When it comes to understanding why our planet’s biodiversity is declining so precipitously, no phrase has as much explanatory power as “shifting baselines” — as essayist Derrick Jensen put it, “[T]he process of becoming accustomed to, and accepting as normal, worsening conditions.” Every generation regards its own environment as natural...
Learn more about ... Show More
Yesterday
Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025)
An award-winning astrophysicist looks at how the understanding of uncertainty and randomness has led to breakthroughs in our knowledge of the cosmos
All of us understand the world around us by constructing models, comparing them to observations, and drawing conclusions. Scientis ... Show More
1h 29m
Nov 19
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even tod ... Show More
54m 29s
Nov 13
Craig Hogan, "The Unlikely Primeval Sky" (American Scientist, November-December)
Of all the patterns that could possibly be preserved in the post–Big Bang radiation, the one we see is surprisingly smooth on large angular scales. Sitting by a campfire on a dark night, looking up at the Milky Way, a curious child asks, “What does the sky tell us? Where does it ... Show More
30m 27s
Apr 2013
Marlene Zuk, “Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live” (Norton, 2013)
The Hebrews called it “Eden.” The Greeks and Romans called it the “Golden Age.” The philosophes–or Rousseau at least–called it the “State of Nature.” Marx and Engels called it “Primitive Communism.” The underlying notion, however, is the same: there was a time, long ago, when thi ... Show More
57m 16s
Nov 2020
Reshaping Nature Through Gene Drives
A new technology, called gene drives, has the power to spread any genetic instructions you wish across an entire animal or plant species in the wild. It might let us restore ecosystems ravaged by invasive species, or help species adapt to climate change. And, it might save millio ... Show More
1h 10m
Mar 2019
How to Become Your Future Self
“Nobody changes until they change their energy—and when you change your energy, you change your life,” says researcher and author Joe Dispenza, DC. Dispenza’s work explores neuroscience, epigenetics, quantum physics, and consciousness. He’s become known for helping people heal in ... Show More
54m 52s
Apr 2021
The Twilight Zone of the ocean
Every day, untold numbers of strange organisms rise from the middle of the ocean to its surface. They may be playing a crucial role in slowing climate change, so scientists are struggling to understand this migration ... before it’s too late.
For more, go to http://vox.com/unexpl ... Show More
26m 32s
Oct 2013
Brian Allen Drake, “Loving Nature, Fearing the State” (University of Washington Press, 2013)
What do Barry Goldwater, Edward Abbey, and Henry David Thoreau have in common? On the surface, they would seem to be at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. As Brian Allen Drake shows, however, environmental concerns often brought together public figures with wildly differe ... Show More
38m 12s
Nov 2018
Robert Greene || The Laws of Human Nature
<p>Today we have Robert Greene on the podcast. Robert is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of <em>The 48 Laws of Power</em>, <em>The 33 Strategies of War</em>, <em>The Art of Seduction</em>, and <em>Mastery</em>, and is an internationally renowned expert on power strategie ... Show More
1h 12m