UnDisciplined

The ocean takes up roughly 70% of the planet, but we still don’t know too much about everything that is out there. Most ocean life is very small, and tends to change based on the ocean’s conditions. So even if you took a sample of ocean water right now, there’s really no guarantee that it would resemble a sample taken later. A recent study by Sarah Tucker and her team offers some direction for fil...

Twenty years ago, Richard Louv helped us begin to think differently about childhood and nature. Now, he's asking a related but perhaps even more provocative question: what happens when we really notice the world around us? What do we experience in terms of attention, awe, loss, and what it means to love a very complex world?

For years, comedy thrived on cynicism. The world was a mess, people were selfish, and anyone who believed otherwise was the punchline. But from Ted Lasso, to Paddington, to Come From Away, some of our most beloved stories are finding humor, heart, and even heroism in empathy, earnestness, and human decency. This summer, Lyric Repertory Company is producing Gutenberg! The Musical! It’s a delightful...

In the United States, we tend to celebrate people who pick a destination, set a goal, believe in themselves, and refuse to quit until they get exactly where they always knew they’d be. But real life is messier than that. Dreams change. and sometimes careers stall — we get relegated to something less than what we dreamed of. That's what happened to Todd Smith, a part-time sports writer and full-tim...

If one of the most important roles of science fiction is that it makes unfamiliar ideas emotionally legible, what are the ideas that we need to be reading about right now?

A few years back, we had David Sinclair on the program. David is one of the world’s top researchers working on the question of whether we can extend human lifespans. A couple years after that, Nate Price was with us. Nate is also looking at this question, though from a different angle: he wants to know how we can pack more healthy years into the lifespans we already have. But here on the program,...

There is no denying it: A.I. has changed higher education, and teachers are trying to catch up — to figure out how to live in this new world, and how to make learning meaningful. Stephen Aguilar studies how emerging technologies shape teaching, learning, and motivation. He’s also co-leading work at the USC center for generative A.I. and society, which just released a new report examining how stude...

Scott Simon has spent a lifetime telling other people’s stories on national public radio. But every now and then, along the way, he’s found reasons to tell the stories of the animals with whom we share this world, and he’s collected those stories, and more, in his latest book.

In workplaces everywhere, the most engaged employees often become the go-to for extra work. It feels logical, but management scholar Sangah Bae believes that instinct might be backfiring — a lot. Her recent work shows that intrinsically motivated workers are disproportionately assigned additional tasks, often at a cost to their performance, satisfaction, and long-term retention. The reason isn’t j...

A geologist, a planetary scientist, a NASA mission leader, and an expert on team-building walk into a bar. The bartender says, “hey, Lindy, are you drinking alone today?” In this episode, we talk about what it takes to be a polymath, and why it can be such a joy.

For decades, the case against industrial animal farming has been framed as a moral one—and it hasn’t slowed consumption. As countries grow wealthier, meat consumption rises right along with them. But according to Bruce Friedrich, a different kind of change is now underway. From plant-based meat to cultivated proteins, a technological shift may be emerging—one that could make animal farming obsolet...

Jani Radebaugh, a planetary scientist at Brigham Young University, has spent her career studying the landscapes of other worlds — and for decades, that work has depended on images and data sent back by robotic missions. Now, as humans re-enter deep space, she’s asking a different question: What changes when we see these worlds with our own eyes?

This winter’s snow drought may leave a mark that lasts for centuries. Justin DeRose, a dendrochronologist and assistant professor of silviculture and applied forest ecology at Utah State University, says trees across the West are already recording the story of climate in their rings — wet years, dry years, fire years, and sometimes years so harsh they leave almost no growth at all. And as drought...

For years, many people have assumed that climate change will send massive waves of “climate refugees” across borders around the world. But Jan Freihardt, a political scientist at ETH Zurich, says the reality is far more complicated. Studying communities along the Jamuna River in Bangladesh—where floods and erosion regularly destroy homes and farmland—Freihardt has followed families trying to decid...

In 2011, an EF-5 tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, claiming 161 lives. Almost immediately researchers like Marc Levitan, from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, began working to understand why it was so devastating. The results of that investigation are now being implemented into building codes around the world. And the result is that we’re more ready for the next huge twis...

Is the greatest existential threat our species has ever faced really something to joke about? Aaron Sachs thinks so. And, in fact, he thinks that, in many cases, we’re not joking about it enough.

We’ve long found different ways to explain that the world is made up of haves and have-nots. We live in the developed world or the developing world. There are those who are advantaged and those who are disadvantaged. And then, of course, there’s the one percent and everyone else. But under global warming, the climate journalist Jeff Goodell thinks, there may be a new way of describing this dichoto...

For a very long time it was thought that some alcohol, in moderation, could be healthy for us. The latest research suggests that’s simply not true. This certainly doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be allowed to drink — but we should at least know why we drink as much as we do. And that’s a question that Dr. Charles Knowles has tried to resolve in his new book.

Ten years after publishing This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, activist and writer Ashton Applewhite reflects on what a decade of living inside her own argument has taught her about aging, identity, and the quiet power of adaptation.

We know that, throughout history, society hasn’t always appreciated revolutionary scientific findings — and sometimes scientists find themselves under attack. But it turns out that, for hundreds of years and still today, some of the biggest attackers are fellow scientists.

Historically, an “everyone is a VIP” philosophy made good business sense for Disney amusement parks. But now Disney is embracing tiered services. Daniel Currell explains why and what’s to come.

Again and again, similar patterns show up in nature in different creatures at different times in their evolutionary histories—even when those life forms have evolved on much different paths for hundreds of millions of years. And when they show up, as it turns out, we often perceive them as beautiful. So, the question is: Why?

Again and again, similar patterns show up in nature in different creatures at different times in their evolutionary histories. And when they show up, we often perceive them as beautiful. Why?

Deep in the ocean, jellyfish, shrimp, fireworms and other creatures use multi–colored lights for defense, luring food, attracting mates, and communication. In their new book, Steven Haddock and Sönke Johnsen explore the nature of underwater light—investigating the varieties of transparency, pigmentation, iridescence, bioluminescence, and fluorescence found in the watery beyond.

The Trump administration is seeking an across-the-board 20% cut to NASA's total funding, and nearly all of that reduction is concentrated in science mission directorate.