Nature

A tree in Sequoia National Forest

Trees talk to each other, and even form alliances with other trees or other species. Some are incredibly old — the root mass of aspens might live 100,000 years. In this hour, we explore the science and history of trees.

Kerepunu women at the marketplace of Kalo, British New Guinea, 1885

A conversation with renowned biologist Jared Diamond, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Guns, Germs and Steel.” His new book is “The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?”

Wade Davis has been called the Indiana Jones of anthropology. He says the aboriginal people of Australia have a fundamentally different way of seeing the world than we do in modern society.

You'd never think a book about chopping and burning wood would turn into a runaway bestseller, but Lars Mytting's "Norwegian Wood" is a publishing sensation in Scandinavia. 

Botanist Robin Kimmerer describes her field experiments as like interviewing a plant. As both a Ph.D biologist and a member of the Potawatomi Nation, she's trying to reconcile modern science with the wisdom of her Native elders.

Starling

Elena Passarello’s latest book, “Animals Strike Curious Poses,” is a journey through stories of the wild ones: the mammoths, spiders, birds and primates that have left their marks on our society. To the Best of Our Knowledge host Anne Strainchamps talked with Passarello about the “animal gaze” and the legacy of Mozart’s starling, among other animal tales.

Octopus

Can we ever get inside the mind of an animal? Can we really know how an octopus or a parrot thinks? Also, the fascinating story of Charles Foster's attempt to act like a badger, when he lived in a hole in the ground and ate worms.

Gorilla

Elena Passarello created “Koko” from the one-thousand word vocabulary of a gorilla who uses sign language. Her book is "Animals Strike Curious Poses."

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