The Shape of the World

Climate change is scary. The magnitude of the problem makes it hard for people to commit to direct action to solve it, hoping instead (reasonably but perhaps impractically!) that government will do the work...

Akiko Busch is well-known for her writing on design, culture and the natural world. Her essays continue to touch on those subjects although increasingly, it incorporates—or directly addresses—the natural world...

Andrew Robichaud explores the peculiar coexistence of people and farm animals in America’s cities. In the 1800s, it wasn’t unusual for men wearing top hats and formal attire to stride down tony Manhattan avenues right next to goats and cows...

Dr. Katy Greenwald has a longstanding interest in puzzling out the success and persistence of North America's "gene thieves," the unisexual (all female) Ambystoma salamanders...

David Sibley started drawing birds at age five and never stopped. Having an ornithologist father and being around his father’s friends, all of whom were also interested in birds, made birdwatching seem an ordinary thing all grown men did...

Structural geologist Marcia Bjornerud was raised by free-thinking parents who instilled in her a love of books and nature. She’s published many professional papers (read mainly by experts in the field) and two popular books that, in the opinion of this podcast, ought to be read by every inhabitant of our planet...

Even though the coronavirus pandemic is keeping 226 million Americans sheltering in place, stepping out for fresh air is still allowed. But what’s safe?

In Openlands, Jerry Adelmann joined an organization whose interests aligned perfectly with his own: nature, culture, historic preservation, social equity. Since then, Jerry has been a ninja nature practitioner who’s…

Janet Voight grew up in Iowa, far from the ocean. Yet as a young adult, she found her way to the study of marine organisms, especially the cephalopods: that strange and wonderful system that includes snails, clams, squids, nautilus, and octopuses...

When Dr. Jalene LaMontagne was growing up, her family moved every three to five years. “I was a military brat,” she says. For a while they lived…

Most scientists study animals while they’re stationary. It’s a lot easier that way. But Melina Hale studies fish in motion. She wants to find out what’s happening inside their brains—and what signals are traveling through their system from brain to fin and fin to brain—that allow movement to occur...

Sylvie Anglin’s epiphany of how nature can integrate into both the curriculum and character of a classroom occurred the year she co-taught with Carol Brindley, a veteran teacher of first and second graders...

As a child, Peggy Mason was a biology prodigy. Today, as a neurobiologist, Peggy is still working with mammals, but instead of preserving their skins, she’s studying whether they experience empathy and act to help one another...

When Johana Goyes Vallejos travelled to Borneo , she discovered that instead of boy frogs making all the noise—which is how things typically go in frog world—it was female voices piercing the dark night air...

Like most Chicagoans, Jin enjoyed Lake Michigan in a general way for many years. But because the lake is consistently present—a backdrop to the spectacle of the city—it’s possible for residents to forget the lake is even there...

The father of Philip Enquist was a rebel who didn’t appreciate shortly-cropped mowed lawns, and he allowed the grass in the front yard of their Southern California home to grow long. The neighbors didn’t share his aesthetic...

Zero. When Mary Hennen was growing up, that was the total number of peregrine falcons living anywhere near her home in Chicago. Even in the wilder areas...

The person responsible for Kay Havens’ early interest in interest in science was female: her mother. Together, they collected, studied, and identified...

What would you do if you were required to catch something—an animal—that you knew nothing about. In the entire world, there was literally no one you could ask for help, not one...

Each weekend when Krissa Skogen was a kid, she went with her family to a lake in western Minnesota. The six of them camped in tents on a small property where there was no...

After first considering life as a musician, Greg Mueller’s professional aspirations took a surprising turn when a college class introduced him to mushrooms in the forests of...

When Peggy Macnamara was a young mother of five children, she didn't relinquish her art practice. Each morning she left her house and drove straight to the nearest natural history museum...