The nocturnal songs of nightingales have captivated artists, poets and musicians for generations. Folk singer Sam Lee celebrates their annual return through intimate nighttime duets — performed in total darkness — that blend human voice and nightingale song.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Nature
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.
Witnessing the beauty of synchronous fireflies in the Great Smoky Mountains inspired author Leigh Ann Henion to turn off her porch light and discover the vast natural world that thrives in the darkness.
Journalist Zoë Schlanger has been tracking the new science of plant intelligence. Plants can exhibit some of the same behaviors as animals with nervous systems, including decision-making and elaborate defenses against predators.
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.
Suzanne Simard transformed our understanding of forest ecology by uncovering the fungal networks that trees use to communicate with each other. Anne Strainchamps went walking with Simard to see firsthand how a forest is like a kinship network.
“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.
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.
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