Episodes

  • Episode 302-The Wind's Many Voices

    Episode 302-The Wind's Many Voices
    Nov 22 2025
    Weird, isn't it, that wind is completely silent--silent, that is, until it hits something. Then, it bursts out in myriad voices.
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    9 mins
  • Episode 301-Two Underground Stories

    Episode 301-Two Underground Stories
    Nov 22 2025
    In this episode we travel from central Turkey, the region known as Anatolia, to northern Norway, on the island of Svalbard, to visit two extraordinary subterranean places.
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    10 mins
  • Episode 300-300 Episodes

    Episode 300-300 Episodes
    Nov 22 2025
    IT's hard to believe that I have created 300 episodes of the Natural Curiosity Project. Thank you so much--SO much--for staying with me on the adventure. In this episode, Pete Mulvihill recalls some of his favorite episodes--and asks me for mine. The episodes mentioned in the program are 84 (Bud and the tumbleweeds); 77 (How to Read Movie Credits with Bob Verlaque); 181 (Rob Prince and Dark Winter Nights); 206 (Dewitt Jones); 15 (How Trees Work); 16 (Forest Bathing); and 97, 99 and 109 (Letter-writing). Enjoy!
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    20 mins
  • Episode 299-When Acronyms Become Words

    Episode 299-When Acronyms Become Words
    Nov 21 2025
    Acronyms are "words" that are abbreviations. But they differ from abbreviations because they can be pronounced like a word. Many of these acronyms, like the 'ZIP' in 'Zip Code,' aren't even known as acronyms anymore. In this episode, my friend Pete Mulvihill helps me decode some of the most common acronyms in modern lexicon.
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    48 mins
  • Episode 298-What Do You Hear?

    Episode 298-What Do You Hear?
    Nov 21 2025
    Author John Stilgoe exhorts us to go outside, take a walk or a bike ride, and tune in to the world before us that we miss when we whiz by in a car. I implore you to do the same thing--but instead of paying attention to what you see, pay attention to what you hear.
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    12 mins
  • Episode 297-The Real Mister Bojangles

    Episode 297-The Real Mister Bojangles
    Oct 14 2025
    I was listening to music the other day while driving to and from the dump, and one of my favorites came on: Mr. Bojangles, by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Like most of the songs that rise to the top of my favorites list, Mr. Bojangles has the best qualities of storytelling. But as I listened, I started thinking, something that always gets me in trouble. And, it did. I wanted to know: Who was Mr. Bojangles? Was he real? Well, it turns out that yeah, he was, but there’s a lot more to the story than a single person.
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    8 mins
  • Episode 296-More Thoughts on Writing

    Episode 296-More Thoughts on Writing
    Oct 14 2025
    Some additional thoughts on the craft of writing.
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    9 mins
  • Episode 295-The Most Complicated Machine Ever Built

    Episode 295-The Most Complicated Machine Ever Built
    Oct 3 2025
    Episode 295-The Most Complicated Machine Ever Built by Dr. Steven Shepard
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    19 mins