Constant Wonder

Get to know BBC personality and naturalist Mike Dilger, from his passion for birds and wildlife, to his adventures in the cloud forests of Ecuador. In this podcast episode, we explore Mike's early experiences with birdwatching, his quest to find 1,000 different plant species in a single year, and his heartwarming proposal story, involving a ladder, a ring, and some chickens. Mike Dilger celebrates the natural world with contagious enthusiasm.

Guest: Mike Dilger, BBC presenter and author of "One Thousand Shades of Green"

Find him online: https://mikedilger.co.uk/

Join host Marcus Smith for conversations that invite you to discover, explore, and engage with the wonders of the world around you. New episodes available Wednesdays, starting April 19, 2023, on your favorite podcast platforms and the BYUradio app.

As a young woman from the East Coast, Sasha Reed had never been camping before when she was introduced to the Arizona desert by her future husband. She fell in love with both, and crouching on the dry ground she noticed and became obsessed with fragile communities of organisms known as "biocrust." This led her into a scientific field, biogeochemistry, that would shape her professional life. With infectious enthusiasm, she's become an evangelist for biocrust communities, finding joy and amusement in their spunky methods of not only surviving, but thriving.

Guest: Sasha Reed, biogeochemist with the U.S. Geological Survey, researching biocrust

Curious about Sasha's work? Visit USGS's website to learn about her latest publications: https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/sasha-c-reed

Photo credit: Canyonlands National Park, Utah. © William Bowman

In 1863 on the South Dakota frontier, a Lakota Indian elder and a US army colonel had a tense and deadly encounter. They could not have known that their children would marry each other, and thus create a welded and complex legacy that generations of their descendants would work to reconcile.

Guest: Philip J. Deloria, Professor of History at Harvard University

Dying patients often profess to see deceased loved ones around them in the days and weeks before they pass. So often that hospice care doctor Chris Kerr decided to make a scientific study of the phenomenon. He found that while the medical community typically views death as defeat, there is actually a great deal of spiritual growth right there at the end of life. This podcast episode invites you to reconsider these unique dreams before dying.

Guest: Christopher Kerr, MD, PhD, CEO & Chief Medical Officer at Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo, and author of "Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End"

Find a copy of "Death is But a Dream" here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/604704/death-is-but-a-dream-by-christopher-kerr-md-phd-with-carine-mardorossian-phd/

The apex of marine archaeologist Mensun Bound's stellar career happened a year ago this week, when the expedition he spearheaded found Ernest Shackleton's "Endurance" at the bottom of an Antarctic sea. This was just the latest find in a career marked by big discoveries, including a 2,500-year-old Etruscan ship and a Roman wreck weighed down by massive stone columns looted from Athens.

Bound has a special term for that electric moment when he uncovers a piece of history and feels like he's connecting with the mind of its creator. He calls it "mind touch." Now, the expedition to find Shackleton's ship required a crew of experts, an icebreaker, two helicopters, and cutting edge submersible robots. But the real magic in this story is Bound's palpable connection through time to people whose stories have enriched our world.

Guest: Mensun Bound, Director of Exploration on the 2019 and 2022 expeditions to locate Shackleton’s Endurance; previously Triton Fellow in Maritime Archaeology at Oxford University; author of "The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance"

Learn more about Mensun's adventures on his website: https://www.mensunbound.com/

Photo Credit: National Geographic/The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust

Being in and around water heals us emotionally. Water "evangelist" J Nichols shares his insight and his personal "water stories," when water has inspired him and also when it's healed him from trauma. As part of this episode, we're asking listeners, "What's your water story?" Tune in to Constant Wonder and find out how to share yours!

Wallace J Nichols, author of "Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do" and co-author of "Dear Wild Child: You Carry Your Home Inside You"

Learn more about J's lifework and mission at his website: https://www.wallacejnichols.org/122/the-blue-mind-movement.html

After cancer takes his brother's life, Dacher Keltner repeatedly experiences awe in ways that expand the boundaries of what, even for him, is real.

Guest: Dacher Keltner, founding director, Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley; author, "Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life"

Visit Dacher's website to explore more of his writing: https://www.dacherkeltner.com/

Originally aired 2/15/23

Dacher Keltner has been a leading researcher on the subject of awe for nearly 20 years. It’s hard to improve upon his description of the phenomenon: Awe is an emotion we feel upon encountering something so vast that it upends our sense of what is real. But when cancer took his brother’s life, Keltner personally and repeatedly experienced awe in ways that expanded the boundaries of what, even for him, is real. In this podcast episode, he visits with us about his new openness to experiences of awe that science cannot adequately account for.

Guest: Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and author of "Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life"

Visit Dacher's website to explore more of his writing: https://www.dacherkeltner.com/

Meet Clint Edwards, a man whose hilarious honesty has brought hope and laughter to his readers in the New York Times, Washington Post, and on his popular blog: No Idea What I’m Doing. Follow his story of growing up at odds with his parents and eventually learning to raise a family of his own, all while managing mental health struggles. On this episode of Constant Wonder, learn about finding wonder in the mundane, the difficult, the hilarious, and the in-between.

Guest: Clint Edwards, blogger and author of "Anxiously Ever After: An Honest Memoir on Mental Illness, Strained Relationships, and Embracing the Struggle"

Visit Clint Edwards online to see more of his work:

Substack blog: https://clintedwards.substack.com/about

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noideadaddyblog/?hl=en

X/Twitter: https://x.com/byclintedwards?lang=en