Life is the sum total of the time between birth and death. But what is life? It’s mysterious — and even science doesn’t quite have an answer. But there’s a new biology of life that's overturning decades of assumptions.Read more
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Episode Archives
Contemplating the infinite is a time-tested way to shrink the present down to size. But if you think about it for very long, infinity can really mess with your mind. There’s something fundamentally paradoxical about it, and beautiful.Read more
Original Air Date:
June 07, 2025
Most psychedelic stories are highly personal, but there’s a different dynamic when two people share the experience — especially a married couple. Steve talks with theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser and clinical psychologist Kari Gleiser.Read more
Original Air Date:
May 09, 2025
Meet Dorothy Day — journalist, activist, mother and lay minister to the poor — who is being considered for sainthood. Shannon Henry Kleiber walks in her footsteps through New York City, looking for her miracles.Read more
Original Air Date:
April 19, 2025
In a 16th century chapel on an Italian hillside, a new scientific worldview is taking shape. It’s a new way of thinking about planetary intelligence and the interconnectedness of all life on Earth.Read more
Original Air Date:
April 05, 2025
It’s been five years since the start of the pandemic. Some 1.2 million Americans died from COVID. But our loss is much more than death. Many of us are still left unmoored. Maybe our collective grief can bring us together.Read more
Original Air Date:
March 08, 2025
Chris Timmerman is a neuroscientist at Imperial College with a deep interest in philosophy. He’s discovered that a single psychedelic experience can transform a person’s fundamental belief system, often turning materialists into panpsychists.Read more
Original Air Date:
March 01, 2025
Original Air Date:
February 15, 2025
Floods and fires have always been with us, but now we’re crossing over into a new stage of permacrisis. What survival strategies do we need for this age of disaster? Read more
Original Air Date:
February 01, 2025
Many Buddhists say psychedelics violate the prohibition against intoxicants. Spring Washam straddles this divide as both a Buddhist teacher and founder of an ayahuasca church.Read more
Original Air Date:
January 25, 2025
Sometimes the world is just too much. Too much awful news, too many things to worry about, too much to do. When you know inside you need something deeper than a vacation — maybe it’s time for a retreat.Read more
Original Air Date:
January 18, 2025
The longest nights of the year are here. How many of us will see them? When light pollution is making it harder to experience natural darkness, learning how to reconnect with the planet’s ancient nocturnal rhythms can be profoundly restorative.Read more
Original Air Date:
December 21, 2024
Have you ever wondered how plants find enough light and water? How they ward off attacks from predators? It turns out they’re a lot smarter than you realize. Plants can send out distress signals. They have memories. They may even be able to see.Read more
Original Air Date:
December 07, 2024
There’s a huge question swirling around the really big psychedelic experiences. Are these mind-blowing trips just hallucinations – the brain shot full of chemicals, playing tricks on you - or do they crack open some transpersonaldimension of consciousness? Most scholars who study...Read more
Original Air Date:
November 30, 2024
Every click on your computer, every swipe on your smartphone, leaves a data trail. Do you care? Would owning your data, or having more digital privacy, make life better? And what happens to all that data when you die?Read more
Original Air Date:
November 22, 2024
We used to start the day with coffee. Now it’s coffee and Wordle. Or Spelling Bee. Or both, plus the crossword. We are in a golden age of word games – which is fun, and one way to get just a tiny bit of relief when the world feels out of control.Read more
Original Air Date:
November 09, 2024
What would it be like to live in a world where magic is still alive? Not weird, not woo-woo, but part of everyday life. Even now, there are places where magic never died.Read more
Original Air Date:
October 12, 2024
Most of us have no idea what will happen when we die. But some people were actually declared dead and came back with remarkable stories—like meeting dead relatives. Science is now beginning to tell us what happens in near-death experiences.Read more
Original Air Date:
September 21, 2024
“Psychedelic people are practicing at the very edge of anyone else’s comfort zone,” says psychologist Katherine MacLean, on her pioneering work as a psychedelic researcher and why she reveres the Mexican healer Maria Sabina.Read more
Original Air Date:
August 30, 2024
What can we learn from whales — and whales from us? Technology like AI is fueling new scientific breakthroughs in whale communication that can help us better understand the natural world.Read more
Original Air Date:
August 24, 2024
It can be hard to enjoy the natural world these days without anxiety. The challenge is to live in this time of climate change – but still find joy and refuge in it.Read more
Original Air Date:
July 27, 2024
Erik Davis’ “Blotter” takes a deep dive into the psychedelic underground. Steve talks with Erik about the wildness of psychedelic experiences and whether they reveal a deeper dimension of consciousness.Read more
Original Air Date:
July 20, 2024
Most Americans take their sovereignty for granted — the nation’s right to make its own laws and govern its own people. But for Native Americans, sovereignty is not some abstract idea. It’s an ongoing, daily struggle.Read more
Original Air Date:
July 13, 2024
Americans used to believe that news anchors were basically reporting the truth. But in recent years, trust in journalism has largely evaporated. And that’s not an accident. So what can journalists do to regain the public trust?Read more
Original Air Date:
June 15, 2024