Back to school can be a stressful time for the whole family. We’re taking another look at our episode with Dr. Ellen Choi, an expert on mindfulness. Dr. Choi felt like she had been moving through her life on autopilot. Through mindfulness and meditation, and removing the burden of perfection, she was able to connect with herself and learn how to live with intention and purpose. She joins us to discuss how everyone can develop their own personal practice.

What do animals know that we don’t? Martin Wikelski has spent his professional career trying to answer this question. He’s the director of the Department of Migration at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and also pioneered ICARUS, a system for continuously tracking thousands of animals from space. Martin discusses his work in animal tracking, how animals can help us with our response to climate change, and his new book The Internet of Animals: Discovering the Collective Intelligence of Life on Earth.

Where would human evolution be without the female body? Despite the invaluable ability to create life, Cat Bohannon says the female body has been historically overlooked in medical research. As an author and researcher, she wants to close the gaps in our understanding of the female body by taking a trip through time. We unpack medical bias, sexism and Cat’s book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.

The weeds in your garden have a fascinating personal history. Jessica J. Lee is challenging us to reframe our ideas of the natural world. As an environmental historian, she is an expert in exploring the entangled relationships between people and plants. We discuss Jessica’s fascination with the language used to describe plant species, such as "invasive" and "native” and dive into her new book Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging.