Brooke Williams encountered a dragonfly ...

<p>This is not an easy story to tell. In the town where I live, Bellingham, Washington, there&rsquo;s a beautiful urban creek. It flows just four miles from a lake, through a city park, down through the town to the sea. But in the summer of 1999, disaster struck. A gasoline pipel ... Show More

<p>Have you ever wondered why your dog takes such a long time to sniff a patch of grass? Or why flies buzz around so sporadically? It&rsquo;s because most of what a creature actually senses is invisible to us. They perceive <em>their </em>world as differently as we perceive our o ... Show More

<p>Blink and you&rsquo;ll miss &lsquo;em! In this episode we get to know hummingbirds eyeball-to-eyeball.&nbsp;</p> <p>The world of the hummingbird is changing fast in the deserts of Arizona. So much so that even an animal as quick as a hummingbird is struggling to keep up. Nativ ... Show More

Put on your headphones. In today's episode, host Emily Kwong leads us on a night hike in Patuxent River State Park in Maryland. Alongside a group of naturalists led by Serenella Linares, we'll meet a variety of species with unique survival quirks and wintertime adaptations. We'll ... Show More

What does the Declaration of Independence have in common with Vincent van Gogh’s sketches? The ink used to produce them came from wasps. From pests to products, insects have played an enormous role in human history. Entomologist and animal behaviorist Barrett Klein encourages a h ... Show More

<p>Let’s light up your life and butt. World-renowned firefly expert Dr. Sara Lewis of Tufts University gives us some updates to her 2021 episode, sharing her love of a bug that many think is merely mythological. Learn how these tiny animals illuminate the night, the dos and don’t ... Show More

Tens of thousands of animal species are facing extinction, mostly because of human activity. But thanks to conservationists, there are some animals that are making a comeback. This is part four of “The New Conservationists,” a four-part series about the evolving world of animal c ... Show More

<p>You might not think much about the sticky bottle of vanilla sitting in the back of your pantry. But that flavor – one of the most common in the world – has a fascinating history, involving a fickle orchid and a 12-year-old enslaved boy who made the discovery of a lifetime. </p ... Show More

Ashleigh Papp, an animal scientist turned storyteller, takes us on into the field. Conservationists and animal behaviorists were once restricted to wildlife data gathered manually. Now new technologies are expanding the amount of passively collected data—and machine learning is h ... Show More

<p>Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( <a href= "https://twitter.com/Nmcanopus">@Nmcanopus</a> ) is an observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006. <a href= "http://travelersinthenight.org">travelers ... Show More

<p>Annie McEwen went to a mountain in Pennsylvania to help catch some migratory owls. Then Scott Weidensaul peeled back the owl’s feathery face disc, so that she could look at the back of its eyeball. No owls were harmed in the process, but this brief glimpse into the inner worki ... Show More

Bored with dragons, the wizard Argomandanies turns his arcane attention to the fantastic fauna of the natural world. Welcome to Animalia Stupendium, a chronicle of Earth’s amazing biodiversity with all the enthusiasm of a fantasy monster book. In this episode, the wizard will con ... Show More

The black hole at the center of our galaxy is emitting near-constant, random light. The European Space Agency has approved astronaut candidate John McFall, making McFall the first physically disabled candidate to be cleared to fly. The risk of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth rose ... Show More