Paleontologist Stephen Brusatte joins Marcus Smith for a lively conversation about the history of dinosaurs.

Marcus talks the ecological side of bedtime stories with Liam Heneghan. Dr. Heneghan is a professor of environmental science at DePaul University where he serves as co-director of the university's Institute for Nature and Culture.

Charity Tillemann-Dick, opera singer and recipient of two separate double-lung transplants, joins the show to discuss her life, career, family, and new memoir, The Encore.

Kathryn Tempest, senior lecturer on Roman history at the University of  Roehampton London and author of "Brutus: The Noble Conspirator," joins the show to talk about how we know what we know about Marcus Junius Brutus and his infamous assassination of Julius Caesar.

Using the Grand Canyon as a case study, Marcus Smith talks with a journalist about the competing interests of public and private lands, as well as the effects climate change could have on our treasured national parks.

Robert Costanza, one of the foremost proponents of ecological economics, discusses how his field broadens and nuances our understanding of human prosperity and well-being.

Our guests on Thinking Aloud today are two food and nutrition scientists who have researched the ways in which crickets are actually a terrific source of protein.  It turns out that crickets are easy to grow, much cheaper to raise than cows, produce far less environmental waste, and, this is the kicker, contain protein that is of the same nutritional quality as beef. 

Tonight on Thinking Aloud, host Marcus Smith will visit with acclaimed science writer Dava Sobel about her new book, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. Learn about how these incredible women took astronomy by storm on tonight's Thinking Aloud.

Marcus Smith visits with Leo Braudy, exploring the history of monsters like witches, vampires, and zombies and trying to understand what these monsters have to say about the fears of the culture who created them.

Classicist Kyle Harper joins the show to discuss his new book, "The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire," which introduces two new characters in the narrative of Rome's decline: climate change and infectious disease.