After multiple wildfires ripped through greater Los Angeles earlier this year, Californians were left to rebuild communities and grapple with the loss of life, nature and property. Thousands of homes were destroyed, and as many as 180,000 residents were under evacuation orders until the flames could be controlled. Unfortunately, this seems to be the new order in California; officials are already working to prepare for the next fire season.

In this episode, host Ari Daniel speaks with photographer Ivan Kashinsky, who witnessed and documented the devastation of the Palisades Fire up close, even as he tried to rescue his cats and valuables from his family home in Topanga Canyon. And we hear from writer and wildlife biologist Anton Sorokin, who chronicled the animals that escaped, fled and perished due to the fiery forces that are increasingly shaping our world.

To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes about a group of people dedicated to saving native bees, the sex lives of dinosaurs and the story of Pablo Escobar’s hippos, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. 

From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Our music is from APM Music.

Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Photos by Anton Sorokin and public domain.

Two hundred and fifty years ago this month, silversmith Paul Revere took to his horse on a midnight ride to warn American rebels that British troops were approaching. The famous ride and an ensuing battle at Lexington and Concord touched off the American Revolution.

But there are other stories involving the role that enslaved Africans and Southern colonists played in launching and sustaining the rebellion that led to the founding of the United States of America. Host Ari Daniel speaks with Nikki Stewart of Old North Illuminated and Smithsonian writer Andrew Lawler about these lesser-known histories.

Read the original Smithsonian article here.

To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes about a baseball field resurrected in a World War II-era Japanese internment camp, a recently solved mystery surrounding the burial of John F. Kennedy and how artificial intelligence is making ancient scrolls readable again, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. 

From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Our music is from APM Music.

Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Photos by Ari Daniel, gregobagel via Getty Images and the Metropolitan Museum of Art under public domain.

Baseball was a way of life in the camps that incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II. The United States government stripped the Americans who lived in these camps of their liberties, but for those communities, having played the game for generations, baseball brought them closer to each other and, paradoxically, to their country. At Manzanar, one such site at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California, dozens of baseball and softball teams played regularly.

Decades after the camps closed, and after Japanese Americans had returned to their homes on the West Coast, Manzanar was established as a historic site. Replicas of camp buildings were erected to memorialize what had happened there, but the baseball field was in complete disrepair. Artist and baseball enthusiast Dan Kwong led the herculean restoration effort. Host Ari Daniel talks with Kwong and Smithsonian writer Rachel Ng, who reported on the endeavor. 

Read the original Smithsonian article here.

To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes on a recently solved mystery surrounding the burial of John F. Kennedy, the only battalion during World War II composed entirely of Black women, and everything you wanted to know about sweating and sports, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. 

“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. 

From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Our music is from APM Music.

Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Photos by Aaron Rapoport and the National Archives under public domain.

Native bees in the United States are dying due to pesticides, disease and habitat loss. These insects play a critical role in nature and on farms, yet we know very little about native bees in part because they’re a challenge to study.

That’s where a legion of bee enthusiasts and amateur experts, called “beeple,” come in. Armed with nets and jars, they fan out across the country to find, document and study native bees, both common and rare. Host Ari Daniel interviews Smithsonian writer Susan Freinkel and self-proclaimed bee enthusiast Michael Veit about the future of bees through the lens of the beeple who care deeply about them.

Read the original Smithsonian article by Susan Freinkel here.

To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes on the tale of what happened to Pablo Escobar’s hippos, the popularity of stories about animal behavior and the sex lives of dinosaurs, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. 

From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.
Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Images via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and public domain.

Before he was a civil rights activist, James Felder was a member of the elite U.S. Honor Guard who helped bury John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery after his assassination in 1963. In a move that was unrehearsed, after laying the casket to rest, the members of the Honor Guard placed their military hats upon the gravesite in what James Felder called “a final salute to President Kennedy.”

Years later, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis commissioned a bronze wreath to be made in honor of her husband that incorporated the caps. Once completed, this sculpture disappeared quite suddenly. Half a century later, improbably, it was found due to the help of a couple of sleuths at a private garden in Northern Virginia.

