Science

Capybaras possess such a calm and gentle nature that many other animal species treat them as friends—including the birds who ride on their backs. In this episode, we follow a capybara as she lounges in the lagoon and covers herself in mud to repel bugs. And we’ll listen as she collectively parents her pups with the others in her herd, communicating through a complex language of whistles, clicks, and purrs.

Andrew Huberman, host of the world’s leading health and science podcast Huberman Lab and neuroscientist and professor at Stanford School of Medicine, presents an essential guide to improving brain function, enhancing mood and energy, optimizing bodily health and physical performance, and...

While we have come a long way toward deciphering the laws of the universe, many physicists still regard time to be one of the greatest unsolved mysteries. On Time provides answers to the questions about time that philosophers and scientists have been asking for millennia, such as whether it has a beginning and an end, why it only points toward the future and not the past, whether it can be stretched and squeezed or even reversed, and whether it is even real.

'A warm, rich, generous book. A pleasure from first page to last.' KATHERINE RUNDELL 'A moving, vulnerable portrait of love, nature and a life well-lived' RORY STEWART 'Touching and extraordinary, this true story seems like a fairy tale' JOANNA LUMLEY The long-awaited memoir of life and love on...

Against the white expanse of the Arctic tundra, a snowy owl is hardly visible as he pauses to listen for the rustling of small prey. While most Arctic birds migrate south for the winter, this owl can survive through the endless polar nights. In this episode, we follow a snowy owl as he searches for food in the dark, soaring past the footprints of polar bears, howling huskies, and snow foxes that call this wintry world home.

An atmospheric memoir of the season of change from the no. 1 bestselling novelist Kate Mosse 'A beautifully written exploration of nature, memory and life itself. Wonderfully mellow, a golden read' MATT HAIG 'Profoundly captivating, a beautiful book that lingers in the mind.' ELIF SHAFAK 'When...

A fun-to-listen-to guide to ecological principles and environmental understanding Ecology For Dummies transforms intimidating concepts into an engaging walkthrough that supports academic success and environmental literacy. This accessible text covers everything from energy flow and nutrient...

In this bold and heartfelt story of ambition and belonging, Eiman Jahangir charts a path from immigrant beginnings to historic spaceflight—and challenges readers to aim higher than they ever thought possible. In this fearless and deeply inspiring book, part memoir, part guide; astronaut and...

The World's Most Fascinating Geologic Events takes you on a journey around the world and across time to explore the volcanic and seismic activity, dramatic shifts in climate, and superstorms that have inspired terror and awe over thousands of years. Taught by esteemed Professor Michael E. Wysession at Washington University in St. Louis, these 24 captivating lectures reveal the inseparable links between geologic phenomena and human affairs.

Bloomsbury presents The Grid by Gretchen Bakke, read by Katherine Fenton One of Bill Gates's Favorite Books of 2016 A revelatory look at our national power grid--how it developed, its current flaws, and how it must be completely reimagined for our fast-approaching energy future. America's...

Bloomsbury presents Brought to You By: How Corporations Warped the Truth, Conned the Public, and Broke Democracy, written and read by Amy Westervelt. Recommended by BILL McKIBBEN on the EZRA KLEIN SHOW "A book that every citizen needs to read." —JILL ABRAMSON, author of Merchants of Truth A...

Bloomsbury presents… How to Design a Universe: The Science of Real and Virtual Worlds Written and read by Professor Catherine Heymans Could we be living in a computer simulation? How would we even know? In How to Design a Universe, acclaimed astrophysicist Catherine Heymans takes you on a...

A scathing investigation into the apocalyptic thinking of the Christian nationalists, tech-bro reactionaries, and populist survivalists who increasingly define the contemporary right—and a recipe for how to fight them. This program is read by the authors. As the planet burns and shared reality...

An illuminating journey through the past, present and future of the botanical world How did plants shape the modern world? And what can they tell us about our future? Our peculiarly British obsession with gardens goes back a long way and Plants: From Roots to Riches takes us back to where it all...

A heart-warming memoir of leaving the city behind to build a new life among the wild beauty of the Hebrides. When Fiona is given an old family ledger, she has no idea it will redirect the course of her life. With her husband, children, dogs and elderly father in tow, she exchanges the pressures...

Why do we still believe in UFOs, despite repeated efforts to dismiss them? For most of the twentieth century, reports of unidentified flying objects were treated as cultural error: cranks, hoaxes, late-night radio. Then, abruptly, the posture changed. The Pentagon released videos it could not...

A microscopic worm has 959 cells. The Milky Way galaxy contains roughly the same number of stellar nursery cavities. The two are separated by twenty-four orders of magnitude in size—yet their proportions match almost exactly. This is not the only such pair. From protons to stars, from bacteria to galactic structures, from cities to the cosmic web, the same organizational pattern keeps repeating across forty-two orders of magnitude. A 200,000-trial statistical test of seven such pairings returned p = 0.000055—odds of about 1 in 18,000.

With senses that often seem alien to us, bees navigate complex decisions about where to find food, when to fight or flee, and how to work together. The Language of Bees invites listeners into the hidden world of bee communication, a realm where creatures less than an inch long use scent, vibration, movement, and sound to cooperate, share information, and survive.

What if reality is far stranger than you've ever imagined? What if the world around you is not exactly what it appears to be? From recurring patterns in nature to the mysteries of consciousness, countless questions continue to challenge our understanding of existence.

From one of the foremost scholars on the subject, comes our most in-depth look at John Steinbeck as a writer deeply connected to the natural world. Among the many reasons that John Steinbeck has reached the highest tier of the American literary canon is what we have come to understand as his...

In the early twentieth century, paleoanthropologists interpreted the differences between specimens of an expanding human fossil record as reflecting taxonomic and evolutionary diversity. Why, then, in the 1940s, did geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky reconfigure human evolution into one...

When author Edmund Morris left the Philadelphia business world in the early 1800s and bought a small farm in the New Jersey countryside, he was so pleased with the results of his venture that he decided to tell others how he accomplished it. His written chronicle—one of the most popular books...

Why There is No Climate Crisis uses science-based facts to reveal why, despite recent warming, there is no climate crisis. The cost of climate hysteria is high—climate anxiety is increasing, couples are putting off having children out of fear, and billions of dollars are being spent to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions. Those advocating a climate crisis often justify these costs by stating, "Scientists say there is a climate crisis."

There are few stories more remarkable than the evolution of life on earth. Where did humans come from? Where did life come from? New fields of study, such as molecular biology and astrobiology, are shedding remarkable new light on the origin of life and the origin of sex. In this Very Short...

This standout creative nonfiction debut explores the lives and histories of plants considered nonnative or invasive as metaphors for the Black experience in America. In Tending the Vines, Ashia S. Ajani illuminates how eight unique plants tell the story of the Black diaspora in America. Each...