Constant Wonder

As a young woman from the East Coast, Sasha Reed had never been camping before when she was introduced to the Arizona desert by her future husband. She fell in love with both, and crouching on the dry ground she noticed and became obsessed with fragile communities of critters known as "biocrust." This led her into a scientific field, biogeochemistry, that would shape her professional life. With infectious enthusiasm, she personifies the biocrust communities, finding joy and amusement in their spunky methods of not only surviving, but thriving. Along the way, the woman who had never been camping found herself trekking alone through vast drylands. Guest: Sasha Reed is a biogeochemist who works with the U.S. Geological Survey as a research scientist. She and her husband live in Moab, Utah, where she researches biocrust. Photo credit: Canyonlands National Park, Utah. © William Bowman

In 1863 on the South Dakota frontier, a Lakota Indian elder and a US army colonel had a tense and deadly encounter. They could not have known that their children would marry each other, and thus create a welded and complex legacy that generations of their descendants would work to reconcile. Guest: Philip J. Deloria is Professor of History at Harvard University, where his research and teaching focus on the social, cultural and political histories of the relations among American Indian peoples and the United States, as well as the comparative and connective histories of indigenous peoples in a global context.

Dying patients often profess to see deceased loved ones around them in the days and weeks before they pass. So often that hospice care doctor Chris Kerr decided to make a scientific study of the phenomenon. He found that while the medical community typically views death as defeat, there is actually a great deal of spiritual growth right there at the end of life. This podcast episode invites you to reconsider these unique dreams before dying. Guest: Christopher Kerr, MD, PhD, CEO & Chief Medical Officer at Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo, and author of "Death Is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End"

The apex of marine archaeologist Mensun Bound's stellar career happened a year ago this week, when the expedition he spearheaded found Ernest Shackleton's "Endurance" at the bottom of an Antarctic sea. This was just the latest find in a career marked by big discoveries, including a 2,500-year-old Etruscan ship and a Roman wreck weighed down by massive stone columns looted from Athens. Bound has a special term for that electric moment when he uncovers a piece of history and feels like he's connecting with the mind of its creator. He calls it "mind touch." Now, the expedition to find Shackleton's ship required a crew of experts, an icebreaker, two helicopters, and cutting edge submersible robots. But the real magic in this story is Bound's palpable connection through time to people whose stories have enriched our world. Guest: Mensun Bound, Director of Exploration on the 2019 and 2022 expeditions to locate Shackleton’s Endurance; previously Triton Fellow in Maritime Archaeology at Oxford University; author of "The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance" Photo Credit: National Geographic/The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust

Being in and around water heals us emotionally. Water "evangelist" J Nichols shares his insight and his personal "water stories," when water has inspired him and also when it's healed him from trauma. As part of this episode, we're asking listeners, "What's your water story?" Tune in to Constant Wonder and find out how to share yours! Wallace J Nichols, author of "Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do" and co-author of "Dear Wild Child: You Carry Your Home Inside You"

Dacher Keltner has been a leading researcher on the subject of awe for nearly 20 years. It’s hard to improve upon his description of the phenomenon: Awe is an emotion we feel upon encountering something so vast that it upends our sense of what is real. But when cancer took his brother’s life, Keltner personally and repeatedly experienced awe in ways that expanded the boundaries of what, even for him, is real. In this podcast episode, he visits with us about his new openness to experiences of awe that science cannot adequately account for. Guest: Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and author of "Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life"

Meet Clint Edwards, a man whose hilarious honesty has brought hope and laughter to his readers in the New York Times, Washington Post, and on his popular blog: No Idea What I’m Doing. Follow his story of growing up at odds with his parents and eventually learning to raise a family of his own, all while managing mental health struggles. On this episode of Constant Wonder, learn about finding wonder in the mundane, the difficult, the hilarious, and the in-between. Guest: Clint Edwards, blogger and author of "Anxiously Ever After: An Honest Memoir on Mental Illness, Strained Relationships, and Embracing the Struggle"

Constant Wonder presents the second of a two-part episode on "infrasound," or sound that lies below the threshold of human hearing. Infrasound can explain seemingly inexplicable animal behavior. In part 2, we meet Hawaiian insects and African elephants that use the same technique to hear sounds not audible to the human ear. They both can hear with their feet! And while we don't hear with our feet, research on these animals may help improve hearing aids in the future—because we do actually hear with our bones. Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell, instructor at Harvard Medical School, elephant expert, and co-founder and CEO of Utopia Scientific

This is the first of a two-part episode on "infrasound," or sound that lies below the threshold of human hearing. Infrasound can warn of impending danger. In part 1, we go to Hawaii and Chile with an volcanologist who records the voices of volcanos, looking for subtle shifts in their infrasound that could signal a pending eruption. Then we go up the coast to Guatemala, to detect mudslides triggered by a volcano—before they happen, giving people time to get out of the way. Guest: Jeffrey Johnson, Associate Professor of Geoscience at Boise State University

If snorkeling seems like something you can only do on a tropical vacation, think again. In this podcast episode, we meet a river snorkeling guide who encourages us to stick our heads in the water, right in our local streams and rivers. Keith Williams thinks you'll be amazed at the aquatic life you'll see there. Tune in to Constant Wonder and get hooked with some amazing fish tales. Guest: Keith Williams, author of "Snorkeling Rivers and Streams: An Aquatic Guide to Underwater Discovery and Adventure" and guide at Freshwater Journeys