In this episode, we hear from Elinor Crane of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation and James Felder. 

Read the original Smithsonian article by Ellen Wexler here.

To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes on the man behind the nonfiction thriller about Abraham Lincoln's assassination, separating fact from fiction in the life of Sojourner Truth, and the complicated legacy of being the descendant of a Civil War hero, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. 

From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.
Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Images via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and public domain.

Dinosaurs are often thought of as aggressors—giant beasts that dominated our planet for millions of years. But these prehistoric animals almost certainly had a softer side. In the last decade, researchers have gained tantalizing insights into the sex lives and mating habits of these ancient reptiles.

In this episode, Smithsonian contributing writer Riley Black describes new evidence that reveals how and when dinosaurs mated—including ancient behavior recorded in rock, a new theory around dinosaur horns and spikes, and a prehistoric cloaca.

Read Riley's coverage of dinosaurs here and here.

To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes on the sticking power of stories about animal behavior, what happens when the Colorado River goes dry and how asteroid dust might tell us about the origins of life, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. 

From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. 

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.
Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Images via by Donald E. Hurlbert for Smithsonian Institution (SI-19-2014), James St. John via Flickr under CC BY 2.0, and public domain.

For millennia, auroras have both enchanted and haunted human beings. Ancient lore is filled with myths attempting to explain what caused the celestial phenomenon. More recent historic documentation of auroras may even help us predict damaging solar storms in the future.

As we head into a year expected to bring the best northern lights in two decades, we consider the science behind auroras and why they are suddenly so plentiful—even in places that hardly qualify as northern.

In this episode, Jo Marchant, author of The Human Cosmos, and Smithsonian science editor Carlyn Kranking revel in auroras through the ages and explain how to view these dazzling displays yourself.

Tap here to see the NOAA tracker mentioned in the episode.

Read Carlyn's coverage of auroras here and here.

To subscribe to “There’s More to That,” and to listen to past episodes on our love of eclipses, the use of asteroid dust to find the origins of life and why orcas may not be doing what we think, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

“There’s More to That” is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. 

From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. 

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.
Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. / Images via public domain.

Italian researcher Isabella Dalla Ragione has a most unusual job. An “arboreal archaeologist,” Dalla Ragione scours Renaissance paintings and medieval archives, discovering endangered fruits that might be revived. Her life’s work offers a possible solution to the problem of monocrops. 

Year after year, agricultural giants cultivate the same varieties of the same fruits and vegetables, while many other varieties have fallen to the wayside. Monocrops contribute to climate change and are highly susceptible to its consequences, jeopardizing our food supply.

In this episode, Isabella and Smithsonian contributing writer Mark Schapiro discuss the importance and challenges of protecting biodiversity and agriculture in the midst of a changing climate — and why it matters.

Read Mark's story for Smithsonian magazine here.

To subscribe to There’s More to That, and to listen to past episodes on a plan to save Texas from deadly hurricanes, the wild story of Pablo Escobar’s hippos, and how artificial intelligence is making 2,000 year old scrolls readable again, find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. 

From the magazine, our team is Ari Daniel, Debra Rosenberg, and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Sandra Lopez Monsalve, and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.

Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Photos by Simona Ghizzoni / Images via the Metropolitan Museum of Art under public domain

Music by APM Music.

Smithsonian magazine covers history, science and culture in the way only we can — through rich reporting sparked by our editors’ insatiable curiosity. On There’s More to That, meet the magazine’s journalists and hear what they think about the biggest issues of our time. Find out how much more there is to… almost everything.

We’re busy at work on our new season, which will hit your feeds later this month. In the meantime, we’re bringing you an episode of the Smithsonian Institution’s podcast Sidedoor to tide you over. Smithsonian curator of political history Jon Grinspan takes you inside the story of the Wide Awakes, a group of torch-bearing young activists who helped elect Abraham Lincoln and spurred the nation toward Civil War. Grinspan recently wrote about the Wide Awakes in an issue of Smithsonian magazine. We’ll be back soon with all new episodes to kick off our second season. Happy new year!