Love Nature

Kristy Hamilton is a science journalist and author of "Nature’s Wild Ideas: How the Natural World is Inspiring Scientific Innovation," recently published this October. Hamilton’s passionate pursuits and insatiable curiosity have led her all over the globe to investigate natural settings to uncover how living things are interconnected and how even the smallest species among us can offer major breakthroughs for conservation and the environmental issues of our time.

We’re back with Dr. Kirsten Paige, Assistant Professor of Musicology at NC State University for a deep dive into opera. High notes, dramatic costuming and illustrious sets may come to mind when thinking of opera, but what can it teach us about the history of our planet and climate change? Tune in to find out. Plus, discover which natural space is Dr. Paige’s favorite. (Spoiler: it includes picnicking with cows!)

Welcome back to the fourth season of the "Love Nature" podcast. Join us for part one of our conversation with Dr. Kirsten Paige, an Assistant Professor of Musicology at NC State University. Dr. Paige’s work explores how scientific and environmental knowledge reshaped musical practices and cultures of the 19th and 20th centuries. She also has a strong interest in how music can offer collaborative responses to the climate crisis and address the inequalities brought on by it. Plus, learn what "soundwalking" is and how you can experience it!

Musician, author, and naturalist, Dr. Bernie Krause, returns for the season three finale of the Love Nature podcast. Krause discusses how relaying natural themes through art can increase impact and raise human awareness about the environmental issues of our time. Krause also plays illuminating soundscapes of social communication among a herd of forest elephants and the first “silent spring” in Northern California following an extended period of drought. Don’t miss this season's compelling conclusion.

Join us for the first part of our dynamic conversation with musician, author and naturalist, Dr. Bernie Krause, one the world’s leading experts in natural sound and soundscapes — the sounds that reach human ears. Krause discusses his origins as a violinist-turned-guitarist, which led to him helping introduce the synthesizer in pop music and film, including collaborations with Motown Records and the legendary Hollywood director, Francis Ford Coppola. Later, Krause left the entertainment industry to obtain a PhD in bioacoustics, traveling the world to record, archive and share the voices of the natural world.

Chris Jordan’s goal is to create art that contrasts the beauty and the horror of our world. From old cell phones to single-use plastics, Jordan uses everyday objects to create bold exhibitions that confront the environmental issues of our time in a personal and persuasive way. Join us for this enlightening and emotional conservation to find out why “loving nature” is at the heart of what Jordan is all about. Plus, hear new details about his documentary, “Albatross,” which focuses on how ocean plastic pollution is affecting bird populations in the North Pacific Ocean.

Todd Siler is an artist, author, and inventor with a passion to understand how human systems work. Throughout his expansive and illustrious career, Siler has explored the interconnection of art and science and advocated for integration between the two fields in academia. A recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts, Siler’s visually striking, multimedia exhibitions are featured in collections around the world. Find out why Siler encourages humans to “step into the heart of your brain” and get an update on his upcoming art projects.

In 2008, a honeybee flew through the window of artist Matt Willey’s New York City apartment and a lasting connection was made. “The Good of the Hive” is a global art project based on Willey’s personal commitment to hand paint 50,000 individual honeybees (the average number for a healthy, thriving honeybee hive). In North Carolina, Willey’s murals can be found in Asheville, Durham, and here in Raleigh at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. Find out why Willey believes “what we love, we save,” and get an update on his worldwide mural project.

Artist Benjamin Von Wong’s work lies at the intersection of fantasy and photography, combining everyday objects with shocking statistics. His YouTube videos have generated over 100 million views for causes like ocean plastics, electronic waste and fashion pollution. Von Wong’s art focuses on amplifying a positive impact by visualizing how humans interact with and impact nature through our actions. Discover why he believes “it’s fun to be a person who doesn’t love nature but is an environmentalist” with the latest episode of the Love Nature podcast.

Julius Csotonyi, Ph.D., is an award-winning natural history artist with a background in ecology and microbiology. Csotonyi illustrates the results of scientific research, providing compelling and accurate visual depictions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life as well as a variety of living creatures. Csotonyi has collaborated with NC Museum of Natural Sciences researchers on the upcoming Dueling Dinosaurs project, providing beautiful renditions of the Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus specimens. See Csotonyi’s vivid murals featured prominently in the Museum’s new limited-time special exhibition, “Life Before Dinosaurs: The Permian Monsters,” now open through September 4, 2022.