Thomas Hildebrandt is trying to bring the northern white rhinoceros back from the brink of extinction. The wildlife veterinarian tells Steve about the far-out techniques he employs, why we might see woolly mammoths in the future, and why he was frustrated the day the Berlin Wall came down.
Yesterday
15. Tim Harford: “If You Can Make Sure You're Not An Idiot, You've Done Well.”
He’s a former World Bank economist who became a prolific journalist and the author of one of Steve Levitt’s favorite books, The Undercover Economist. Tim Harford lives in England, where he’s made it his mission to help the public understand statistics. In their conversation, Stev ... Show More
42m 25s
Mar 21
13. Yul Kwon: “Don't Try to Change Yourself All at Once.” (UPDATE)
He has been a lawyer, an instructor at the F.B.I. Academy, the owner of a frozen-yogurt chain, and a winner of the TV show Survivor. Today, Kwon works at Google, but things haven’t always come easily for him. Steve Levitt talks to Kwon about his debilitating childhood anxieties, ... Show More
43m 23s
Nov 2023
#210 - Top DNA Scientists are Bringing EXTINCT Animals Back to Life | Forrest Galante
Forrest Galante is a 6X world record spear fisherman, wildlife biologist, conservationist & explorer. He hosts 'Extinct or Alive' on Animal Planet, and 'Mysterious Creatures' on Discovery Channel. EPISODE LINKS: https://youtube.com/@ForrestGalante https://instagram.com/forrest.ga ... Show More
2h 35m
Sep 2025
Rewilding the Eastern Cape: Protecting Rhinos, Elephants, and the Future
<p>Dr. Robin Ganzert opens Season 3 of Robin's Nest with Dr. Andrew Muir, one of South Africa’s leading conservationists and CEO of Wilderness Foundation Africa. Together, they explore bold efforts to restore ecosystems and protect keystone species in the Eastern Cape—from t ... Show More
22m 38s
Jun 2025
Tim Coulson on how predators shape ecosystems and evolution
As a young man, traveling in Africa, Tim Coulson - now Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford - became seriously ill with malaria and was told a second bout would probably kill him. Aged only 20, this brush with his own mortality led him to promise himself he would writ ... Show More
28m 36s
Dec 2024
Charles Foster, "Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness" (Metropolitan Books, 2021)
How did humans come to be who we are? In his marvelous, eccentric, and widely lauded book Being a Beast, legal scholar, veterinary surgeon, and naturalist extraordinaire Charles Foster set out to understand the consciousness of animal species by living as a badger, otter, fox, de ... Show More
59m 18s
Nov 2019
John Edmonstone the Former Slave who Taught Darwin
John Edmonstone was born into slavery in the former Dutch colony of Demerara in the late 1700s but died a free man in Scotland having taught one of the greatest men in the history of science, Charles Darwin, the skill of taxidermy. We speak to Dr Angelina Osborne, independent res ... Show More
38m 1s
<p>For decades, the great fear was overpopulation. Now it’s the opposite. How did this happen — and what’s being done about it? (Part one of a <a href="https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/cradle-to-grave/">three-part series</a>, “Cradle to Grave.”)</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOU ... Show More