Constant Wonder presents a feed swap with an episode from Bring Birds Back, a podcast about the joy of birds and the ways that humans can help them through simple, everyday actions. In this episode, host Tenijah Hamilton explains that migratory birds use starlight to find their way on their long journeys—which makes light pollution a serious threat. Drawn off course by bright, artificial lighting, birds can wind up fatally colliding with windows or wasting precious time and energy that they need to survive. “Lights Out” programs get cities and their residents to turn off nonessential lighting during migration seasons which can help make their journeys a little easier (and save energy!). Guest: Bring Birds Back host Tenijah Hamilton speaks with Julia Wang, project leader at BirdCast and the Lights Out Texas campaign at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Image Artist: Hayden Maynard

Storyteller Kevin Kling has overcome trauma and learned to live with disability, without ever losing sight of the hilarious–even in the horrible. We follow him from his mischievous childhood to his empathetic and inspiring performances around the world. He still laughs often, and so will you, during this episode of the "Constant Wonder" podcast. Guest: Kevin Kling, author, playwright, and storyteller

If you've never stopped by the side of the trail to listen to a beetle larvae chewing on a pine tree, or to the sound of the woodpecker looking for that beetle, we'll give you a chance in this podcast episode. If you've never been puzzled by the high-pitched voice of a male elk bugle, we encourage you to take the time to wonder about nature's oddities. Focusing on underappreciated sounds and sensations opens up an enormous world of insight and beauty. Guest: David George Haskell, author of "Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction" and Professor of Biology at Sewanee: The University of the South

Join host Marcus Smith for conversations that invite you to discover, explore, and engage with the wonders of the world around you. New episodes will be available each week starting January 4th, 2023 on your favorite podcast platforms and the BYUradio app.

What good is a library or a museum if you can't get to it? In this episode of the podcast, Constant Wonder introduces innovators who bring inspiration to people in the most unexpected ways. We learn about the inventor of the bookmobile, a feisty librarian who allowed neither bureaucrats nor train wrecks to interfere with her mobile library. Then we meet the curator of ATM-sized museums that are popping up in unusual places and opening the world to people who may not otherwise get to visit museums. And, finally, an artist who heads up a street mosaic project staffed by volunteers with mental illness. Their work appears in neglected alleyways and neighborhood parks. Guests: Sharlee Glenn, author of "Library on Wheels: Mary Lemist Titcomb and America's First Bookmobile" Charles Philipp, cofounder of MICRO, a distributed fleet of micro-museums Tessa Hunkin, mosaicist

Meet an Icelandic woman who speaks to (and for) elves. Her efforts led to a famous compromise over a highway construction project in Iceland that would've taken out an elf "church." But more importantly, American researcher Nancy Marie Brown claims, a belief in elves–or in the possibility of elves–could change the way we see, and care for, our environment. Skeptical? That's okay. On this Constant Wonder podcast, we aim to suspend our disbelief to explore ancient ways of thinking, at least for an episode. Guests: Nancy Marie Brown, author of "Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth" Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir, elf seer and educator Mara Menzies, Kenyan/Scottish performance storyteller

In three decades at National Geographic, Ann Williams has been an eyewitness to some of the greatest archaeological treasures of the last century. She was just outside on the dark and stormy night when they loaded King Tut's mummy into a CAT scanner. She examined the fibers of an ancient woven blanket shrouding an Incan teenager, who'd been sacrificed to the gods. She documented the bowls and baskets left behind as an entire Alaskan Yupik village fled an attack. Guest: Ann Williams, General Editor of "Treasures of Egypt: A Legacy in Photographs from the Pyramids to Cleopatra" and "Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs: 100 Discoveries That Changed the World" Listen to Constant Wonder wherever you get your podcasts.

From a young age, Rachel Graham was interested in all kinds of marginalized animals, from snakes to bats. But when she went on a dive trip and experienced a real-life sharknado, it became clear that her future would be inextricably tied to sharks. This marked the beginning of her quest to change people’s mindsets about these fascinating and threatened creatures. Guest: Rachel Graham, Ph.D., Founder and Executive Director of MarAlliance Listen to Constant Wonder wherever you get your podcasts.

Astronaut Terry Virts experienced a juxtaposition of the sublime and the mundane, sensing God while floating weightless, fixing cables outside his spacecraft. While in orbit, Virts took more than 300,000 photos, which became part of the National Geographic IMAX film "A Beautiful Planet." Podcast Guest: Colonel Terry Virts, fighter pilot, test pilot, NASA astronaut, and author of "How to Astronaut: An Insider's Guide to Leaving Planet Earth." He also directed "One More Orbit,” documenting the fastest circumnavigation of the earth via both poles.

When Korean adoptee Sara Jones went looking for her birth family, she wondered if a strange tattoo given to her in childhood could unlock any secrets. Jones was adopted into an American family at age three. She found much success here in America, becoming an attorney and CEO. It wasn't until her own kids started asking questions that she decided to search for her birth family. And she started her search with that mysterious tattoo. Hear the story on this week's podcast. Guest: Sara Jones, CEO of InclusionPro, Board Member of The (Utah) State Workforce Development Board, Board of Trustees for Intermountain Salt Lake Valley Hospitals, Co-Founder of Women Tech Council