Wonder Cabinet

Pop music is a gazillion-dollar industry that churns out hits and creates celebrities. It seems like the definition of ephemeral – today’s chart topper is gone tomorrow. But pop music is a powerful vehicle for bringing people together, and fans - from K-pop to the #FreeBritney movement — have something to teach us about community and hope.

Original Air Date: March 26, 2022

Guests:

Regina Kim — Kyla Nicole — Kelefa Sanneh — Samantha Stark

Interviews In This Hour:

When we're disconnected, can we reconnect through K-pop? — From pop to punk: Shaping our musical identities — How a fan movement freed a pop star from her gilded cage

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Once upon a time, science and magic were two sides of the same coin. Today, we learn science in school and save magic for children’s books. What if it were different? What would it be like to see the world as an alchemist?

Original Air Date: September 19, 2020

Guests: 

Sarah Durn — Pamela Smith — William Newman — Charles Monroe-Kane — Jason Pine

Interviews In This Hour: 

Transmutation Of The Spirit — The Historical Lessons Embedded in Alchemical Recipes — Was Sir Isaac Newton 'The Last of the Magicians'? — The Buried Secrets of Czech Alchemy — Drug Store Alchemy in the Ozarks

Further Reading:

Maier: Atalanta Fugiens

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

If you look at a mountain, you might see a skiing destination, a climbing challenge, or even a source of timber to be logged or ore to be mined. But there was a time when mountains were sacred. In some places, they still are. What changes when you think of a mountain not as a giant accumulation of natural resources, but as a living being?

Human identity cannot be separated from our nonhuman kin. From forest ecology to the human microbiome, emerging research suggests that being human is a complicated journey made possible only by the good graces of our many companions. In partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature and with support from the Kalliopeia Foundation, To The Best Of Our Knowledge is exploring this theme of "kinship" in a special radio series.

Original Air Date: July 24, 2021

Guests: 

John Hausdoerffer — Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk — David Hinton — Lisa Maria Madera

Interviews In This Hour: 

What Do You Owe The Mountains Around You? — 'These Are Live, Active Places': A Ute Activist Fights To Save The Bears Ears National Monument — A Poet Finds Life Lessons on Hunger Mountain — 'I Was Born To Volcanoes'

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Ghosts from the past stalk Europe again today in the wake of Russian tanks and missiles. To find a path forward, we might need to look back.

Original Air Date: March 05, 2022

Guests: 

Catherine Grace Katz — Margaret MacMillan — Rebecca Solnit

Interviews In This Hour: 

The legacy of Yalta, through the eyes of the women who were there — Why humans wage war — Tending a war-time garden: What George Orwell’s fascination with roses tells us about the human need for beauty in the darkest hours

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

A new generation of Black farmers are working to reclaim land, hoping to grow justice along with vegetables and plants.

Original Air Date: August 22, 2020

Guests: 

Leah Penniman — Savi Horne — Venice Williams — Marcia Chatelain

Interviews In This Hour: 

How Black Farmers Lost 14 Million Acres of Farmland — And How They're Taking It Back — 'When You Hold Land You Have to Keep It' — My Garden Is An Outdoor Parish — Cooking Greens: A Delicious Family History Lesson — The First Job, The Polling Place, The Community Space: How McDonald's Became 'The Closest Thing To Home' For Black Communities

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Jane Goodall has seen wild chimpanzees dance and bristle with excitement around roaring waterfalls — and she thinks it’s an experience of awe and wonder — and possibly a precursor to animistic religion. 

But can we ever know why our ancient human ancestors developed spiritual beliefs? Can evolutionary science uncover the roots of religion?  

At some point our ancestors went from admiring waterfalls to worshipping them - and all kinds of spirits and gods. They developed sacred rituals and turned stones into totems. And then came the Battle of the Gods. 

This was produced in partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature, an organization that brings together scholars from a diversity of disciplines to think creatively about our relationships with nature and each other. What do you think evolution can tell us about love and morality? Share your thoughts at humansandnature.org. This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.

Original Air Date: May 14, 2017

Guests: 

Jane Goodall — Laura Kehoe — Frans de Waal — Barbara King — Ara Norenzayan — Jeff Schloss — Andrew Newberg

Interviews In This Hour: 

Do Chimpanzees Have Spiritual Experiences? — How 'Big Gods' Transformed Human History — An Evolutionary Biologist Searches for God — What Bliss Looks Like In Your Brain — Are Morals a Part of Our Evolution?

Further Reading:

Center for Humans and Nature

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

We take a look at the romantic tropes of modern love and how they’re changing. Do the old dreams of true love and happiness ever after fit our new lives and new identities?

Original Air Date: February 13, 2021

Guests: 

Logan Ury — Angelo Bautista — Jane Ward — Angela Chen — Bara Jichova Tyson

Interviews In This Hour: 

The New Coffee Date: COVID-19 Pushes The Dating World To Zoom — Are Straight People Okay? — Love Without Touch, Desire Without Sex — Learning To Believe In Monogamy 

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

The bond we share with dogs runs deep. The satisfaction of gentle head scratches or a round of playing fetch is simple and pure, but in other ways, the connection we have is truly unknowable. How do dogs make our lives better? How do they think? And how do we give them the lives they deserve?

Original Air Date: February 05, 2022

Guests: 

Blair Braverman — Quince Mountain — Donna Haraway — Sarah Miller

Interviews In This Hour: 

Adventure, goofiness and trail snacks: Stories from the dog musher's journal — Getting inside the mind of a dog — Nothing makes losing a dog easy. But a bridge dog can help. — Joy and peace, high up on Dog Mountain

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Is there a better way to talk about death? And to grieve? So many people have died during the pandemic — 4.8 million and counting — that we're living through a period of global mourning. And some people — and certain cultures — seem to be better prepared to handle it than others.

Original Air Date: June 19, 2021

Guests:

Heather Swan — Gillian O'Brien — Charles Monroe-Kane — Gabe Joyner — Rafael Campo

Interviews In This Hour:

The Barred Owl Who Came To Visit — How The Irish Talk About Death — How To Remember A Beloved Brother? A Memorial Tattoo — A Physician-Poet Bears Witness to the Pandemic's Lost Voices

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

When things don't go the way they're supposed to — viruses, star systems, presidents, even fish — we're often desperate to explain the chaos. In this episode, we search for order in the universe.

Original Air Date: August 08, 2020

Guests:

Patrik Svensson — Lulu Miller — Alexander Boxer — Margaret Wertheim — S. James Gates Jr.

Interviews In This Hour:

The Weird World Of Eels — We Call Them Fish. Evolution Says They're Something Else. — The Original Algorithm Was Written In The Stars — Seeing The World With A Mathematician's Eyes

Further Reading:

Nautilus: Eels Don’t Have Sex Until the Last Year of Their Life—NYAS: The Mystery of Our Mathematical Universe

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.