf. In this episode, Jay and I have a conversation about hearing loss, cochlear implants, and how he manages to be an extremely effective leadership consultant, in spite of having lost his hearing. You can learn more about Jay...

When the Great Depression hit in 1929, jobs disappeared by the millions. Unemployment lines and bread lines became common; the economy was badly wounded, and without jobs, without the machinery that made money move through the economy, its chances of recovery were slim. So, as part of the Second New Deal, and driven by a presidential order from Franklin Roosevelt, the Works Progress Administration...

Ever since she was little, Michelle Fullner has been a nature enthusiast. She was always the kid who wandered off into the woods, crawling around on the ground, looking under rocks and logs and rooting around in the mud. Today, in addition to teaching English, Michelle is the creator and host of the Golden State Naturalist Podcast. Not long ago, she decided to enroll in the California Naturalist P...

Rob Bender wears many hats: film director and producer, conservationist, songwriter, musician, and world-class birder. Rob and I met on a film shoot many years ago, and I recently caught up with him in his LA-based studio to talk about his own non-linear career. You can find his music on all the major streaming providers, as well as on Bandcamp: https://robbendermusic.bandcamp.com.

Imagine what life would be like if every time you hear the sound of a robin, you instantly taste salt. Or you hear someone’s name, and the color blue pops into your head. Or, when you hear the sound of the ocean, the taste of apples overwhelms your taste buds. Or, you rub your hands over gravel, and taste pineapple. Or, imagine this: You’re out for dinner with with two other people, and one of the...

If you've ever watched a craft cocktail being made, and the mixologist reached for a small bottle on the back bar and sprayed a mist across the top of the drink, she was probably adding an essential bit of magic to her creation that was made by Alice and the Magician, a small company founded by brothers Aaron and Sam Wisniewski in Burlington, Vermont. They make fragrances--and the process by which...

I routinely extol the virtues of curiosity—it is, after all, the point of this Podcast. But there is a downside to curiosity: Awareness. Join me, please, for an exploration of the relationship between curiosity and our senses.

This is a repeat of an earlier episode that got great reviews, and lately I've received several requests to re-post the program. Our daughter Cristina is a Yoga instructor, and she recorded a relaxation program and shred it here on the Podcast. It's wonderful--I listen to it several times a week for focus and peace. Enjoy it.

A Thanksgiving gift to you and yours, in celebration of the true meaning of the holiday. Enjoy!

I’ve spent the bulk of my career in the hallways of technology, and while I admire it, and it often generates wonder, I’ve also been around it long enough to have developed healthy skepticism about elements of it, when that skepticism is important. One such area is AI, or artificial intelligence. I believe that it’s a critically important technological advancement, but intelligence? Not so much. A...

Ever wonder why some of the States in the US have such weird shapes, like West Virginia, or Maryland? I mean, what were they thinking? Well. In this episode, Steve digs into the history of some of the weirdest of them and finds answers. It’s kind of interesting, and the answers may surprise you.